260

CLEAR THE WAY.

Once the welcome light has broken,
Who shall say

What the unimagined glories
Of the day?

What the evil that shall perish
In its ray?

Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;
Aid it, hopes of honest men;
Aid it, paper-aid it, type —
Aid it, for the hour is ripe,
And our earnest must not slacken
Into play.

Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way!

Lo! a cloud's about to vanish
From the day;

And a brazen wrong to crumble
Into clay.

Lo! the Right's about to conquer;
Clear the way!

With the Right shall many more

Enter smiling at the door;
With the giant Wrong shall fall
Many others, great and small,
That for ages long have held us
For their prey.

Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way!

FROM "BABE CHRISTABEL." 261

FROM "BABE CHRISTABEL."

GERALD MASSEY.

AND thou hast stolen a jewel, Death
Shall light thy dark up like a star,
A beacon kindling from afar
Our light of love, and fainting faith.

Through tears it gleams perpetually,
And glitters through the thickest glooms,
Till the eternal morning comes

To light us o'er the jasper sea.

With our best branch in tenderest leaf,

We've strewn the way our Lord doth come:

And, ready for the harvest home,
His reapers bind our ripest sheaf.

Our beautiful bird of light hath fled;
Awhile she sat with folded wings-
Sang round us a few hoverings.
Then straightway into glory sped.

And white-winged angels nurture her;

With heaven's white radiance robed and

crowned,

And all love's purple glory round,

She summers on the hills of myrrh.

Through childhood's morning-land, serene
She walked betwixt us twain, like love;

While, in a robe of light above,
Her better angel walked unseen,

262

66

FROM BABE CHRISTABEL."

Till life's highway broke bleak and wild;
Then, lest her starry garments trail
In mire, heart bleed, and courage fail,
The angel's arms caught up the child.

Her wave of life hath backward rolled
To the great ocean; on whose shore
We wander up and down, to store
Some treasures of the times of old:

And aye we seek and hunger on

:

For precious pearls and relics rare,
Strewn on the sands for us to wear
At heart for love of her that's gone.

O weep no more! there yet is balm
In Gilead! Love doth ever shed
Rich healing where it nestles
O'er desert pillows some green palm!

spread

Strange glory streams through life's wild rents,
And through the open door of death
We see the heaven that beckoneth

To the beloved going hence.

God's ichor fills the hearts that bleed;

The best fruit loads the broken bough; And in the wounds our sufferings plough, Immortal love sows sovereign seed.

THE GRANDMOTHER.

263

THE GRANDMOTHER.

VICTOR HUGO.

MOTHER of our own dear mother, good old grandam, wake and smile!

Commonly, your lips keep moving when you're sleeping all the while;

For between your prayer and slumber scarce the difference is known;

But to-night you're like the image of Madonna cut in stone,

With your lips without a motion or a breath a single one.

Why more heavily than usual dost thou bend thy old gray brow?

What is it we've done to grieve thee that thou'lt not caress us now?

Grandam, see, the lamp is paling, and the fire burns fast away;

Speak to us, or fire and lamp-light will not any longer stay,

And thy two poor little children, we shall die as well as they.

Ah! when thou shalt wake and find us near the lamp that's ceased to burn,

Dead, and when thou speakest to us, deaf and silent in our turn

264

THE GRANDMOTHER.

Then how great will be thy sorrow! then thou❜lt cry for us in vain,

Call upon thy saint and patron for a long, long time, and fain,

And a long, long time embrace us ere we come to life again!

Only feel how warm our hands are; wake and place thy hands in ours;

Wake, and sing us some old ballad of the wandering troubadours.

Tell us of those knights whom fairies used to help to love and fame:

Knights who brought, instead of posies, spoils and trophies to their dame,

And whose war-cry in the battle was a lady's gentle

name.

Tell us what's the sacred token wicked shapes and sprites to scare!

And of Lucifer — who was it saw him flying through the air?

What's the gem that's on the forehead of the King of Gnomes displayed?

Does Archbishop Turpin's psalter, or Roland's enormous blade,

Daunt the great black King of Evil?.

makes him most afraid?

say, which

Or thy large old Bible reach us, with its pictures bright and blue,

Heaven all gold, and saints a-kneeling, and the infant

Jesus too,