"Earth, if aught should check thy race,
Rushing through unfended space,
Headlong, stayless, thou wilt fall
Into yonder glowing ball!"
"Beggar of the universe,
Faithless as an empty purse!
Sent abroad to cool and tame,
Think'st I fear my native flame?"
"If thou never on thy track
Turn thee round and hie thee back,
Thou wilt wander evermore,
Outcast, cold—a comet hoar!"
"While I sweep my ring along
In an air of joyous song,
Thou art drifting, heart awry,
From the sun of liberty!"
WAITING.
I waited for the Master
In the darkness dumb;
Light came fast and faster—
My light did not come!
I waited all the daylight,
All through noon's hot flame:
In the evening's gray light,
Lo, the Master came!
OUR SHIP.
Had I a great ship coming home,
With big plunge o'er the sea,
What bright things, hid from star and foam,
Lay in her heart for thee!
The stormy billows heave and dip,
The wild winds veer and play;
But, regnant all, God's stately ship
Is steering home this way!
MY HEART THY LARK.
Why dost thou want to sing
When thou hast no song, my heart?
If there be in thee a hidden spring,
Wherefore will no word start?
On its way thou hearest no song,
Yet flutters thy unborn joy!
The years of thy life are growing long—
Art still the heart of a boy?—
Father, I am thy child!
My heart is in thy hand!
Let it hear some echo, with gladness wild,
Of a song in thy high land.
It will answer—but how, my God,
Thou knowest; I cannot say:
It will spring, I know, thy lark, from thy sod—
Thy lark to meet thy day!
TWO IN ONE.
Were thou and I the white pinions
On some eager, heaven-born dove,
Swift would we mount to the old dominions,
To our rest of old, my love!
Were thou and I trembling strands
In music's enchanted line,
We would wait and wait for magic hands
To untwist the magic twine.
Were we two sky-tints, thou and I,
Thou the golden, I the red;
We would quiver and glow and darken and die,
And love until we were dead!
Nearer than wings of one dove,
Than tones or colours in chord,
We are one—and safe, and for ever, my love,
Two thoughts in the heart of one Lord.
BEDTIME.
"Come, children, put away your toys;
Roll up that kite's long line;
The day is done for girls and boys—
Look, it is almost nine!
Come, weary foot, and sleepy head,
Get up, and come along to bed."
The children, loath, must yet obey;
Up the long stair they creep;
Lie down, and something sing or say
Until they fall asleep,
To steal through caverns of the night
Into the morning's golden light.
We, elder ones, sit up more late,
And tasks unfinished ply,
But, gently busy, watch and wait—
Dear sister, you and I,
To hear the Father, with soft tread,
Coming to carry us to bed.
A PRAYER.
Thou who mad'st the mighty clock
Of the great world go;
Mad'st its pendulum swing and rock,
Ceaseless to and fro;
Thou whose will doth push and draw
Every orb in heaven,
Help me move by higher law
In my spirit graven.
Like a planet let me swing—
With intention strong;
In my orbit rushing sing
Jubilant along;
Help me answer in my course
To my seasons due;
Lord of every stayless force,
Make my Willing true.
A SONG PRAYER.
Lord Jesus,
Oh, ease us
Of Self that oppresses,
Annoys and distresses
Body and brain
With dull pain!
Thou never,
Since ever,
Save one moment only,
Wast left, or wast lonely:
We are alone,
And make moan.
Far parted,
Dull-hearted,
We wander, sleep-walking,
Mere shadows, dim-stalking:
Orphans we roam,
Far from home.
Oh new man,
Sole human,
God's son, and our brother,
Give each to the other—
No one left out
In cold doubt!
High Father,
Oh gather
Thy sons and thy daughters,
Through fires and through waters,
Home to the nest
Of thy breast!
There under
The wonder
Of great wings of healing,
Of love and revealing,
Teach us anew
To sing true.
SONGS OF THE DAYS AND NIGHTS.
SONGS OF THE SUMMER DAYS.
I.
A glory on the chamber wall!
A glory in the brain!
Triumphant floods of glory fall
On heath, and wold, and plain.
