“GOOD-NIGHT, Beloved,” I softly cry
Across the chill immensity,
The unmeasurable star-hung space
Which hides the smiling of thy face.
The echoless air is all unstirred,
But yet I feel that thou hast heard,
Somehow, somewhere, the old-time word,
And smiled, perhaps, that I should say
“Good-night,” when all with thee is Day.
“Good-night, Beloved,”—for near and far
And separate and together are
But mortal phrases, little worth
Except in the dull speech of earth,
The ignorant speech which doubts and fears.
God is the sun of all the spheres,
The source and centre of our years.
Our little lives, so brief, so dim,
Are only lit when lit by him.
His ear can catch the lightest call
Who heedeth even the sparrow’s fall;
As clear to him the sobbing prayer
Of grief, as heavenly praises are
When angels veil their eyes and bow.
Through him I reach to thee, and thou
Through him art nearer to me now
Than in the days of lost delight
When each to each could say, “Good-night.”
Oh, comfort of the sorrowing heart!
Where’er I am, where’er thou art,
Linked in this heavenly unison
We still are near, we still are one!
God is our meeting-place and goal,
The safe, sure shelter of the soul.
Let the wide heavens between us roll;
Still fearlessly, though out of sight,
I still may say, “Beloved, good-night.”
A SPRING PARABLE
TILL yesterday one tree was brown,—
One only, mid the green of spring;
Wearing her dead leaves like a crown
She stood, and seemed to gloom and frown
On every glad rejoicing thing,
Till yesterday! When, touched at last,
The slow buds quickened and uncurled,
And the poor tree forgave her past,
And learned to hope, and thick and fast
Showered her dry leaves on the world.
Swift sudden hope replaced despair;
The brown leaves dropped, the green leaves grew,
And clothed upon, and fresh and fair,
The happy boughs swung all in air,
And drank the sunshine and the dew.
Souls have their dead leaves, sere and dry,
Dead hopes, dead visions, dead delight,
Relics of gladder days gone by,
Worthless to every human eye;
But yet we clasp the poor things tight,
And feel that life were bare indeed
If we should lose them, or let fall,
And all the old-time hurts would bleed,
And we unwrapped from sorrowing weed
Like mourners dragged to carnival.
Then in a moment suddenly
God’s blessed sunshine, all unguessed,
Reaches and heals our hearts, and we,
Tasting its sweetness, know that he
Bids us be happy with the rest.
“THY RIGHTEOUSNESS IS LIKE THE STRONG MOUNTAINS”
STRONG are the mountains, Lord, but stronger thou!
They rise, a bulwark to the guarded land,
Which foes pass not, nor traitors undermine;
For children’s children’s safety they shall stand;
And so, O Lord, thou standest unto thine,
A mighty guardian, a defence divine.
Strong are the mountains, Lord, but stronger thou!
Where beats the tempest on the hither side,
Beneath their shelter blooms the vine and rose;
So do thy chosen ones in thee abide,
Nor fear the storm-wind though it wildly blows,
All undisturbed in their secure repose.
Strong are the mountains, Lord, but stronger thou!
Their far, fair snowy summits fountains are,
Whence fertilizing streams begin their race;
So, from thy might of mercy stream afar
The over-brimming rivers of thy grace,
Gladdening the wilderness and desert place.
Strong are the mountains, Lord, but stronger thou!
Immutable they stand from age to age
Though the world rock and empires shift and pale;
So, though the people war and heathen rage,
The safety of thy promise shall prevail,
Nor ever once thy love and goodness fail.
LIVING OR DEAD
THEY are not dead to us, who keep
Their long, unvexed, reposeful sleep
’Neath grassy coverlets, flower-bespread:
For love abides though graves are deep,
And those who love are never dead.
They are not dead while heart to heart
Still hold communion though apart,
The visible with the unseen,
And faith and longing know the art
Of bridging the wide space between.
They are not dead who, folded fair
In the kind Shepherd’s steadfast care,
Await our coming in sure faith,
When we shall see them as they are,
Made yet more beautiful by death.
But they are dead whose love has grown
To be the ghost of love alone,
Who meet us with averted eyes,
And air constrained and altered tone,
And chill and alien courtesies.
