Lyrics / by John B. Tabb [electronic text]

CHERRY BLOOM.

FRAILEST, and first to stand Upon the border-land From darkness shriven, In livery of Death Thou utterest the breath And light of Heaven.

Tho' profitless thou seem As doth a Poet's dream, Apart from thee Nor limb nor laboring root May load with ripened fruit The parent tree.

DAWN.

BEHOLD, as from a silver horn, The sacerdotal Night Outpours upon his latest-born The chrism of the light; And bids him to the altar come, Whereon for sacrifice, (A lamb before his shearers, dumb,) A victim shadow lies.

ECHO.

FAMISHED Prodigal, in vain — Thy portion spent — thou seek'st again Thy father's door; His all with latest sigh bequeathed To thee the wanderer — he breathed, Alas! no more.

MORNING AND NIGHT BLOOM

A STAR and a rosebud white, In the morning twilight gray, The latest blossom of the night, The earliest of the day; The star to vanish in the light, The rose to stay.

A star and a rosebud white, In the evening twilight gray, The earliest blossom of the night, The latest of the day; The one in darkness finding light, One, lost for aye.

EXALTATION.

O LEAF upon the highest bough, The Poet of the woods art thou To whom alone 't is given — The farthest from thy place of birth —To hold communion with the earth, Nor lose the light of Heaven.

O lead upon the topmost height,Amid thy heritage of light Unsheltered by a shade, 'T is thine the loneliness to know That leans for sympathy below, Nor finds what it hath made.

HAZARD.

ONE step 'twixt loss and gain! The summit to attain So near the brink of Pain Hath joy to go —

So steep the precipice, So frail the footing is, 'T were death to panting Bliss To look below.

THE YOUNG TENOR.

I WOKE; the harbored melody Had crossed the slumber bar, And out upon the open sea Of consciousness, afar Swept onward with a fainter strain, As echoing the dream again.

So soft the silver sound, and clear, Outpoured upon the night, That Silence seemed a listener O'erleaning with delight The slender moon, a finger-tip Upon the portal of her lip.

FRATERNITY.

I KNOW not but in every leaf That sprang to life along with me, Were written all the joy and grief Thenceforth my fate to be.

The wind that whispered to the earth, The bird that sang its earliest lay, The flower that blossomed at my birth, —My kinsmen all were they.

Ay, but for fellowship with these I had not been — nay, might not be; Nor they but vagrant melodies Till harmonized to me.

MY MESSMATE.

WHY fear thee, brother Death, That sharest, breath by breath, This brimming life of mine? Each draught that I resign Into thy chalice flows. Comrades of old are we; All that the Present knows Is but a shade of me: My Self to thee alone And to the Past is known.

"VOX CLAMANTIS."

O SEA, forever calling to the shore With menace or caress, —A voice like his unheeded that of yore Cried in the wilderness; A deep forever yearning unto deep, For silence out of sound, — Thy restlessness the cradle of a sleep That thou hast never found.

NIAGARA.

WHERE echo ne'er hath found A footing on the steep, Descends, without a sound, The cataract of sleep.

Like swallows in the spray, When evening is near, The thronging thoughts of day About the brink appear;

Till greets a heaven below A sister heaven above, Alike with stars aglow Of unextinguished love.

THE BRIDGE.

WHERE, as a lordly dream, Glides the deep-winding stream For evermore; Calm, as in conscious strength, Bends thy majestic length, From shore to shore.

Life, in its fevered heat, Surges, with pulsing feet, Restless, above; Doomed, in its anxious flow, Like the strong tide below, Onward to move.

Strange is the motley throng! Hearts yet untaught of wrong, Thoughtless of pain, Mingle with souls accurs'd, Sands in a desert thirst — Clouds without rain.

While o'er thee and below Swift the twin currents flow, Thy form serene, Still as the shades that sleep On the reflecting deep Arches between.

O that, all strife above, Strong in the strength thereof Man evermore Built, with a broader span, Love for his fellow-man From shore to shore!

THE STATUE.

FIRST fashioned in the artist's brain, It stood as in the marble vein, Revealed to him alone; Nor could he from its native night Have led it to the living light, Save through the lifeless stone.

E'en so, of Silence and of Sound A twin-born mystery is found, Like as of death and birth; Without the pause we had not heard The harmony, nor caught the word That Heaven reveals to Earth.

THE SEED.

BEARING a life unseen, Thou lingerest between A flower withdrawn, And — what thou ne'er shalt see —A blossom yet to be When thou art gone.

Unto the feast of Spring Thy broken heart shall bring What most it craved, To find, like Magdalen In tears, a life again Love-lost- and saved!

THE TREE.

PLANTED by the Master's hand Steadfast in thy place to stand, While the ever-changing year Clothes, or strips thy branches bare; Lending not a leaf to hold Warmth against the winter's cold; Lightening not a limb the less For the summer's sultriness; Nay, thy burden heavier made, That within thy bending shade Thankless multitudes, oppressed, There may lay them down and rest. Soul, upon thy Calvary Wait; the Christ will come to thee.

THE SISTERS.

