Never one has brought her any news. Still her dim eyes silently Chase the white sails o'er the sea: Hopeless, faithful, UNWEDDED. BEHOLD her there in the evening sun, That kindles the Indian summer trees To a separate burning bush, one by one, Wherein the Glory Divine she sees! Mate and nestlings she never had: Kith and kindred have passed away; Yet the sunset is not more gently glad, That follows her shadow, and fain would stay. For out of her life goes a breath of bliss, And a sunlike charm from her cheerful eye, That the cloud and the loitering breeze would miss: A balm that refreshes the passerby. "Did she choose it, this single life?" Gossip, she saith not, and who can tell? But many a mother, and many a wife, Draw's a lot more lonely, we all know well. Hannah's at the window, binding Doubtless she had her romantic With a voice to quiet its hourly And a wife will follow by faith, not moan, And a smile to heighten its rarer mirth! sight, In the chosen footprint, at any hap. There are ends more worthy than In the comfort of home who is glad happiness: Who seeks it, is digging joy's grave, we know. The blessed are they who but live to bless; She found out that mystery, long der than she? Transfigured under the sunset trees, That wreathe her with shadowy gold and red, She looks away to the purple seas, Whereon her shallop will soon be sped. She reads the hereafter by the here: A beautiful Now, and a better To Be: In life is all sweetness, in death no fear, You waste your pity on such as she. HAND IN HAND WITH ANGELS. HAND in hand with angels, Through the world we go; Brighter eyes are on us Than we blind ones know; Tenderer voices cheer us Than we deaf will own; Never, walking heavenward, Can we walk alone. Hand in hand with angels, In the busy street, Hand in hand with angels; Toil-imbrowned and worn, Hand in hand with angels: Over all they pass. Bid them seek the sky! When they cease to fly. Hand in hand with angels; Some are out of sight, Leading us, unknowing, Into paths of light. Some dear hands are loosened From our earthly clasp, Soul in soul to hold us With a firmer grasp. Hand in hand with angels,- Or a hand's left out. Hand in hand with angels From earth's lowliest one, To the shining seraph, Throned beyond the sun. Hand in hand with angels! Strengthens more than one; Sinking earth he grapples To the Great White Throne. A STRIP OF BLUE. I Do not own an inch of land, A tribute rare and free: Richer am I than he who owns I freight them with my untold dreams, Each bears my own picked crew; And nobler cargoes wait for them Than ever India knew,My ships that sail into the East Across that outlet blue. Sometimes they seem like living shapes, The people of the sky,Guests in white raiment coming down From heaven, which is close by: From violet mists they bloom! The aching wastes of the unknown Are half reclaimed from gloom, Since on life's hospitable sea All souls find sailing-room. The ocean grows a weariness With nothing else in sight; Its east and west, its north and south, Spread out from morn to night: We miss the warm, caressing shore, Its brooding shade and light. A part is greater than the whole; By hints are mysteries told; The fringes of eternity, God's sweeping garment-fold, In that bright shred of glimmering sea, I reach out for, and hold. The sails, like flakes of roseate pearl, Float in upon the mist; The waves are broken precious stones, Sapphire and amethyst, Out through the utmost gates of space, Past where the gray stars drift, To the widening Infinite, my soul Glides on, a vessel swift; Yet loses not her anchorage In yonder azure rift. Here sit I, as a little child: The threshold of God's door Is that clear band of chrysoprase; Now the vast temple floor, The blinding glory of the dome I bow my head before. The universe, O God, is home, In height or depth, to me; Yet here upon thy footstool green Content am I to be; Glad, when is opened to my need Some sea-like glimpse of thee. [From Hints.] HEAVEN NEAR THE VIRTUOUS. THEY whose hearts are whole and strong, Loving holiness, Living clean from soil of wrong, Wearing truth's white dress,They unto no far-off height Wearily need climb; Heaven to them is close in sight From these shores of time. Only the anointed eye Sees in common things,Gleams dropped daily from the sky; Heavenly blossomings. To the hearts where light has birth Nothing can be drear; Washed from celestial basement walls Budding through the bloom of earth By suns unsetting kissed. Heaven is always near. GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP. And let her beauty pour through Sunlight and life, part of me. every vein TO MY SON. Do you remember, my sweet, absent With son, How in the soft June days forever done You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high; And when I lifted you, soft came your cry "Put me 'way up-'way up in the blue sky ?" I laughed and said I could not; set you down, Your gray eyes wonder-filled beneath that crown Of bright hair gladdening me as you raced by. Another Father now, more strong than I, Has borne you voiceless to your dear blue sky. NEW WORlds. WITH my beloved I lingered late one night. At last the hour when I must leave her came: But, as I turned, a fear I could not name Possessed me that the long sweet Should perish. What if Death, ere not the same Each should appear to each in morning light? Changed did I find her, truly, the next day: Ne'er could I see her as of old again, the lover Thus each new morn a new world may discover. THE LILY-POND. SOME fairy spirit with his wand, And spread this film upon the pond. For here the musing soul is merged And sweeter seems the air when In moods no other scene can bring, scourged With wandering wild-bees' murmuring. One ripple streaks the little lake, Sharp purple-blue; the birches, thin And silvery, crowd the edge, yet break To let a straying sunbeam in. How came we through the yielding wood, That day, to this sweet-rustling Oh, there together while we stood, In sleepy light; and even now His glimmering beauty doth return Upon me when the soft winds blow, And lilies toward the sunlight yearn. The yielding wood? And yet 'twas loth To yield unto our happy march; That strange mood seemed to draw a Doubtful it seemed, at times, if both cloud away, Could pass its green, elastic arch. |