AN EASTER FLOWER GIFT.
O dearest bloom the seasons know, Flowers of the Resurrection blow, Our hope and faith restore; And through the bitterness of death And loss and sorrow, breathe a breath Of life forevermore!
The thought of Love Immortal blends With fond remembrances of friends; In you, O sacred flowers, By human love made doubly sweet, The heavenly and the earthly meet, The heart of Christ and ours!
1882.
THE MYSTIC'S CHRISTMAS.
"All hail!" the bells of Christmas rang, "All hail!" the monks at Christmas sang, The merry monks who kept with cheer The gladdest day of all their year.
But still apart, unmoved thereat, A pious elder brother sat Silent, in his accustomed place, With God's sweet peace upon his face.
"Why sitt'st thou thus?" his brethren cried.
"It is the blessed Christmas-tide; The Christmas lights are all aglow, The sacred lilies bud and blow.
"Above our heads the joy-bells ring, Without the happy children sing, And all God's creatures hail the morn On which the holy Christ was born!
"Rejoice with us; no more rebuke Our gladness with thy quiet look."
The gray monk answered: "Keep, I pray, Even as ye list, the Lord's birthday.
"Let heathen Yule fires flicker red Where thronged refectory feasts are spread; With mystery-play and masque and mime And wait-songs speed the holy time!
"The blindest faith may haply save; The Lord accepts the things we have; And reverence, howsoe'er it strays, May find at last the shining ways.
"They needs must grope who cannot see, The blade before the ear must be; As ye are feeling I have felt, And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.
"But now, beyond the things of sense, Beyond occasions and events, I know, through God's exceeding grace, Release from form and time and place.
"I listen, from no mortal tongue, To hear the song the angels sung; And wait within myself to know The Christmas lilies bud and blow.
"The outward symbols disappear From him whose inward sight is clear; And small must be the choice of clays To him who fills them all with praise!
"Keep while you need it, brothers mine, With honest zeal your Christmas sign, But judge not him who every morn Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!"
1882.
AT LAST.
When on my day of life the night is falling, And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown, I hear far voices out of darkness calling My feet to paths unknown,
Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, Leave not its tenant when its walls decay; O Love Divine, O Helper ever present, Be Thou my strength and stay!
Be near me when all else is from me drifting Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine, And kindly faces to my own uplifting The love which answers mine.
I have but Thee, my Father! let Thy spirit Be with me then to comfort and uphold; No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit, Nor street of shining gold.
Suffice it if--my good and ill unreckoned, And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace-- I find myself by hands familiar beckoned Unto my fitting place.
Some humble door among Thy many mansions, Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease, And flows forever through heaven's green expansions The river of Thy peace.
There, from the music round about me stealing, I fain would learn the new and holy song, And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing, The life for which I long.
1882
WHAT THE TRAVELLER SAID AT SUNSET.
The shadows grow and deepen round me, I feel the deffall in the air; The muezzin of the darkening thicket, I hear the night-thrush call to prayer.
The evening wind is sad with farewells, And loving hands unclasp from mine; Alone I go to meet the darkness Across an awful boundary-line.
As from the lighted hearths behind me I pass with slow, reluctant feet, What waits me in the land of strangeness?
What face shall smile, what voice shall greet?
What space shall awe, what brightness blind me?
What thunder-roll of music stun?
What vast processions sweep before me Of shapes unknown beneath the sun?
I shrink from unaccustomed glory, I dread the myriad-voiced strain; Give me the unforgotten faces, And let my lost ones speak again.
He will not chide my mortal yearning Who is our Brother and our Friend; In whose full life, divine and human, The heavenly and the earthly blend.
Mine be the joy of soul-communion, The sense of spiritual strength renewed, The reverence for the pure and holy, The dear delight of doing good.
No fitting ear is mine to listen An endless anthem's rise and fall; No curious eye is mine to measure The pearl gate and the jasper wall.
For love must needs be more than knowledge: What matter if I never know Why Aldebaran's star is ruddy, Or warmer Sirius white as snow!
Forgive my human words, O Father!
I go Thy larger truth to prove; Thy mercy shall transcend my longing I seek but love, and Thou art Love!
I go to find my lost and mourned for Safe in Thy sheltering goodness still, And all that hope and faith foreshadow Made perfect in Thy holy will!
1883.
THE "STORY OF IDA."