THE waves forever move; The hills forever rest: Yet each the heavens approve, And Love alike hath blessed A Martha's household care, A Mary's cloistered prayer.

THE GOSSIP.

SO near me dwells my neighbor Death That e'en what Silence pondereth He catches word for word, And promises, some future day, To visit me upon his way, And tell what he has heard.

THE TOLLMEN.

LO, Silence, Sleep, and Death Await us on the way, To take of each the tribute breath That God himself did pay.

Nor Solomon's as great, Nor Caesar's strong control, As his who sits beside his gate To take of each the toll.

THE PINE-TREE.

WITH whispers of futurity And echoes of the past, Twin birds a shelter find in thee Against the wintry blast, —The fledgling Hope, that preens her wing, Too timorous to fly, And Memory, that comes to sing Her coranach, and die.

TRANSFIGURED.

THROUGHOUT the livelong summer day The Leaf and twinborn Shadow play Till Leaf to Shadow fade; Then, hidden for a season brief, They dream, till Shadow turn to Leaf As Leaf was turned to Shade.

ANONYMOUS.

ANONYMOUS — nor needs a name To tell the secret whence the flame, With light, and warmth, and incense, came A new creation to proclaim.

So was it when, His labor done, God saw His work, and smiled thereon: His glory in the picture shone, But name upon the canvas, none.

MIDNIGHT.

A FLOOD of darkness overwhelms the land; And all that God had planned, Of loveliness beneath the noonday skies, A dream o'ershadowed lies.

Amid the universal darkness deep, Only the Isles of Sleep, As did the dwellings of the Israelite In Egypt, stem the night.

INSOMNIA.

E'EN this, Lord, didst thou bless — This pain of sleeplessness — The livelong night, Urging God's gentlest angel from thy side, That anguish only might with thee abide Until the light. Yea, e'en the last and best, Thy victory and rest, Came thus to thee; For't was while others calmly slept around, That thou alone in sleeplessness wast found, To comfort me.

PAIN.

I AM a gardener to weed And dig about the heart: To plant therein the pregnant seed, And watch, with many a smart, The stem and leaf and blossom rise. Alternate to supply The victims for the sacrifice, And, for the fruit, to die.

SYMPATHY.

LO! of gladness or regretTeardrops in the violet Weeping till her leaves are wet, Dewdrops in mine eyes beget!

Mirrored in each lucid sphere, Highest heaven to earth is near; Closer sympathies are here 'Twixt the dewdrop and the tear

MEMORY.

LO, the Blossom to the Bee Yields not more than thou to me — Food for Love to live upon When the summer days are gone, Poorer than they came, to find What was sweetest, left behind.

LIVERY.

OLD-FASHIONED raiment suits the Tree: Tho' flouting winds are fain To strip the foliage, presently He patterns it again; Fastidious of chivalry, Rejecting as in scorn All other than the panoply His ancestors have worn.

SLUMBER-SONG.

SLEEP! the spirits that attend On thy waking hours are fled. Heaven thou canst not now offend Till thy slumber-plumes are shed; Consciousness alone doth lend Life its pain, and Death its dread; Innocence and Peace befriend All the sleeping and the dead.

THE SUPPLIANT.

"O DEWDROP, lay thy finger-tip Of moisture on my fevered lip," The noonday Blossom cries. "Alas, O Dives, dark and deep The gulf impassable of Sleep Henceforth between us lies!"

RELEASED.

GO, bird, and to the sky Pour forth what thou and I Have suffered here: Thou, for thy mate removed, And I, for faith disproved In one as dear.

Farewell; and if again Thou find for prison-pain Felicity, Be this thy glad release A prophecy of peace, Dear bird, for me!

WRECKED.

DEEP in the forest glades, Where leafy welcomes wooed our wandering way, Once blent our shadows in the dallying shades That round us lay.

Thenceforth, of fate estranged, Each day beholds our widowed forms apart: The word, the glance, the gesture, coldly changed, As heart to heart.

But cometh night to hide Life-wrecks, far drifted in the noonday sun, And lo, our shadows, in the sombre tide, Again are one!

GONE.

THE sunshine seeks thee, and the day, Without thee, lonely, wears away: And where the twilight shadows pass, And miss thy footprints on the grass, They weep; whereat the breezes sigh, And, following to find thee, die.

AGAINST THE SKY.

SEE, where the foliage fronts the sky, How many a meaning we descry That else had never to the eye A signal shown!

So we, on life's horizon-line, To watchers waiting for a sign, Perchance interpret Love's design, To us unknown.

ILLUSION.

AS yonder circling heavens define The limits of the sea, And Death on Time's horizon-line Shuts out Eternity; So, while in banishment apart Our widowed lives appear, Still holds each love-encompassed heart The centre of the sphere.

SUNSET AT SEA.

LO, where he sinks from sight, The day forgets her light; Nor breathes a wave To break the silence sweet, Where sky and ocean meet Above his grave.

INTERPRETED.

LO, eastward o'er the billows white, Faint-smiling wakes the Child of Night From dreams all rosy with delight: —What means, O Sea, thy moaning?

Full noon: and o'er a cloudless sky Soft winnowings of fragrance fly: In all the land no shadows lie: —What means, O Sea, thy moaning?

