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I am weary, and very lonely,
And can but think—think.
If there were some water only
That a spirit might drink—drink,
And arise,
With light in the eyes
And a crown of hope on the brow,
To walk abroad in the strength of gladness,
Not sit in the house, benumbed with sadness—
As now!
But, Lord, thy child will be sad—
As sad as it pleases thee;
Will sit, not seeking to be glad,
Till thou bid sadness flee,
And, drawing near,
With thy good cheer
Awake thy life in me.
If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,
Pacing it wearily, wearily,
Twixt chapel and cell till day were done—
Wearily, wearily—
How would it fare with these hearts of ours
That need the sunshine, and smiles, and flowers?
To prayer, to prayer, at the matins' call,
Morning foul or fair!—
Such prayer as from weary lips might fall—
Words, but hardly prayer—
The chapel's roof, like the law in stone,
Caging the lark that up had flown!
Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,
The God-revealing,
Turning thy face from the boundless boon—
Painfully kneeling;
Or, in brown-shadowy solitude,
Bending thy head o'er the legend rude!
I, in a bare and lonely nook,
Gloomily, gloomily,
Poring over some musty book,
Thoughtfully, thoughtfully;
Or painting pictures of things of old
On parchment-margin in purple and gold!
Perchance in slow procession to meet,
Wearily, wearily,
In antique, narrow, high-gabled street,
Wearily, wearily;
Thine eyes dark-lifted to mine, and then
Heavily sinking to earth again!
Sunshine and air! bird-music and spring!
Merrily, merrily!—
Back to its cell each weary thing,
Wearily, wearily!
Our poor hearts, withered and dry and old,
Most at home in the cloister cold!
Thou slow rising at vespers' call,
Wearily, wearily;
I looking up on the darkening wall,
Wearily, wearily;
The chime so sweet to the boat at sea,
Listless and dead to thee and me!
At length for sleep a weary assay,
On the lone couch wearily!
Rising at midnight again to pray,
Wearily, wearily!
And if through the dark dear eyes looked in,
Sending them far as a thought of sin!
And at last, thy tired soul passing away,
Dreamily, dreamily—
Its worn tent fluttering in slow decay,
Sleepily, sleepily—
Over thee held the crucified Best,
But no warm cheek to thy cold cheek pressed!
And then my passing from cell to clay,
Dreamily, dreamily!
My gray head lying on ashes gray,
Sleepily, sleepily!
But no woman-angel hovering above,
Ready to clasp me in deathless love!
Now, now, ah, now! thy hand in mine,
Peacefully, peacefully;
My arm round thee, and my lips on thine,
Lovingly, lovingly—
Oh! is not a better thing to us given
Than wearily going alone to heaven?
Night, with her power to silence day,
Filled up my lonely room,
Quenching all sounds but one that lay
Beyond her passing doom,
Where in his shed a workman gay
Went on despite the gloom.
I listened, and I knew the sound,
And the trade that he was plying;
For backwards, forwards, bound on bound,
A shuttle was flying, flying—
Weaving ever—till, all unwound,
The weft go out a sighing.
As hidden in thy chamber lowest
As in the sky the lark,
Thou, mystic thing, on working goest
Without the poorest spark,
And yet light's garment round me throwest,
Who else, as thou, were dark.
With body ever clothing me,
Thou mak'st me child of light;
I look, and, Lo, the earth and sea,
The sky's rejoicing height,
A woven glory, globed by thee,
Unknowing of thy might!
And when thy darkling labours fail,
And thy shuttle moveless lies,
My world will drop, like untied veil
From before a lady's eyes;
Or, all night read, a finished tale
That in the morning dies.
Yet not in vain dost thou unroll
The stars, the world, the seas—
A mighty, wonder-painted scroll
Of Patmos mysteries,
Thou mediator 'twixt my soul
And higher things than these!
Thy holy ephod bound on me,
I pass into a seer;
For still in things thou mak'st me see,
The unseen grows more clear;
Still their indwelling Deity
Speaks plainer in mine ear.
Divinely taught the craftsman is
Who waketh wonderings;
Whose web, the nursing chrysalis
Round Psyche's folded wings,
To them transfers the loveliness
Of its inwoven things.
Yet joy when thou shalt cease to beat!—
For a greater heart beats on,
Whose better texture follows fleet
On thy last thread outrun,
With a seamless-woven garment, meet
To clothe a death-born son.
Of old, with goodwill from the skies—
God's message to them given—
The angels came, a glad surprise,
And went again to heaven.
But now the angels are grown rare,
Needed no more as then;
Far lowlier messengers can bear
God's goodwill unto men.
Each year, the snowdrops' pallid dawn
Breaks from the earth below;
Light spreads, till, from the dark updrawn,
The noontide roses glow.
The snowdrops first—the dawning gray;
Then out the roses burn!
They speak their word, grow dim—away
To holy dust return.
Of oracles were little dearth,
Should heaven continue dumb;
From lowliest corners of the earth
God's messages will come.
In thy face his we see, O Lord,
And are no longer blind;
Need not so much his rarer word,
In flowers even read his mind.
