No pause or hush of merry birds
That sing above,
Tell us how coldly sleeps below
The form we love.
Where hast thou been this year, beloved?
What hast thou seen?
What visions fair, what glorious life?
Where hast thou been?
The veil, the veil! so thin, so strong,
'Twixt us and thee;
The mystic veil! when shall it fall,
That we may see!
Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone;
But present still.
And waiting for the coming hour
Of God's sweet will.
Lord of the living and the dead,
Our Saviour dear,
We lay in silence at thy feet
This sad, sad year.
PRESS on! surmount the rocky steeps,
Climb boldly o'er the torrent's arch;
He fails alone who feebly creeps!
He wins who dares the hero's march.
Be thou a hero! let thy might
Tramp on eternal snows its way,
And, through the ebon walls of night,
Hew down a passage unto day.
Press on! if once and twice thy feet
Slip back and stumble, harder try;
From him who never dreads to meet
Danger and death, they're sure to fly.
To coward ranks the bullet speeds,
While on their breast who never quail,
Gleams, guardian of chivalric deeds,
Bright courage, like a coat of mail.
Press on! if Fortune play thee false
To-day, to-morrow she'll be true;
Whom now she sinks, she now exalts,
Taking old gifts and granting new.
The wisdom of the present hour
Makes up the follies past and gone;
To weakness, strength succeeds, and power
From frailty springs! Press on, press on!
Therefore, press on, and reach the goal,
And gain the prize, and wear the crown;
Faint not, for to the steadfast soul
Come wealth, and honor, and renown.
To thine own self be true, and keep
Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil,
Press on, and thou shalt surely reap
A heavenly harvest for thy toil.
THE violet loves a sunny bank,
The cowslip loves the lea,
The scarlet creeper loves the elm,
But I love thee.
The sunshine kisses mount and vale,
The stars they kiss the sea,
The west winds kiss the clover bloom,
But I kiss thee.
The oriole weds his mottled mate,
The lily's bride o' the bee;
Heaven's marriage ring is round the earth, –
Shall I wed thee?
RAPHAEL'S ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION.
Her ever-during gates harmonious sound
On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King of Glory, in his powerful Word
And Spirit, coming to create new worlds.
On heavenly ground they stood; and, from the shore
They viewed the vast, immeasurable abyss,
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds,
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault Heaven's highth, and with the centre mix the pole.
Silence, ye troubled waves, and, thou deep, peace!"
Said then the omnific Word; "your discord end!"
Nor staid, but, on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode
Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice; him all his train
Followed in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things;
One foot he centred, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure,
And said, "Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference, O world!"
Thus God the heaven created, thus the earth,
Matter unformed and void. Darkness profound
Covered the abyss; but on the watery calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid mass, but downward purged
The black tartareous, cold, infernal dregs
Adverse to life; then founded, then conglobed
Like things to like, the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the air;
And earth, self-balanced, on her centre hung.
"Let there be light,” said God; and forthwith light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep, and from her native east,
To journey through the airy gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud; for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle
Sojourned the while. God saw the light was good,
And light from darkness, by the hemisphere,
Divided: light the Day, and darkness Night,
He named; thus was the first day even and morn;
Nor passed uncelebrated, nor unsung
By the celestial choirs, when orient light
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;
Birthday of heaven and earth: with joy and shout
The hollow universal orb they filled,
And touched their golden harps, and hymning praised God and his works; Creator him they sung,
Both when first evening was, and when first morn.
I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.
Morn came, and went, and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;
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