Far westward, o'er a dying glow, Long funeral waves of darkness flow; Ah, well-a-day! too late I know What means, O Sea, thy moaning!

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

WITH faith unshadowed by the night, Undazzled by the day, With hope that plumed thee for the flight, And courage to assay, God sent thee from the crowded ark, Christ-bearer, like the dove, To find, o'er sundering waters dark, New lands for conquering Love.

OFF SAN SALVADOR.

IT lay to westward — as of old, An emerald bar across the gold Of sunset — whence a vision grand First beckoned to the stranger-land..

And on our deck, uncoffined, lay A child, whose spirit far away The wafture of an angel hand Late welcomed to a stranger-land.

A SIGH OF THE SEA.

"'WHY is it?" once the Ocean asked, As on a summer's day, Basking beneath a cloudless sky, In musing rest he lay,

"Why is it, that, unruffled still, The welkin's brow I see, While mine, with racking wind and tide, Deep-furrowed oft must be?

"Her richest gems, by night displayed, Man's filching grasp defy; But safety for my treasures none, Though buried deep they lie.

"The hands that from her diadem In reverence recoil, Are bold my depths to penetrate And of their wealth despoil.

"A thousand ships with cruel keel My writhing waves divide, But mariner hath never steered Athwart her tranquil tide.

"Why is it thus, that rest to her And toil to me is given, — That she the blessing ever meets, And I, the curse of Heaven?"

The Ether heard. Through all her depths A deeper azure spread, And to the murmuring Ocean thus, With radiant smile, she said:

"Who cleaveth to the earth, as thou, Ne'er knows tranquillity; Naught pulses in my bosom wide But God, whose own am I."

SHELL-TINTS.

SEA-SHELL, whence the rainbow dyes, Flashing in thy sunset skies? Thou wast in the penal brine, When appeared the saving sign. "Yea; but when the bow was bended, Hope, that hung it in the sky, Down into the deep descended Where the starless shadows lie; And with tender touch of glory, Traced in living lines of love, On my lowly walls, the story Written in the heavens above."

THE LOST ANCHOR.

AH, sweet it was to feel the strain, What time, unseen, the ship above Stood steadfast to the storm that strove To rend our kindred cords atwain!

To feel, as feel the roots that grow In darkness, when the stately tree Resists the tempests, that in me High Hope was planted far below!

But now, as when a mother's breast Misses the babe, my prisoned power Deep-yearning, heart-like, hour by hour, Unquiet aches in cankering rest.

THE SEA BUBBLE

YEA; a bubble though I be, Love, O man, that fashioned thee Of the dust, created me Not of earth, but of the sea: Kindred blossoms then are we —Time-blooms on eternity.

DE PROFUNDIS.

I HEED it all: no more Than to my listening heart, Were millions on the shore, Couldst thou, O Sea, impart.

So, long in silence sealed, The Word Ineffable To Mary's heart revealed E'en all that God could tell.

ALTER IDEM.

'T is what thou wast — not what thou art, Which I no longer know — That made thee sovereign of my heart, And serves to keep thee so:

And couldst thou, coming to the throne, Thy Self, unaltered, see, Thou mightst the occupant disown, And scout his sovereignty.

FROM PARADISE.

ALL else that in the limit lies Of fleeting time, I see: The glance, Belovèd, of thine eyes Alone is lost to me.

And in the self-same interval, The ever-changing place Of light's horizon-line is all That meets thy lonely gaze.

Behold the glimmer of a tear, The twinkle of a star —The shadow and the light how near! And yet, alas, how far!

SELECTION.

AMONG the trees, O God, Is there not one That with unrivalled love Thou look'st upon?

And of all blessed birds, Hath not thy Love Found for its fittest mate The homing dove?

Or, mid the flame of flowers That light the land, Doth not the lily first Before thee stand?

So says my soul, O God, The type of thee. "In each life-circle, one Was made for me."

MAIDEN BLOOM.

WHERE the youthfid rivals meet —Reddest Rose, and whitest Snow —From a trysting-place so sweet, Which will soonest go? "Hence with life alone I stray," Blushed the flower of balmy breath. "Mine," the snow-wreath sighed, "to stay Steadfast e'en in death."

THE RAIN AND THE DEW.

"THOU hast fallen," said the Dewdrop To a sister drop of rain, "But wilt thou, wedded with the dust, In banishment remain?"

" Nay, Dewdrop, but anon with thee — The lowlier born than I —Uplifted shall I seek again My native home, the sky."

THE SHOWER.

AGAINST the royal Blue,A Mist rebellious flew — A night-born, wind-uplifted shade That for an angry moment stayed, Then wept itself away.

The Earth with moistened eyes Beholds the sunlit skies Again: but never to forget The Cloud whose life-drops mingle yet With her maternal clay.

RESIGNATION.

BEHOLD, in summer's parching thirst, The while the waters pass them by, The hills, like Tantalus accurst, In silent anguish lie; Nor look they to the lowly vale Wherein their famished shadows glide, But, with uplifted glances pale, The will of Heaven abide.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

THE sculptor in the marble found Her hidden from the world around, As in a donjon keep: With gentle hand he took away The coverlet that o'er her lay, But left her fast asleep.

