IX.

THE WOMEN WHO MINISTERED UNTO HIM.

  Enough he labours for his hire;
      Yea, nought can pay his pain;
  But powers that wear and waste and tire,
      Need help to toil again.

  They give him freely all they can,
      They give him clothes and food;
  In this rejoicing, that the man
      Is not ashamed they should.

  High love takes form in lowly thing;
      He knows the offering such;
  To them 'tis little that they bring,
      To him 'tis very much.

X.

PILATE'S WIFE.

  Why came in dreams the low-born man
      Between thee and thy rest?
  In vain thy whispered message ran,
      Though justice was its quest!

  Did some young ignorant angel dare—
      Not knowing what must be,
  Or blind with agony of care—
      To fly for help to thee?

  I know not. Rather I believe,
      Thou, nobler than thy spouse,
  His rumoured grandeur didst receive,
      And sit with pondering brows,

  Until thy maidens' gathered tale
      With possible marvel teems:
  Thou sleepest, and the prisoner pale
      Returneth in thy dreams.

  Well mightst thou suffer things not few
      For his sake all the night!
  In pale eclipse he suffers, who
      Is of the world the light.

  Precious it were to know thy dream
      Of such a one as he!
  Perhaps of him we, waking, deem
      As poor a verity.

XI.

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.

  In the hot sun, for water cool
      She walked in listless mood:
  When back she ran, her pitcher full
      Forgot behind her stood.

  Like one who followed straying sheep,
      A weary man she saw,
  Who sat upon the well so deep,
      And nothing had to draw.

  "Give me to drink," he said. Her hand
      Was ready with reply;
  From out the old well of the land
      She drew him plenteously.

  He spake as never man before;
      She stands with open ears;
  He spake of holy days in store,
      Laid bare the vanished years.

  She cannot still her throbbing heart,
      She hurries to the town,
  And cries aloud in street and mart,
      "The Lord is here: come down."

  Her life before was strange and sad,
      A very dreary sound:
  Ah, let it go—or good or bad:
      She has the Master found!

XII.

MARY MAGDALENE.

  With wandering eyes and aimless zeal,
      She hither, thither, goes;
  Her speech, her motions, all reveal
      A mind without repose.

  She climbs the hills, she haunts the sea,
      By madness tortured, driven;
  One hour's forgetfulness would be
      A gift from very heaven!

  She slumbers into new distress;
      The night is worse than day:
  Exulting in her helplessness,
      Hell's dogs yet louder bay.

  The demons blast her to and fro;
      She has no quiet place,
  Enough a woman still, to know
      A haunting dim disgrace.

  A human touch! a pang of death!
      And in a low delight
  Thou liest, waiting for new breath.
      For morning out of night.

  Thou risest up: the earth is fair,
      The wind is cool; thou art free!
  Is it a dream of hell's despair
      Dissolves in ecstasy?

  That man did touch thee! Eyes divine
      Make sunrise in thy soul;
  Thou seëst love in order shine:—
      His health hath made thee whole!

  Thou, sharing in the awful doom,
      Didst help thy Lord to die;
  Then, weeping o'er his empty tomb,
      Didst hear him Mary cry.

  He stands in haste; he cannot stop;
      Home to his God he fares:
  "Go tell my brothers I go up
      To my Father, mine and theirs."

  Run, Mary! lift thy heavenly voice;
      Cry, cry, and heed not how;
  Make all the new-risen world rejoice—
      Its first apostle thou!

  What if old tales of thee have lied,
      Or truth have told, thou art
  All-safe with him, whate'er betide—
      Dwell'st with him in God's heart!

XIII.

THE WOMAN IN THE TEMPLE.

  A still dark joy! A sudden face!
      Cold daylight, footsteps, cries!
  The temple's naked, shining space,
      Aglare with judging eyes!

  All in abandoned guilty hair,
      With terror-pallid lips,
  To vulgar scorn her honour bare,
      To lewd remarks and quips,

  Her eyes she fixes on the ground
      Her shrinking soul to hide,
  Lest, at uncurtained windows found,
      Its shame be clear descried.

  All idle hang her listless hands,
      They tingle with her shame;
  She sees not who beside her stands,
      She is so bowed with blame.

  He stoops, he writes upon the ground,
      Regards nor priests nor wife;
  An awful silence spreads around,
      And wakes an inward strife.

