'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm. We know no other words except 'Our Father,' And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both within His right hand which is strong. "Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely (For they call Him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 'Come and rest with me, my child.' "But, no!" say the children, weeping faster, "He is speechless as a stone : And they tell us, of His image is the master Who commands us to work on. Go to!" say the children, Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. Do not mock us; grief has made us unbe lieving : They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see, For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath.” MY HEART AND I ENOUGH! we're tired, my heart and I. The hard types of the mason's knife, You see we're tired, my heart and I. We dealt with books, we trusted men, And in our own blood drench'd the pen, As if such colors could not fly. We walk'd too straight for fortune's end, How tired we feel, my heart and I! Our voice which thrill'd you so, will let You sleep; our tears are only wet: What do we here, my heart and I ? So tired, so tired, my heart and I! "Dear love, you're looking tired," he said: I, smiling at him, shook my head. 'Tis now we 're tired, my heart and I. So tired, so tired, my heart and I! Though now none takes me on his arm Suppose the world brought diadems Yet who complains? My heart and I? IX CAN it be right to give what I can give? For all thy adjurations? O my fears, That this can scarce be right! We are not peers So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve, That givers of such gifts as mine are, must Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas! I will not soil thy purple with my dust, Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass, Nor give thee any love - which were unjust. Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass. IF I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors, another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Fill'd by dead eyes too tender to know change That's hardest? If to conquer love, has tried, To conquer grief, tries more, as all things To I THANK all who have lov'd me in their hearts, With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all Who paus'd a little near the prison-wall Or temple's occupation, beyond call. Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot To hearken what I said between my tears, . Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot My soul's full meaning into future years, That they should lend it utterance, and salute Love that endures, from Life that disappears! XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee with a love I seem'd to lose With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the river? Spreading ruin and scattering ban, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, And breaking the golden lilies afloat With the dragon-fly on the river. He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, Ere he brought it out of the river. High on the shore sat the great god Pan, can, With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed, Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed To prove it fresh from the river. He cut it short, did the great god Pan, "This is the way," laugh'd the great god Pan, (Laugh'd while he sat by the river,) "The only way, since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed." Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, He blew in power by the river. |