And still she slumbers: e'en as he Who saw in far futurity What now before us lies — The fairest vision that the stream Of night, subsiding, leaves agleam Beneath the noonday skies.

CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP.

"Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep?"

LIE thou where Life hath lain, And let thy swifter pain His rival prove; Till, like the fertile Nile, Death buries, mile for mile, This waste of Love.

Soft! Soft! A sweeter kiss Than Antony's is this! O regal Shade, Luxurious as sleep Upon thy bosom deep My heart is laid.

ADIEU.

GOD speed thee, setting Sun! Thy beams for me have spun Of light to-day A memory that one Alone could bring, and none Can take away.

ASLEEP.

NAY, wake him not! Unfelt our presence near, Nor falls a whisper on his dreaming ear: He sees but Sleep's celestial visions clear, All else forgot.

And who shall say That, in life's waking dream, There be not ever near us those we deem (As now our faces to the Sleeper seem) Far, far away?

IN SOLITUDE.

LIKE as a brook that all night long Sings, as at noon, a bubble-song To Sleep's unheeding ear, The Poet to himself must sing, When none but God is listening The lullaby to hear.

UNHEEDED.

YE heavens so cold and clear Above me weeping here, Where every blossom sheds a tear My grief to see; No wonder, free from stain, Untroubled ye remain; The vapors gendering the rain Are all with me!

ALL IN ALL.

ONE heaven above; But many a heaven below The dewdrops show — God's tenderness Subdued in every teardrop to express The whole of Love.

THE DEWS.

WE come and go, as the breezes blow, But whence or where Hath ne'er been told in the legends old By the dreaming seer. The welcome rain to the parching plain And the languid leaves, The rattling hail on the burnished mail Of the serried sheaves, The silent snow on the wintry brow Of the aged year, Wends each his way in the track of day From a clouded sphere: But still as the fog in the dismal bog Where the shifting sheen Of the spectral lamp lights the marshes damp, With a flash unseen We drip through the night from the starlids bright, On the sleeping flowers, And deep in their breast is our perfumed rest Through the darkened hours: But again with the day we are up and away With our stolen dyes, To paint all the shrouds of the drifting clouds In the eastern skies.

THE LIFE-TIDE.

EACH wave that breaks upon the strand, How swift soe'er to spurn the sand And seek again the sea, Christ-like, within its lifted hand Must bear the stigma of the land For all eternity.

ONSET.

LO, where the routed shadows pass, Upon each lifted blade of grass The tokens of a fray — Pale life-drops from the heart of Night,Mute witnesses of sudden flight Before the host of Day.

TO A BLIND BABE, SLEEPING.

ARE thy dreams dark? or is the light Alone denied thy waking sight, While softer stars their vigils keepWithin thy hemisphere of sleep?

Yea: haply, as noon-blinded beams Awake in darkness, o'er thy dreams The pity that begets our tears, A kindling radiance appears.

FORESHADOWED.

SWALLOW, with the spring returning, In thine absence change hath been: Dost thou mark the lonely places Where no more my Love is seen? Never maiden welcomed thee Home with lighter heart than she.

Flitting in the golden sunshine Oft thy shadow o'er us strayed. Still we smiled, nor recked the warning Of a life-dividing shade, Now, alas, the world to me Mourns that doomful prophecy.

SUSPENSE.

BREATHLESS as the blue above thee Where a pausing vapor lies; Here, the hearts on earth that love thee. There, the souls in Paradise —Host for host expectant of thee! Who shall win the prize?

IMMORTALITY.

E'EN now the spirit moves In visions yet to be, Whereof the present proves A dream and prophecy. For still, the shadows gone, With light forever new, Behold, another dawn Proclaims the promise true.

SECURITY.

THE Noonday smiles to hear The oft-repeated tale Of shadows lurking near Her sunbeams to assail:

Nor heeds the placid Night A prophecy of doom To drown her stars in light As fathomless as gloom.

PILGRIMS.

UNTO the fane of Silence come, Love-led from alien lands, Pale pilgrim Prayers with upward glance And falling tears, and lifted hands, And lips with stanched emotion dumb, To ask for utterance.

There, shadow-like, with folded wings, In reverence apart, They wait till lingering Time hath brought, In words or music to the heart, What Spring to wintry Nature brings, — Release for prisoned Thought.

IN THE DEATH CHAMBER.

STILL upon the vacant wall Doth the silver phantom fall, Like a glory in the gloom Of the long-deserted room.

Soul departed, can it be Thou, death-laurelled majesty, Mingling, in the moon's disguise, With our midnight reveries?

THE DEPARTED.

THEY cannot wholly pass away, How far soe'er above; Nor we, the lingerers, wholly stay Apart from those we love: For spirits in eternity, As shadows in the sun, Reach backward into Time, as we, Like lifted clouds, reach on.

THE FOUNDLING.

WHAT time the wandering mother Night Made ready to depart, A new-born, trembling Dream of Light She laid upon my heart. "Keep it," she sighed, and bending low Wept o'er it where it lay; Then, suddenly as April snow, Went vanishing: away.