Old fables are not all a lie
That tell of wondrous birth,
Of Titan children, father Sky,
And mighty mother Earth.
Yea, now are walking on the ground
Sons of the mingled brood;
Yea, now upon the earth are found
Such daughters of the Good.
Earth-born, my sister, thou art still
A daughter of the sky;
Oh, climb for ever up the hill
Of thy divinity!
To thee thy mother Earth is sweet,
Her face to thee is fair;
But thou, a goddess incomplete,
Must climb the starry stair.
Wouldst thou the holy hill ascend,
Wouldst see the Father's face?
To all his other children bend,
And take the lowest place.
Be like a cottage on a moor,
A covert from the wind,
With burning fire and open door,
And welcome free and kind.
Thus humbly doing on the earth
The things the earthly scorn,
Thou shalt declare the lofty birth
Of all the lowly born.
Be then thy sacred womanhood
A sign upon thee set,
A second baptism—understood—
For what thou must be yet.
For, cause and end of all thy strife,
And unrest as thou art,
Still stings thee to a higher life
The Father at thy heart.
Sad-hearted, be at peace: the snowdrop lies
Buried in sepulchre of ghastly snow;
But spring is floating up the southern skies,
And darkling the pale snowdrop waits below.
Let me persuade: in dull December's day
We scarce believe there is a month of June;
But up the stairs of April and of May
The hot sun climbeth to the summer's noon.
Yet hear me: I love God, and half I rest.
O better! God loves thee, so all rest thou.
He is our summer, our dim-visioned Best;—
And in his heart thy prayer is resting now.
Content Primroses,
With hearts at rest in your thick leaves' soft care,
Peeping as from his mother's lap the child
Who courts shy shelter from his own open air!—
Hanging Harebell,
Whose blue heaven to no wanderer ever closes,
Though thou still lookest earthward from thy domed cell!—
Fluttering-wild
Anemone, so well
Named of the Wind, to whom thou, fettered-free,
Yieldest thee, helpless—wilfully,
With Take me or leave me,
Sweet Wind, I am thine own Anemone!—
Thirsty Arum, ever dreaming
Of lakes in wildernesses gleaming!—
Fire-winged Pimpernel,
Communing with some hidden well,
And secrets with the sun-god holding,
At fixed hour folding and unfolding!—
How is it with you, children all,
When human children on you fall,
Gather you in eager haste,
Spoil your plenty with their waste—
Fill and fill their dropping hands?
Feel you hurtfully disgraced
By their injurious demands?
Do you know them from afar,
Shuddering at their merry hum,
Growing faint as near they come?
Blind and deaf they think you are—
Is it only ye are dumb?
You alive at least, I think,
Trembling almost on the brink
Of our lonely consciousness:
If it be so,
Take this comfort for your woe,
For the breaking of your rest,
For the tearing in your breast,
For the blotting of the sun,
For the death too soon begun,
For all else beyond redress—
Or what seemeth so to be—
That the children's wonder-springs
Bubble high at sight of you,
Lovely, lowly, common things:
In you more than you they see!
Take this too—that, walking out,
Looking fearlessly about,
Ye rebuke our manhood's doubt,
And our childhood's faith renew;
So that we, with old age nigh,
Seeing you alive and well
Out of winter's crucible,
Hearing you, from graveyard crept,
Tell us that ye only slept—
Think we die not, though we die.
Thus ye die not, though ye die—
Only yield your being up,
Like a nectar-holding cup:
Deaf, ye give to them that hear,
With a greatness lovely-dear;
Blind, ye give to them that see—
Poor, but bounteous royally.
Lowly servants to the higher,
Burning upwards in the fire
Of Nature's endless sacrifice,
In great Life's ascent ye rise,
Leave the lowly earth behind,
Pass into the human mind,
Pass with it up into God,
Whence ye came though through the clod—
Pass, and find yourselves at home
Where but life can go and come;
Where all life is in its nest,
At loving one with holy Best;—
Who knows?—with shadowy, dawning sense
Of a past, age-long somnolence!
Days of old,
Ye are not dead, though gone from me;
Ye are not cold,
But like the summer-birds fled o'er some sea.
The sun brings back the swallows fast
O'er the sea;
When he cometh at the last,
The days of old come back to me.
"Murmuring, 'twixt a murmur and moan,
Many a tune in a single tone,
For every ear with a secret true—
The sea-shell wants to whisper to you."
"Yes—I hear it—far and faint,
Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint;
Like the muffled sounds of a summer rain;
Like the wash of dreams in a weary brain."
"By smiling lip and fixed eye,
You are hearing a song within the sigh:
The murmurer has many a lovely phrase—
Tell me, darling, the words it says."
"I hear a wind on a boatless main
Sigh like the last of a vanishing pain;
On the dreaming waters dreams the moon—
But I hear no words in the doubtful tune."
"If it tell thee not that I love thee well,
'Tis a senseless, wrinkled, ill-curved shell:
If it be not of love, why sigh or sing?
'Tis a common, mechanical, stupid thing!"
"It murmurs, it whispers, with prophet voice
Of a peace that comes, of a sealed choice;
It says not a word of your love to me,
But it tells me I love you eternally."