  Then comes a voice that speaks for thee,
      Pale woman, sore aghast:
  "Let him who from this sin is free
      At her the first stone cast!"

  Ah then her heart grew slowly sad!
      Her eyes bewildered rose;
  She saw the one true friend she had,
      Who loves her though he knows.

  He stoops. In every charnel breast
      Dead conscience rises slow:
  They, dumb before that awful guest,
      Turn, one by one, and go.

  Up in her deathlike, ashy face
      Rises the living red;
  No greater wonder sure had place
      When Lazarus left the dead!

  She is alone with him whose fear
      Made silence all around;
  False pride, false shame, they come not near,
      She has her saviour found!

  Jesus hath spoken on her side,
      Those cruel men withstood!
  From him her shame she will not hide!
      For him she will be good!

  He rose; he saw the temple bare;
      They two are left alone!
  He said unto her, "Woman, where
      Are thine accusers gone?"

  "Hath none condemned thee?" "Master, no,"
      She answers, trembling sore.
  "Neither do I condemn thee. Go,
      And sin not any more."

  She turned and went.—To hope and grieve?
      Be what she had not been?
  We are not told; but I believe
      His kindness made her clean.

  Our sins to thee us captive hale—
      Ambitions, hatreds dire;
  Cares, fears, and selfish loves that fail,
      And sink us in the mire:

  Our captive-cries with pardon meet;
      Our passion cleanse with pain;
  Lord, thou didst make these miry feet—
      Oh, wash them clean again!

XIV.

MARTHA.

  With joyful pride her heart is high:
      Her humble house doth hold
  The man her nation's prophecy
      Long ages hath foretold!

  Poor, is he? Yes, and lowly born:
      Her woman-soul is proud
  To know and hail the coming morn
      Before the eyeless crowd.

  At her poor table will he eat?
      He shall be served there
  With honour and devotion meet
      For any king that were!

  'Tis all she can; she does her part,
      Profuse in sacrifice;
  Nor dreams that in her unknown heart
      A better offering lies.

  But many crosses she must bear;
      Her plans are turned and bent;
  Do what she can, things will not wear
      The form of her intent.

  With idle hands and drooping lid,
      See Mary sit at rest!
  Shameful it was her sister did
      No service for their guest!

  Dear Martha, one day Mary's lot
      Must rule thy hands and eyes;
  Thou, all thy household cares forgot,
      Must sit as idly wise!

  But once more first she set her word
      To bar her master's ways,
  Crying, "By this he stinketh, Lord,
      He hath been dead four days!"

  Her housewife-soul her brother dear
      Would fetter where he lies!
  Ah, did her buried best then hear,
      And with the dead man rise?

XV.

MARY.

I.

  She sitteth at the Master's feet
      In motionless employ;
  Her ears, her heart, her soul complete
      Drinks in the tide of joy.

  Ah! who but she the glory knows
      Of life, pure, high, intense,
  In whose eternal silence blows
      The wind beyond the sense!

  In her still ear, God's perfect grace
      Incarnate is in voice;
  Her thoughts, the people of the place,
      Receive it, and rejoice.

  Her eyes, with heavenly reason bright,
      Are on the ground cast low;
  His words of spirit, life, and light—
      They set them shining so.

  But see! a face is at the door
      Whose eyes are not at rest;
  A voice breaks on divinest lore
      With petulant request.

  "Master," it said, "dost thou not care
      She lets me serve alone?
  Tell her to come and take her share."
      But Mary's eyes shine on.

  She lifts them with a questioning glance,
      Calmly to him who heard;
  The merest sign, she'll rise at once,
      Nor wait the uttered word.

  His "Martha, Martha!" with it bore
      A sense of coming nay;
  He told her that her trouble sore
      Was needless any day.

  And he would not have Mary chid
      For want of needless care;
  The needful thing was what she did,
      At his feet sitting there.

  Sure, joy awoke in her dear heart
      Doing the thing it would,
  When he, the holy, took her part,
      And called her choice the good!

  Oh needful thing, Oh Mary's choice,
      Go not from us away!
  Oh Jesus, with the living voice,
      Talk to us every day!

II.

  Not now the living words are poured
      Into one listening ear;
  For many guests are at the board,
      And many speak and hear.

  With sacred foot, refrained and slow,
      With daring, trembling tread,
  She comes, in worship bending low
      Behind the godlike head.

  The costly chrism, in snowy stone,
      A gracious odour sends;
  Her little hoard, by sparing grown,
      In one full act she spends.