RETROSPECT.

THE heavens that seemed so far away When old-time grief was near, Beyond the vista seen to-day, Close o'er my life appear; For there, in reconcilement sweet, The human and divine, The loftiest and the lowliest, meet On love's horizon-line.

REFLECTION.

STARS that with a softer glow Waken in the wave below, All the stars above you grow Wiser for the beams ye throw —Light whereby alone they know Why we mortals love them so.

COMMUNION.

ONCE when my heart was passion-free To learn of things divine, The soul of nature suddenly Outpoured itself in mine.

I held the secrets of the deep, And of the heavens above; I knew the harmonies of sleep, The mysteries of love.

And for a moment's interval The earth, the sky, the sea — My soul encompassed, each and all, As now they compass me.

To one in all, to all in one — Since Love the work began — Life's ever widening circles run, Revealing God and man.

TRANSFIGURATION.

THE cloud unto its parent stream That rushes to the sea Reveals a far-reflected dream Of heaven's tranquillity; And unto faith's adoring sight A mystery appears, —A cloud transfigured of the light In every tide of tears.

BREAD.

STILL surmounting as I came Wind and water, frost and flame, Night and day, the livelong year, From the burial-place of seed, From the earth's maternal bosom, Through the root, and stem, and blossom, To supply thy present need, Have I journeyed here.

SAND.

STERILE sister though I be, Twinborn to the barren Sea, Yet of all things fruitful we Wait the end; and presently, Lo, they are not! then to me (Children to the nurse's knee) Come the billows fresh and free, Breathing Immortality.

THE MARSH.

THE woods have voices, and the sea, Her choral-son and threnody: But thou alike to sun and rain Dost mute and motionless remain.

As pilgrims to the shrine of Sleep, Through all thy solemn spaces creep The Tides — a moment on thy breast To pause in sacramental rest; Then, flooded with the mystery, To sink reluctant to the sea, In landward loneliness to yearn Till to thy bosom they return.

BEACON LIGHTS.

SISTER Blossoms, ye have kept So near the Master while ye slept That, as upon the Martyr's face, His light celestial we trace In yours, revealing dreams that He, Asleep upon the stormy sea, Beheld, as though your light alone His beacon in the darkness shone.

OUTSPEEDED.

TO-NIGHT the onward-rushing train Would bear thee far from me; But, winged with swifter dreams, again My spirit flies to thee.

Nay, speeding far beyond thee, waits To welcome thee anew, Where Dawn is opening the gates To let the darkness through.

THE SIREN STREAM TO THE OUTCAST.

COME, for my waves what I can never know Of calm bestow; And thou, alas, like them, hast wandered far! Come, erring star — Aweary now — come take thy fill of rest Upon my breast.

Come, for they call thee. Lean thy listening ear And thou shalt hear How soft the sigh that woos thee to the deep Of endless sleep, Wherein the past and all its passion seem A vanished dream.

Behold, I cleanse whate'er of soilure clings To drooping wings: Whate'er abides of dust or cleaving clay, I purge away; Like fire, refining, but apart from pain, All dross and stain.

The fever-flame that through thy being burns, My bosom yearns. To quench. Behold, the ripples run to meet A sister's feet, With murmurs, not of scorn, but tenderness, To soothe and bless.

AT LAST.

HOW full of phantoms are the days That shorten as they go! Along the once frequented ways, Alas, are none I know! Lone relic of reality, I too a phantom fain would be.

THE PILGRIM.

WHEN, but a child, I wandered hence, Another child — sweet Innocence, My sister — went with me: But I have lost her, and am fain To seek her in the home again Where we were wont to be.

MY GUIDE.

LIFT up thine eyes, my child, That I may see The innocence that smiled In one like thee — Thy mother gone.

Scarce older than thou art, With maiden power She won a wayward heart, That till that hour Had worshipped none.

Swift as a bird of Spring In joyous flight, That cleaves with shadeless wing The sea of light, Our morning fled.

When, sudden gloom —and lo! A troubled sky — A wail of stifled woe —An agony —And hope was dead.

Then, as a crystal tear Of sorrow born, Didst thou, pale star, appear, Like me forlorn In cheerless night.

I wept, and weeping turned To gaze on thee, And through the mist discerned A beam for me, Lit of her light.

GIULIO.

"FATHER!" — the trembling voice betrayed The troubled heart; "Be not afraid," I softly answered — "Woe is me! Dead unto all but misery! And yet, a child of innocence Is mine — a son unknowing whence His origin — whom, unaware, As with an angel's watchful care, Thy gentle hand hath guided. Now He waits the consecrating vow Of priesthood; and to-morrow stands A Levite, with uplifted hands To bless thee. May a mother dare To look upon that face, and share, Unseen, the blessing of her son? Deny me not. So be it done To thee in thy last agony, As now thou doest unto me!"

She had her will. Secluded there Within a cloistered place of prayer, She saw, and wept; then, all unknown, Shrunk back into the world, alone.

Days passed. A winter's cheerless morn With summons came. A soul forlorn

Craved help in danger imminent; And, Christlike, on his mission went The new anointed.