They move, they accost us, and they seem
Like creatures of some weary dream;
So dead, so lost, so all-estranged,
The fire which cheered us with its gleam
Into the veriest ashes changed.
While if our dear and living dead,
With soft, still smiles and noiseless tread,
Should come, some day, to the old place,
There would not be a thought of dread
In their first rapture of embrace!
Oh, strangely blended joy and pain!
Death turned to naught, and life made vain,
Love’s shade and substance still at strife,
Who shall decide between the twain,
Or which is death, and which is life?
A MORNING SONG
AWAKE, awake, dull heart, and sing
The praises of thy Lord and King,
Who gives the new day and the sun,
Hope, health, and every pleasant thing.
He scatters all the shades of night,
Out of the darkness builds the light,
And on man’s ignorance and wrong
Founds his eternal law of right.
If he one hour withdrew his care
The Earth would stagger in blind air,
And laughter would give place to wail,
And hope to horror, everywhere.
Angels and saints, the white-robed choir,
Praise God all day, and never tire,
And weaker voices from below
May join and swell the chorus higher.
For praise is privilege there as here,
And each in his own place and sphere,
Angel or man, or high or low,
May take his share and count it dear.
Then wake, my heart, remembering this,
That truest praise true service is,
And take thy new day from God’s hands,
And work therein for him and his.
THE STONE OF THE SEPULCHRE
“HOW shall the stone be rolled away?”
Thus questioned they, the women three,
Who at dim dawn went forth to see
The sealed and closely guarded cell
Where slept the Lord they loved so well.
First of all Easter sacrifice,
The linen and the burial spice,
They carried, as with anxious speech
They sadly questioned, each to each:
Still, as they near and nearer drew
The puzzle and the terror grew,
And none had word of cheer to say;
But lo, the stone was rolled away!
“How shall the stone be rolled away?”
So, like the Marys, question we,
As looking on we dimly see
Some mighty barrier raise its head
To bar the path we needs must tread.
Our little strength seems weakness made,
Our hearts are faint and sore afraid;
Drooping we journey on alone.
We only mark the heavy stone,
We do not see the helping Love
Which moves before us as we move,
Which chides our faithless, vain dismay,
And rolls for us the stone away!
“How shall the stone be rolled away?”
Ah, many a heart, with terrors pent,
Has breathed the question as it went,
With faltering feet and failing breath,
In the chill company of death,
Adown the narrow path and straight,
Which all must traverse soon or late,
And nearing thus the dreaded tomb,
Just in the thickest, deepest gloom,
Has heard the stir of angel wings,
Dear voices, sweetest welcomings,
And, as on that first Easter day,
Has found the dread stone rolled away!
TOO LITTLE AND TOO MUCH
SOME pine with wistful hunger all their years,
Watering their scanty crumb of joy with tears;
And some there are who, feasting long lives through,
Frighted at over-happiness, weep too.
The sense of undesert, a constant sting,
Pierces and stabs through every pleasant thing,
They shrink before the cup filled to the brim,
Lest through God’s very gift they forfeit him.
Ah! dear hearts, heavy with this nobler woe,
This pain divine, which even saints may know,
There is this thought to balm and still your pain:
“God gives to us that we may give again.”
“I am unworthy!” do you, trembling, say?
Strive to be worthier, then, and day by day
Heap corn and wine, and stand with open door,—
A granary of heaven to feed the poor.
Put of your sweet into each bitterer cup;
Halve every loaf, that some one else may sup,—
Till in the crumbs and fragments of your good
The miracle of old shall seem renewed.
And so, all fearless of the gift of heaven,
Give gladly out that which to you is given,
Sure that to be God’s cup-bearer is meant
For privilege, and not for punishment.
THE MESSENGER WITH THE BOW-STRING
INTO the banquet-hall of all delights
Grimly he forced his way,
Amid the perfumes and the fairy lights,
And trickling fountain-spray,
Where mandolins were sounding low and sweet,
And on the marble tiles
Twinkled and shone the dancers’ slender feet,
And all was joy and smiles.
One dark blot on the joyous life and stir,
There stood he, fierce and still,
Holding his token out as messenger
Of the stern Caliph’s will—
A loosened bow-string from the bow untied.