Earth lieth still in hopeless bliss;
She has, and seeks no more;
Forgets that days come after this,
Forgets the days before.
Each ripple waves a flickering fire
Of gladness, as it runs;
They laugh and flash, and leap and spire,
And toss ten thousand suns.
But hark! low, in the world within,
One sad aeolian tone:
"Ah! shall we ever, ever win
A summer of our own?"
II.
A morn of winds and swaying trees—
Earth's jubilance rushing out!
The birds are fighting with the breeze;
The waters heave about.
White clouds are swept across the sky,
Their shadows o'er the graves;
Purpling the green, they float and fly
Athwart the sunny waves.
The long grass—an earth-rooted sea—
Mimics the watery strife.
To boat or horse? Wild motion we
Shall find harmonious life.
But whither? Roll and sweep and bend
Suffice for Nature's part;
But motion to an endless end
Is needful for our heart.
III.
The morn awakes like brooding dove,
With outspread wings of gray;
Her feathery clouds close in above,
And roof a sober day.
No motion in the deeps of air!
No trembling in the leaves!
A still contentment everywhere,
That neither laughs nor grieves!
A film of sheeted silver gray
Shuts in the ocean's hue;
White-winged feluccas cleave their way
In paths of gorgeous blue.
Dream on, dream on, O dreamy day,
Thy very clouds are dreams!
Yon child is dreaming far away—
He is not where he seems.
IV.
The lark is up, his faith is strong,
He mounts the morning air;
Lone voice of all the creature throng,
He sings the morning prayer.
Slow clouds from north and south appear,
Black-based, with shining slope;
In sullen forms their might they rear,
And climb the vaulted cope.
A lightning flash, a thunder boom!—
Nor sun nor clouds are there;
A single, all-pervading gloom
Hangs in the heavy air.
A weeping, wasting afternoon
Weighs down the aspiring corn;
Amber and red, the sunset soon
Leads back to golden morn.
SONGS OF THE SUMMER NIGHTS.
I.
The dreary wind of night is out,
Homeless and wandering slow;
O'er pale seas moaning like a doubt,
It breathes, but will not blow.
It sighs from out the helpless past,
Where doleful things abide;
Gray ghosts of dead thought sail aghast
Across its ebbing tide.
O'er marshy pools it faints and flows,
All deaf and dumb and blind;
O'er moor and mountain aimless goes—
The listless woesome wind!
Nay, nay!—breathe on, sweet wind of night!
The sigh is all in me;
Flow, fan, and blow, with gentle might,
Until I wake and see.
II.
The west is broken into bars
Of orange, gold, and gray;
Gone is the sun, fast come the stars,
And night infolds the day.
My boat glides with the gliding stream,
Following adown its breast
One flowing mirrored amber gleam,
The death-smile of the west.
The river moves; the sky is still,
No ceaseless quest it knows:
Thy bosom swells, thy fair eyes fill
At sight of its repose.
The ripples run; all patient sit
The stars above the night.
In shade and gleam the waters flit:
The heavens are changeless bright!
III.
Alone I lie, buried amid
The long luxurious grass;
The bats flit round me, born and hid
In twilight's wavering mass.
The fir-top floats, an airy isle,
High o'er the mossy ground;
Harmonious silence breathes the while
In scent instead of sound.
The flaming rose glooms swarthy red;
The borage gleams more blue;
Dim-starred with white, a flowery bed
Glimmers the rich dusk through.
Hid in the summer grass I lie,
Lost in the great blue cave;
My body gazes at the sky,
And measures out its grave.
IV.
What art thou, gathering dusky cool,
In slow gradation fine?
Death's lovely shadow, flickering full
Of eyes about to shine.
When weary Day goes down below,
Thou leanest o'er his grave,
Revolving all the vanished show
The gracious splendour gave.
Or art thou not she rather—say—
Dark-browed, with luminous eyes,
Of whom is born the mighty Day,
That fights and saves and dies?
For action sleeps with sleeping light;
Calm thought awakes with thee:
The soul is then a summer night,
With stars that shine and see.