" Strange," he said, "The gleams, like inspiration, shed Upon the dying! There she lay, Poor reprobate! life's stormy day In clouds departing. Suddenly, As from a trance, beholding me, 'Giulio! hast thou come?' she cried, And with her arms about me, died."

He wondered; and I turned away, Lest tears my secret should betray.

BETRAYED.

WHEN first, a new-born babe, he smiled, Ere yet a name was given, We knew not if the stranger child Were more of earth or heaven.

His eyes, twin dewdrops, took the light Of noonday's perfect blue: His cheeks, young apple-blossoms white, To warmer blushes grew.

His lips, —a rosy oracle, And fragrant as a flower's, —Like breathing petals, seemed to tell Of sweeter thoughts than ours.

His name? — It is a balmy word Of sound and silence wove; We caught it when an Echo stirred In sleep, and whispered — "Love."

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.

THE Fir-tree felt it with a thrill And murmur of content; The last dead Leaf its cable slipt And from its moorings went;

The selfsame silent messenger To one the shibboleth Of Life imparting, and to one The countersign of Death.

AN INTERVIEW.

I SAT with chill December Beside the evening fire. "And what do you remember," I ventured to inquire, "Of seasons long forsaken?" He answered in amaze, " My age you have mistaken: I've lived but thirty days."

ANTICIPATION.

THE master scans the woven score Of subtle harmonies, before A note is stirred; And Nature now is pondering The tidal symphony of Spring, As yet unheard.

THE TRYST OF SPRING.

STERN Winter sought the hand of Spring, And, tempered to her milder mood, Died leafless on the budding breast He fondly wooed.

She wept for him her April tears, But, from the shadows wandering soon, Dreamed of a warmer love to come With lordly June.

He scatters roses at her feet, And sunshine o'er her queenly brow, And through the listening silence breathes A bridal vow.

She answers not; but, like a mist O'er-brimmed and tremulous with light, In sudden tears she vanishes Before his sight.

ONE APRIL MORN.

TWIN violets amid the dew Unfolded soft their petals blue To find the winter's dream come true, One April morn.

Two warmer, softer, violet eyes, Beneath the selfsame April skies, Fulfilled a dream of paradise, One April morn.

Dawn-blossoms of a changeful day, Ye would not till the twilight stay, But, ere the noontide, sped away, One April morn.

AN APRIL PRAYER.

LORD, to thy signal-light the trees In leaf and flower reply: Let not my heart, more dull than these, Alone unwakened lie.

AN AUTUMN LEAF.

A NURSLING of the under-green, A tethered wing I poised between A heaven above and heaven below — Twin Sisters, mirrored in the glow Of limpid waters — where the breeze, Blind comrade of the listening trees, Came wakening with soft caress The shadows dumb and motionless.

There once, at summer's close, a flame Of fire and song, a Redbird came, And, perched upon my parent limb, Outpoured his soul. From joy abrim, The bubbling vintage of his brain, I quaffed, the while each fibre-vein, Deep-reddening with emotion, stirred, Alas! he heeded not nor heard! But when he ceased, and flew away, A panting prisoner I lay, Close-fettered, till the kindred fire Of frost lit up the autumn pyre: Then, suddenly, the tidal swell Of sap receded, and I fell.

MATER DOLOROSA.

AGAIN maternal Autumn grieves, As blood-like drip the maple leaves On Nature's Calvary, And every sap-forsaken limb Renews the mystery of Him Who died upon a Tree.

INDIAN SUMMER.

NO more the battle or the chase The phantom tribes pursue, But each in its accustomed place The Autumn hails anew: And still from solemn councils set On every hill and plain, The smoke of many a calumet Ascends to heaven again.

OCTOBER.

BEHOLD, the fleeting swallow Forsakes the frosty air; And leaves, alert to follow, Are falling everywhere, Like wounded birds, too weak A distant clime to seek.

And soon, with silent pinions, The fledglings of the North From winter's wild dominions Shall drift, aftrighted, forth, And, phantom-like, anon Pursue the phantoms gone.

FROM THE UNDERGROUND.

BEHOLD, before the wintry gale, Across the sea of Night, How many a fragrant blossom-sail Comes drifting to the light!

Whence are they? Who hath piloted Their journey from afar? The self-same miracle that led The Magi and the Star.

THE SNOWDROP.

BEHOLD, from winter's sleeping side, The sacramental power Of Nature fashioneth a bride As fair as Eden's flower.

WIND-FLOWERS.

AS whispers for a moment rest Upon the brink of sound, Here fragrant breezes blossom-drest, Half-visible are found.

AN APRIL BLOOM.

WHENCE art thou? From what chrysalis Of silence hast thou come? What thought in thee finds utterance Of dateless ages dumb — Outspeeding in the distance far The herald glances of a star As yet unseen?

Wast thou, ere thine awakening here, In other realms a-bloom? Or swathed in seamless cerements Of immemorial gloom, Till now, as Nature's pulses move, Thou blossomest, a breath of Love, Her lips between?

PEACH BLOOM.

A DREAM in fragrant silence wrought, A blossoming of petaled thought, A passion of these April days —The blush of Nature now betrays.

