BY THE FIRESIDE
RESIGNATION
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!
And mournings for the dead;
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!
Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.
In those bright realms of air;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.
The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.
For when with raptures wild
In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;
Clothed with celestial grace;
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.
And anguish long suppressed,
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,—
We may not wholly stay;
By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way.
THE BUILDERS
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.
SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR-GLASS
Of Arab deserts brought,
Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,
The minister of Thought.
About those deserts blown!
How many strange vicissitudes has seen,
How many histories known!
Trampled and passed it o'er,
When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight
His favorite son they bore.
Crushed it beneath their tread;
Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air
Scattered it as they sped;
Held close in her caress,
Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith
Illumed the wilderness;
Pacing the Dead Sea beach,
And singing slow their old Armenian psalms
In half-articulate speech;
With westward steps depart;
Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate,
And resolute in heart!
Now in this crystal tower
Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,
It counts the passing hour,
Before my dreamy eye
Stretches the desert with its shifting sand,
Its unimpeded sky.
This little golden thread
Dilates into a column high and vast,
A form of fear and dread.
Across the boundless plain,
The column and its broader shadow run,
Till thought pursues in vain.
Shut out the lurid sun,
Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain;
The half-hour's sand is run!
THE OPEN WINDOW
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravelled pathway
The light and shadow played.
Wide open to the air;
But the faces of the children,
They were no longer there.
Was standing by the door;
He looked for his little playmates,
Who would return no more.
They played not in the hall;
But shadow, and silence, and sadness
Were hanging over all.
With sweet, familiar tone;
But the voices of the children
Will be heard in dreams alone!
He could not understand
Why closer in mine, ah! closer,
I pressed his warm, soft hand!
KING WITLAF'S DRINKING-HORN
Ere yet his last he breathed,
To the merry monks of Croyland
His drinking-horn bequeathed,—
And drank from the golden bowl,
They might remember the donor,
And breathe a prayer for his soul.
And bade the goblet pass;
In their beards the red wine glistened
Like dew-drops in the grass.
They drank to Christ the Lord,
And to each of the Twelve Apostles,
Who had preached his holy word.
Of the dismal days of yore,
And as soon as the horn was empty
They remembered one Saint more.
Like the murmur of many bees,
The legend of good Saint Guthlac,
And Saint Basil's homilies;
From their prison in the tower,
Guthlac and Bartholomaeus,
Proclaimed the midnight hour.
And the Abbot bowed his head,
And the flamelets flapped and flickered,
But the Abbot was stark and dead.
He clutched the golden bowl,
In which, like a pearl dissolving,
Had sunk and dissolved his soul.
The jovial monks forbore,
For they cried, "Fill high the goblet!
We must drink to one Saint more!"
GASPAR BECERRA
Pondered o'er his secret shame;
Baffled, weary, and disheartened,
Still he mused, and dreamed of fame.
That had tasked his utmost skill;
But, alas! his fair ideal
Vanished and escaped him still.
Had the precious wood been brought
Day and night the anxious master
At his toil untiring wrought;
Sat he now in shadows deep,
And the day's humiliation
Found oblivion in sleep.
From the burning brand of oak
Shape the thought that stirs within thee!"
And the startled artist woke,—
Seized and quenched the glowing wood;
And therefrom he carved an image,
And he saw that it was good.
Take this lesson to thy heart:
That is best which lieth nearest;
Shape from that thy work of art.
PEGASUS IN POUND
Without haste and without heed,
In the golden prime of morning,
Strayed the poet's winged steed.
Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves,
And, like living coals, the apples
Burned among the withering leaves.
From its belfry gaunt and grim;
'T was the daily call to labor,
Not a triumph meant for him.
In its gleaming vapor veiled;
Not the less he breathed the odors
That the dying leaves exhaled.
By the school-boys he was found;
And the wise men, in their wisdom,
Put him straightway into pound.
Ringing loud his brazen bell,
Wandered down the street proclaiming
There was an estray to sell.
Rich and poor, and young and old,
Came in haste to see this wondrous
Winged steed, with mane of gold.
Fell, with vapors cold and dim;
But it brought no food nor shelter,
Brought no straw nor stall, for him.