  She breaks the box, the honoured thing!
      See how its riches pour!
  Her priestly hands anoint him king
      Whom peasant Mary bore.

* * * * *

  Not so does John the tale repeat:
      He saw, for he was there,
  Mary anoint the Master's feet,
      And wipe them with her hair.

  Perhaps she did his head anoint,
      And then his feet as well;
  And John this one forgotten point
      Loved best of all to tell.

  'Twas Judas called the splendour waste,
      'Twas Jesus said—Not so;
  Said that her love his burial graced:
      "Ye have the poor; I go."

  Her hands unwares outsped his fate,
      The truth-king's felon-doom;
  The other women were too late,
      For he had left the tomb.

XVI.

THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER.

  His face, his words, her heart awoke;
      Awoke her slumbering truth;
  She judged him well; her bonds she broke,
      And fled to him for ruth.

  With tears she washed his weary feet;
      She wiped them with her hair;
  Her kisses—call them not unmeet,
      When they were welcome there.

  What saint a richer crown could throw
      At his love-royal feet!
  Her tears, her lips, her hair, down go,
      His reign begun to greet.

  His holy manhood's perfect worth
      Owns her a woman still;
  It is impossible henceforth
      For her to stoop to ill.

  Her to herself his words restore,
      The radiance to the day;
  A horror to herself no more,
      Not yet a cast-away!

  Her hands and kisses, ointment, tears,
      Her gathered wiping hair,
  Her love, her shame, her hopes, her fears,
      Mingle in worship rare.

  Thou, Mary, too, thy hair didst spread
      To wipe the anointed feet;
  Nor didst thou only bless his head
      With precious spikenard sweet.

  But none say thou thy tears didst pour
      To wash his parched feet first;
  Of tears thou couldst not have such store
      As from this woman burst!

  If not in love she first be read,
      Her queen of sorrow greet;
  Mary, do thou anoint his head,
      And let her crown his feet.

  Simon, her kisses will not soil;
      Her tears are pure as rain;
  The hair for him she did uncoil
      Had been baptized in pain.

  Lo, God hath pardoned her so much,
      Love all her being stirs!
  His love to his poor child is such
      That it hath wakened hers!

  But oh, rejoice, ye sisters pure,
      Who scarce can know her case—
  There is no sin but has its cure,
      Its all-consuming grace!

  He did not leave her soul in hell,
      'Mong shards the silver dove;
  But raised her pure that she might tell
      Her sisters how to love!

  She gave him all your best love can!
      Despised, rejected, sad—
  Sure, never yet had mighty man
      Such homage as he had!

  Jesus, by whose forgiveness sweet,
      Her love grew so intense,
  Earth's sinners all come round thy feet:
      Lord, make no difference!

A BOOK OF SONNETS.

THE BURNT-OFFERING.

  Thrice-happy he whose heart, each new-born night,
  When old-worn day hath vanished o'er earth's brim,
  And he hath laid him down in chamber dim,
  Straightway begins to tremble and grow bright,
  And loose faint flashes toward the vaulted height
  Of the great peace that overshadoweth him:
  Keen lambent flames of hope awake and swim
  Throughout his soul, touching each point with light!
  The great earth under him an altar is,
  Upon whose top a sacrifice he lies,
  Burning in love's response up to the skies
  Whose fire descended first and kindled his:
  When slow the flickering flames at length expire,
  Sleep's ashes only hide a glowing fire.

THE UNSEEN FACE.

  "I do beseech thee, God, show me thy face."
  "Come up to me in Sinai on the morn!
  Thou shall behold as much as may be borne."
  And on a rock stood Moses, lone in space.
  From Sinai's top, the vaporous, thunderous place,
  God passed in cloud, an earthy garment worn
  To hide, and thus reveal. In love, not scorn,
  He put him in a clift of the rock's base,
  Covered him with his hand, his eyes to screen—
  Passed—lifted it: his back alone appears!
  Ah, Moses, had he turned, and hadst thou seen
  The pale face crowned with thorns, baptized with tears,
  The eyes of the true man, by men belied,
  Thou hadst beheld God's face, and straightway died!

CONCERNING JESUS.

I.