MIGNONETTE.

GIVE me the earth, and I might heap A mountain from the plain; Give me the waters of the deep, I might their strength restrain; But here a secret of the sod Betrays the daintier hand of God.

CLOVER.

LITTLE masters, hat in hand, Let me in your presence stand, Till your silence solve for me This your threefold mystery.

Tell me — for I long to know — How, in darkness there below, Was your fairy fabric spun, Spread and fashioned, three in one.

Did your gossips gold and blue, Sky and Sunshine, choose for you, Ere your triple forms were seen, Suited liveries of green?

Can ye — if ye dwelt indeed Captives of a prison seed — Like the Genie, once again Get you back into the grain?

Little masters, may I stand In your presence, hat in hand, Waiting till you solve for me This your threefold mystery?

IMMORTELLES.

"THEY toil not, neither do they spin" — The blossom-Thoughts that here within The garden of my soul arise; Alike unheeding wintry skies, Or sun or rain, or night or day, And never hence to pass away.

SONG OF THE MORNING-GLORIES.

WE wedded each a star, — A warrior true, That plighted faith afar In drops of dew.

But comes the cruel Dawn: The dew is dry; And we, our lovers gone, Lamenting, die.

"CONSIDER THE LILIES."

'TIS not the radiant star above That breathes for me the lore of love As doth the dewy censer sweet That Heaven enkindles at my feet.

Yea, more for me of tenderness Is uttered in the mute caress Upon these moistened petals found, Than e'er was wedded unto sound.

TO A WOOD-VIOLET.

IN this secluded shrine, O miracle of grace, No mortal eye but mine Hath looked upon thy face.

No shadow but mine own Hath screened thee from the sight Of Heaven, whose love alone Hath led me to thy light.

Whereof — as shade to shade Is wedded in the sun, — A moment's glance hath made Our souls forever one.

A LOTUS BLOOM.

WAS the dream thou wovest me, But a blossom-fantasy? When it faded from my brain, Flushed it into flower again?

When thy blossom withereth — When the fairer flower of Death Weaves its vision — shall the dream Mine or thine, returning, seem?

A RUBRIC.

THE aster puts its purple on When flowers begin to fall, To suit the solemn antiphon Of Autumn's ritual;

And deigns, unwearied, to stand In robes pontifical, Till Indian Summer leaves the land, And Winter spreads the pall.

THE SNOW BIRD.

WHEN snow, like silence visible, Hath hushed the summer bird, Thy voice, a never-frozen rill Of melody, is heard.

But when from winter's lethargy The buds begin to blow, Thy voice is mute, and suddenly Thou vanishest like snow.

TO THE WOOD-ROBIN.

THE wooing air is jubilant with song, And blossoms swell. As leaps thy liquid melody along The dusky dell, Where Silence, late supreme, foregoes her wonted spell.

Ah, whence, in sylvan solitudes remote, Hast learned the lore That breeds delight in every echoing note, The woodlands o'er; As when, through slanting sun, descends the quickening shower?

Thy hermitage is peopled with the dreams That gladden sleep; Here Fancy dallies with delirious themes Mid shadows deep, Till eyes, unused to tears, with wild emotions weep.

We rise, alas, to find our visions fled! But thine remain. Night weaves of golden harmonies the thread, And fills thy brain With joys that overflow in Love's awakening strain.

Yet thou, from mortal influence apart, Seek'st naught of praise; The empty plaudits of the emptier heart Taint not thy lays: Thy Maker's smile alone thy tuneful bosom sways.

Teach me, thou warbling eremite, to sing Thy rhapsody; Nor borne on vain ambition's vaunting wing, But led of thee, To rise from earthly dreams to hymn Eternity,

THE DEAD THRUSH.

LOVE of nest and mate and young, Woke the music of his tongue, While upon the fledgling's brain Soft it fell as scattered grain, There to blossom tone for tone Into echoes of his own.

Doth the passion wholly die When the fountainhead is dry? Nay; as vapor from the sea, Lives the dream eternally; Soon the silent clouds again Melt in rhapsodies of rain.

CHRISTMAS.

THE womb of Silence bears the Eternal Word, And yet no sound is heard; The womb of Mary, Virgin undefiled, Mothers the Heaven-born Child.

THE LAMB-CHILD.

WHEN Christ the Babe was born, Full many a little lamb Upon the wintry hills forlorn Was nestled near its dam;

And, waking or asleep, Upon His mother's breast, For love of her, each mother-sheep And baby-lamb He blessed.

THE ANGEL'S CHRISTMAS QUEST.

"WHERE have ye laid my Lord? Behold, I find Him not! Hath He, in heaven adored, His home forgot? Give me, O sons of men, My truant God again!"

"A voice from sphere to sphere —A faltering murmur — ran, 'Behold, He is not here! Perchance with Man, The lowlier made than we, He hides His majesty.'"

Then, hushed in wondering awe, The spirit held his breath, And bowed: for, lo, he saw O'ershadowing Death, A Mother's hands above, Swathing the limbs of Love!

RESTRAINT.