Laughter was changed to wail,
And all the happy song in silence died
On lips grown mute and pale.
Death’s sudden summons! Still the flowers fair
Proffered their cups of bloom;
Still rose the mazy fountain in the air,
Scattering its soft perfume;
But in one moment, though these bright things stayed,
Death’s shape, all grimly gray,
Entered the hall with soundless step and laid
A shadow on the day.
Into our summer palace of delight,
Flower-hung and fairy-fanned,
Entered the ghastly messenger last night,
The bow-string in his hand.
Amid the fulness of full life he stood,
A spectral form to see,
And held the signal out with gesture rude
And beckoned silently.
Still smile the late pink roses on their stem,
And heliotropes, thick set,
Woo every passing hand to gather them;
The brown, sweet mignonette
Still spreads a fragrant carpet, and the gay
Nasturtiums flaunt and soar,
Making a mimic sunshine on the gray;
But death is at the door!
O messenger! have patience for a space.
Summer is fresh and strong;
Never so beautiful her radiant face,
Never so sweet her song.
Wait but a little, till our shivering souls
Are strong to bear. He stands
Speechless, unheedful, answers not, and holds
The bow-string in his hands.
RELEASED
ONLY a few short weeks ago,
All icy bound and packed with snow,
This rocky cleft, through which to-day
Runs the glad brooklet on its way;
The merry brook which leaps and flows,
Flashing and singing as it goes,
To find and join and make a part
Of the great river’s urgent heart.
Could it have dreamed so sweet a thing
In all those months of prisoning?
O happy brook! made glad, made free,
Shall you not find at last the sea?
Only a few short months ago,
A harder frost, a deeper snow,
Lay on my soul and held it tight
Away from hope, away from light.
Now God’s sweet sun has entered in
And melted all the chains of sin,
And led by his dear hand to-day
My soul goes singing on its way,
To link its little thread of good
With the vast, over-brimming flood!
O happy soul! made glad, made free,
Shalt thou not find at last thy sea?
A PARADISE SONG
THE day was hot, the way was long, the feet were tired, so tired;
The goal is won toward which we strove, the goal so long desired,
The eyes which sought the distant hope through wavering mists of care,
See it at last, oh close, so close in Paradise the Fair.
The black, black night through which we groped is turned to radiant day,
The doubt to certainty more glad than song or speech can say;
The baffling winds which buffeted beyond our strength to bear,
Blew us along the blessed way to Paradise the Fair.
We doubted and we fainted, and we seemed to miss the road
As, stumbling on and painfully, we toiled beneath our load;
And the uphill left us breathless, and the tempest stripped us bare;—
What matter, since they bore us up to Paradise the Fair?
We who were lonely once and found the silence very sore,
Companioned round by our beloved are lonely never more;
The puzzles all are now explained, and the griefs which grieved us there
Are proved to be the Lord’s sure path to Paradise the Fair.
LITTLE BY LITTLE
HOW does the Spring come? With many mischances.
Now the frost pricketh sore, then the sun glances;
Now the rain beateth down, then the snow falleth,
Nothing the cheery, brave Springtime appalleth.
Bravely she smiles through the somber chill weather,
Smiles on the blight and the promise together;
And at the end of the long suffering
All the world over is ruled by the Spring.
How does the tide come? Not all in one rising,
Daunting the land and the heavens surprising;
Here a wave, there a wave, rising and falling,
Billow to billow still beckoning and calling,
Heaving, receding, now farther, now nigher,
Now it is lower, and now it is higher;
Now it seems spent and tired; then, with insistence,
Gaily and strongly it comes from the distance;
Till, at the end of the plunge and the roar,
It is full tide, and the sea rules the shore.
How does the soul grow? Not all in a minute:
Now it may lose ground, and now it may win it;
Now it resolves, and again the will faileth;
Now it rejoiceth, and now it bewaileth;
Now its hopes fructify, then they are blighted;
Now it walks sunnily, now gropes benighted;
Fed by discouragements, taught by disaster,
So it goes forward, now slower, now faster,
Till, all the pain past, and failures made whole,
It is full grown, and the Lord rules the soul.