  If thou hadst been a sculptor, what a race
  Of forms divine had thenceforth filled the land!
  Methinks I see thee, glorious workman, stand,
  Striking a marble window through blind space—
  Thy face's reflex on the coming face,
  As dawns the stone to statue 'neath thy hand—
  Body obedient to its soul's command,
  Which is thy thought, informing it with grace!
  So had it been. But God, who quickeneth clay,
  Nor turneth it to marble—maketh eyes,
  Not shadowy hollows, where no sunbeams play—
  Would mould his loftiest thought in human guise:
  Thou didst appear, walking unknown abroad,
  God's living sculpture, all-informed of God.

II.

  If one should say, "Lo, there thy statue! take
  Possession, sculptor; now inherit it;
  Go forth upon the earth in likeness fit;
  As with a trumpet-cry at morning, wake
  The sleeping nations; with light's terror, shake
  The slumber from their hearts, that, where they sit,
  They leap straight up, aghast, as at a pit
  Gaping beneath;" I hear him answer make:
  "Alas for me, I cannot nor would dare
  Inform what I revered as I did trace!
  Who would be fool that he like fool might fare,
  With feeble spirit mocking the enorm
  Strength on his forehead!" Thou, God's thought thy form,
  Didst live the large significance of thy face.

III.

  Men have I seen, and seen with wonderment,
  Noble in form, "lift upward and divine,"
  In whom I yet must search, as in a mine,
  After that soul of theirs, by which they went
  Alive upon the earth. And I have bent
  Regard on many a woman, who gave sign
  God willed her beautiful, when he drew the line
  That shaped each float and fold of beauty's tent:
  Her soul, alas, chambered in pigmy space,
  Left the fair visage pitiful—inane—
  Poor signal only of a coming face
  When from the penetrale she filled the fane!—
  Possessed of thee was every form of thine,
  Thy very hair replete with the divine.

IV.

  If thou hadst built a temple, how my eye
  Had hungering fed thereon, from low-browed crypt
  Up to the soaring pinnacles that, tipt
  With stars, gave signal when the sun drew nigh!
  Dark caverns in and under; vivid sky
  Its home and aim! Say, from the glory slipt,
  And down into the shadows dropt and dipt,
  Or reared from darkness up so holy-high?—
  Thou build'st the temple of thy holy ghost
  From hid foundation to high-hidden fate—
  Foot in the grave, head at the heavenly gate,
  From grave and sky filled with a fighting host!
  Man is thy temple; man thy work elect;
  His glooms and glory thine, great architect!

V.

  If thou hadst been a painter, what fresh looks,
  What outbursts of pent glories, what new grace
  Had shone upon us from the great world's face!
  How had we read, as in eternal books,
  The love of God in loneliest shiest nooks!
  A lily, in merest lines thy hand did trace,
  Had plainly been God's child of lower race!
  And oh how strong the hills, songful the brooks!
  To thee all nature's meanings lie light-bare,
  Because thy heart is nature's inner side;
  Clear as, to us, earth on the dawn's gold tide,
  Her notion vast up in thy soul did rise;
  Thine is the world, thine all its splendours rare,
  Thou Man ideal, with the unsleeping eyes!

VI.

  But I have seen pictures the work of man,
  In which at first appeared but chaos wild:
  So high the art transcended, they beguiled
  The eye as formless, and without a plan.
  Not soon, the spirit, brooding o'er, began
  To see a purpose rise, like mountain isled,
  When God said, Let the Dry appear! and, piled
  Above the waves, it rose in twilight wan.
  So might thy pictures then have been too strange
  For us to pierce beyond their outmost look;
  A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book;
  An atmosphere too high for wings to range;
  And so we could but, gazing, pale and change,
  And tremble as at a void thought cannot brook.

VII.

  But earth is now thy living picture, where
  Thou shadowest truth, the simple and profound
  By the same form in vital union bound:
  Where one can see but the first step of thy stair,
  Another sees it vanish far in air.
  When thy king David viewed the starry round,
  From heart and fingers broke the psaltery-sound:
  Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst mind his prayer!
  But when the child beholds the heavens on high,
  He babbles childish noises—not less dear
  Than what the king sang praying—to the ear
  Of him who made the child and king and sky.
  Earth is thy picture, painter great, whose eye
  Sees with the child, sees with the kingly seer.

VIII.