PAUSE while thine eyes are alien to the scene That lies before thee. Let the Fancy range, As yet she may, sole sovereign of the strange Uncharted region of that wide demesne Where Truth the tyrant never yet hath been. He, once supreme, as in a narrowed grange Thenceforth abides forever — Chance and Change Foregone his guarded barriers between. Pass not: before the all-discerning Light The angels veil their faces. To the wise The tree of Knowledge in their Eden stands Untasted, lest the Death that in it lies Prevail, the bud of Innocence to blight, And cloud the glimpse of ever-widening lands.

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS.

'TIS Christmas night! Again —But not from heaven to earth —Rings forth the old refrain "A Saviour's Birth!"

Nay, listen: 't is below! A song that soars above, From human hearts aglow With heavenly love!

ON CALVARY.

IN the shadow of the rood Love and Shame together stood; Love, that bade Him bear the blame Of her fallen sister Shame; Shame, that by the pangs thereof Bade Him break His heart for Love.

TO THE CRUCIFIX.

DAY after day the spear of morning bright Pierces again the ever-wounded side, Pointing at once the birthspring of the Light, And where for Love the Light Eternal died.

STABAT MATER.

THE star that in his splendor hid her own, At Christ's Nativity, Abides — a widowed satellite — alone, On tearful Calvary.

EASTER EVE.

LO, now His deadliest foes prevail! And where His bleeding footsteps fail, Like wolves upon a victim's trail, They gloat, in purple mockery, "Hail!"

O cloud! O regal vesture torn! O shadow on the shoulders borne! O diadem! — one starry thorn Shall blossom into Easter morn!

EASTER MORNING.

BEHOLD, the night of sorrow gone, Like Magdalen the tearful Dawn Goes forth with love's anointing sweet, To kiss again the Master's feet!

EASTER FLOWERS.

WE are His witnesses; out of the dim, Dank region of Death we have risen with Him. Back from our sepulchre rolleth the stone, And Spring, the bright Angel, sits smiling thereon.

We are His witnesses. See, where we lay The snow that late bound us is folded away; And April, fair Magdalen, weeping anon, Stands flooded with light of the new-risen Sun!

GOD.

I SEE Thee in the distant blue; But in the Violet's dell of dew, Behold, I breathe and touch Thee too.

TENEBRÆ.

WHATE'ER my darkness be, 'T is not, O Lord, of Thee: The light is Thine alone; The shadows, all my own.

DEUS ABSCONDITUS.

MY God has hid Himself from me Behind whatever else I see; Myself — the nearest mystery —As far beyond my grasp as He.

And yet, in darkest night, I know, While lives a doubt-discerning glow, That larger lights above it throw These shadows in the vale below.

GOD'S LIKENESS.

NOT in mine own, but in my neighbor's face, Must I Thine image trace:Nor he in his, but in the light of mine, Behold thy Face Divine.

MY MEDIATOR.

"NONE betwixt God and me?" "Behold, my neighbor, thee, Unto His lofty throne He makes my stepping-stone."

THE SONG OF THE MAN.

"THE woman gave, and I did eat." Whereof gave she? "'Twas of the garden fruitage sweet —A portion fair to see; She plucked and ate, and I did eat, And lost alike are we; God saith, Ye die the death!

"The woman gave, and I did eat." Whereof gave she? "'Twas of her womb a Burden sweet —But sad, alas, to see; She took and ate, and I did eat, And saved alike are we; God saith, So dieth Death!"

CHARITY.

IF but the world would give to love The crumbs that from its table fall, 'T were bounty large enough for all The famishing to feed thereof.

And Love, that still the laurel wins Of Sacrifice, would lovelier grow, And round the world a mantle throw To hide its multitude of sins.

FULFILMENT.

NO bloom forgotten! but upon each face The dews baptismal, and the selfsame sign Of Night's communion, that the fervid gaze Of Paschal Morning changes into wine.

ON SEA AND LAND.

ONE sobbing wave, above her fellows blest, His feet caressed: One homeless heart — the lone, unbidden guest —Her God confessed.

STILLING THE TEMPEST.

'TWAS all she could: — The gift that Nature gave, The torrent of her tresses — did she spill Before His feet: and lo, the troubled wave Of passion heard His whisper, "Peace, be still!"

THE POSTULANT.

IN ashes from the wasted fires of noon, Aweary of the light, Comes Evening, a tearful novice, soon To take the veil of night.

PURGATORY.

HOW long, O Lord, how longThese penal fires among? — Till love with fiercer flame The strength of torture tame.

BETTER.

BETTER for Sin to dwell from Heaven apart In foulest night, Than on its lidless eyeballs feel the dart Of torturing Light. Better to pine in floods of sulphurous fire, Than far above Behold the bliss of satisfied desire, Nor taste thereof. Yea, Love is Lord, e'en where the Powers of Pain Undying dwell: Defiled, in spotless glory to remain Were deeper hell.

LONE-LAND.

AROUND us lies a world invisible, With isles of Dreams, and many a continent Of Thought, and isthmus Fancy; where we dwell Each as a lonely wanderer intent Upon his vision; finding each his fears And hopes encompassed by the tide of Tears.