TWO YEARS
THE Old Year knew him, but the New knows not,
And all our joy and welcome for the New
Is clouded by the thought, which, like a blot
Stains and obscures the gladness through and through.
Old Year, which barely touched him as he passed,
This grace abides with thee now thou art dead,
Of Time’s brief vanished heirs thou wert the last
To lay a blessing on his honored head.
We saw thee greet him with mysterious smile,
We did not mark how sad the smile and strange,
But deemed all well, then in a little while
The skies grew dark with swift tempestuous change.
Led by thy hand he vanished from our eyes,
And thou fulfilled thy date day after day,
And still to grief and question and surmise
Made never answer, keeping on thy way.
But still we love thee, for thou wert the last
To see the face which we no longer see,
And all the grace and glory of his past
Completes and ends and culminates in thee.
The New Year’s hands with good gifts may be full,
The New Year’s heart with love and peace may brim,
He cannot be to us as beautiful
As the old years which caught their best from him.
TEMPERED
WHEN stern occasion calls for war,
And the trumpets shrill and peal,
Forges and armories ring all day
With the fierce clash of steel.
The blades are heated in the flame,
And cooled in icy flood,
And beaten hard, and beaten well,
To make them firm and pliable,
Their edge and temper good;
Then tough and sharp with discipline,
They win the fight for fighting men.
When God’s occasions call for men,
His chosen souls he takes,
In life’s hot fire he tempers them,
With tears he cools and slakes;
With many a heavy, grievous stroke
He beats them to an edge,
And tests and tries, again, again,
Till the hard will is fused, and pain
Becomes high privilege;
Then strong, and quickened through and through,
They ready are his work to do.
Like an on-rushing, furious host
The tide of need and sin,
Unless the blades shall tempered be,
They have no chance to win;
God trusts to no untested sword
When he goes forth to war;
Only the souls that, beaten long
On pain’s great anvil, have grown strong,
His chosen weapons are.
Ah souls, on pain’s great anvil laid,
Remember this, nor be afraid!
VIRGINIA
DEAR eyes, so full of kindness for us all,
Of sympathy’s sweet cheer, of glinting fun,
Of tenderness for creatures weak and small,
And welcomes never failing any one:—
Dear busy hands, to which all work seemed play,
Defeat impossible, and taste a dower,
Making the common things of every day
Unfold to beauty like an opening flower;
Dear heart, whose every beat until the end
Was quick and ardent with affection’s thrill;
Whose ample chambers sheltered many a friend,
And opened at a touch for others still,—
The world seems colder than it used to be
Since those sweet hands were folded on her breast,
Since the eyes closed in death’s deep mystery
And that great loving heart was stilled to rest.
But like a star she hovers through our tears,
And the Eternal world, so dim, so fair,
Which holds the secret of our mortal years,
Nearer and friendlier seems now she is there.
LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS
Discouragement is an act of unbelief.—Henri Amiel.
THE spent nerve and the lowered pulse,
The sluggish current of the blood
Which feels no glad abounding flow,
No bound or joyousness, but slow,
And, as it were, reluctantly,
Fills the dull veins,—all these may be
Reasons why life should not seem good.
Happiness is an easy thing
When summer airs fan summer skies,
And birds in all the branches sing;
Or in the budding days of spring,
When life springs up renewed and fair,
And joy is in the very air,
And laughter readier is than sighs.
But in the ebb-times of the soul,
When Hope’s bright tide has turned and fled,
Leaving bare sands and thirsting shells,
When dried are the sweet water-wells,
And leaden moments, slow with pain,
Pass, and the wave turns not again,
And life seems all uncomforted,—
Then is the time of test, when Faith
Cries to the heart which inly fails:
“Courage! nor let thy forces dim.
Although He slay thee, trust in Him
Who giveth good and tempereth ill,
And never fails, and never will,
To be the refuge of his saints.
“To yield to grief without a blow
Is to doubt God: with him for guide,
The pleasant pathway, and no less
The hot and thorn-set wilderness,
Alike are roads to heaven, and He,
Even where thou waitest beside the sea,
Can with a word recall the tide.”
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Transcriber’s Notes:
Page 66, “murmer” changed to “murmur” (it,—a murmur of slow)
Page 122, “muscian” changed to “musician” (sweet musician, Spring)