Looked he through the wooden bars,
Saw the moon rise o'er the landscape,
Saw the tranquil, patient stars;
Sounded from its dark abode,
And, from out a neighboring farm-yard
Loud the cock Alectryon crowed.
Breaking from his iron chain,
And unfolding far his pinions,
To those stars he soared again.
Woke to all its toil and care,
Lo! the strange steed had departed,
And they knew not when nor where.
Where his straggling hoofs had trod,
Pure and bright, a fountain flowing
From the hoof-marks in the sod.
Gladdens the whole region round,
Strengthening all who drink its waters,
While it soothes them with its sound.
TEGNÉR'S DRAPA
I heard a voice, that cried, "Balder the Beautiful Is dead, is dead!" And through the misty air Passed like the mournful cry Of sunward sailing cranes.
I saw the pallid corpse Of the dead sun Borne through the Northern sky. Blasts from Niffelheim Lifted the sheeted mists Around him as he passed.
And the voice forever cried, "Balder the Beautiful Is dead, is dead!" And died away Through the dreary night, In accents of despair.
Balder the Beautiful, God of the summer sun, Fairest of all the Gods! Light from his forehead beamed, Runes were upon his tongue, As on the warrior's sword.
All things in earth and air Bound were by magic spell Never to do him harm; Even the plants and stones; All save the mistletoe, The sacred mistletoe!
Hoeder, the blind old God, Whose feet are shod with silence, Pierced through that gentle breast With his sharp spear, by fraud Made of the mistletoe, The accursed mistletoe!
They laid him in his ship, With horse and harness, As on a funeral pyre. Odin placed A ring upon his finger, And whispered in his ear.
They launched the burning ship! It floated far away Over the misty sea, Till like the sun it seemed, Sinking beneath the waves. Balder returned no more!
So perish the old Gods! But out of the sea of Time Rises a new land of song, Fairer than the old. Over its meadows green Walk the young bards and sing.
Build it again, O ye bards, Fairer than before! Ye fathers of the new race, Feed upon morning dew, Sing the new Song of Love!
The law of force is dead! The law of love prevails! Thor, the thunderer, Shall rule the earth no more, No more, with threats, Challenge the meek Christ.
Sing no more, O ye bards of the North, Of Vikings and of Jarls! Of the days of Eld Preserve the freedom only, Not the deeds of blood!
SONNET
ON MRS. KEMBLE'S READINGS FROM SHAKESPEARE
Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages
Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,
And giving tongues unto the silent dead!
How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read,
Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages
Of the great poet who foreruns the ages,
Anticipating all that shall be said!
O happy Reader! having for thy text
The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have caught
The rarest essence of all human thought!
O happy Poet! by no critic vext!
How must thy listening spirit now rejoice
To be interpreted by such a voice!
THE SINGERS
God sent his Singers upon earth With songs of sadness and of mirth, That they might touch the hearts of men, And bring them back to heaven again.
The first, a youth, with soul of fire, Held in his hand a golden lyre; Through groves he wandered, and by streams, Playing the music of our dreams.
The second, with a bearded face, Stood singing in the market-place, And stirred with accents deep and loud The hearts of all the listening crowd.
A gray old man, the third and last, Sang in cathedrals dim and vast, While the majestic organ rolled Contrition from its mouths of gold.
And those who heard the Singers three Disputed which the best might be; For still their music seemed to start Discordant echoes in each heart,
But the great Master said, "I see No best in kind, but in degree; I gave a various gift to each, To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.
"These are the three great chords of might, And he whose ear is tuned aright Will hear no discord in the three, But the most perfect harmony."
SUSPIRIA
Whatever thou canst call thine own!
Thine image, stamped upon this clay,
Doth give thee that, but that alone!
Folded upon thy narrow shelves,
As garments by the soul laid by,
And precious only to ourselves!
Our little life is but a gust
That bends the branches of thy tree,
And trails its blossoms in the dust!
HYMN
FOR MY BROTHER'S ORDINATION
If thou wouldst perfect be,
Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor,
And come and follow me!"
Those sacred words hath said,
And his invisible hands to-day have been
Laid on a young man's head.
The unseen Christ shall move,
That he may lean upon his arm and say,
"Dost thou, dear Lord, approve?"
To make the scene more fair;
Beside him in the dark Gethsemane
Of pain and midnight prayer.
Like the beloved John
To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast,
And thus to journey on!