  If thou hadst built some mighty instrument,
  And set thee down to utter ordered sound,
  Whose faithful billows, from thy hands unbound,
  Breaking in light, against our spirits went,
  And caught, and bore above this earthly tent,
  The far-strayed back to their prime natal ground,
  Where all roots fast in harmony are found,
  And God sits thinking out a pure consent;—
  Nay, that thou couldst not; that was not for thee!
  Our broken music thou must first restore—
  A harder task than think thine own out free;
  And till thou hast done it, no divinest score,
  Though rendered by thine own angelic choir,
  Can lift one human spirit from the mire.

IX.

  If thou hadst been a poet! On my heart
  The thought flashed sudden, burning through the weft
  Of life, and with too much I sank bereft.
  Up to my eyes the tears, with sudden start,
  Thronged blinding: then the veil would rend and part!
  The husk of vision would in twain be cleft!
  Thy hidden soul in naked beauty left,
  I should behold thee, Nature, as thou art!
  O poet Jesus! at thy holy feet
  I should have lien, sainted with listening;
  My pulses answering ever, in rhythmic beat,
  The stroke of each triumphant melody's wing,
  Creating, as it moved, my being sweet;
  My soul thy harp, thy word the quivering string.

X.

  Thee had we followed through the twilight land
  Where thought grows form, and matter is refined
  Back into thought of the eternal mind,
  Till, seeing them one, Lo, in the morn we stand!—
  Then started fresh and followed, hand in hand,
  With sense divinely growing, till, combined,
  We heard the music of the planets wind
  In harmony with billows on the strand!—
  Till, one with earth and all God's utterance,
  We hardly knew whether the sun outspake,
  Or a glad sunshine from our spirits brake—
  Whether we think, or winds and blossoms dance!
  Alas, O poet leader, for such good
  Thou wast God's tragedy, writ in tears and blood!

XI.

  Hadst thou been one of these, in many eyes,
  Too near to be a glory for thy sheen,
  Thou hadst been scorned; and to the best hadst been
  A setter forth of strange divinities;
  But to the few construct of harmonies,
  A sudden sun, uplighting the serene
  High heaven of love; and, through the cloudy screen
  That 'twixt our souls and truth all wretched lies,
  Dawning at length, hadst been a love and fear,
  Worshipped on high from Magian's mountain-crest,
  And all night long symbolled by lamp-flames clear,
  Thy sign, a star upon thy people's breast—
  Where that strange arbitrary token lies
  Which once did scare the sun in noontide skies.

XII.

  But as thou camest forth to bring the poor,
  Whose hearts are nearer faith and verity,
  Spiritual childhood, thy philosophy—
  So taught'st the A B C of heavenly lore;
  Because thou sat'st not lonely evermore,
  With mighty truths informing language high,
  But, walking in thy poem continually,
  Didst utter deeds, of all true forms the core—
  Poet and poem one indivisible fact;
  Because thou didst thine own ideal act,
  And so, for parchment, on the human soul
  Didst write thine aspirations—at thy goal
  Thou didst arrive with curses for acclaim,
  And cry to God up through a cloud of shame.

XIII.

  For three and thirty years, a living seed,
  A lonely germ, dropt on our waste world's side,
  Thy death and rising thou didst calmly bide;
  Sore companied by many a clinging weed
  Sprung from the fallow soil of evil and need;
  Hither and thither tossed, by friends denied;
  Pitied of goodness dull, and scorned of pride;
  Until at length was done the awful deed,
  And thou didst lie outworn in stony bower
  Three days asleep—oh, slumber godlike-brief
  For man of sorrows and acquaint with grief!
  Life-seed thou diedst, that Death might lose his power,
  And thou, with rooted stem and shadowy leaf,
  Rise, of humanity the crimson flower.

XIV.

  Where dim the ethereal eye, no art, though clear
  As golden star in morning's amber springs,
  Can pierce the fogs of low imaginings:
  Painting and sculpture are a mockery mere.
  Where dull to deafness is the hearing ear,
  Vain is the poet. Nought but earthly things
  Have credence. When the soaring skylark sings
  How shall the stony statue strain to hear?
  Open the deaf ear, wake the sleeping eye,
  And Lo, musicians, painters, poets—all
  Trooping instinctive, come without a call!
  As winds that where they list blow evermore;
  As waves from silent deserts roll to die
  In mighty voices on the peopled shore.

XV.

  Our ears thou openedst; mad'st our eyes to see.
  All they who work in stone or colour fair,
  Or build up temples of the quarried air,
  Which we call music, scholars are of thee.
  Henceforth in might of such, the earth shall be
  Truth's temple-theatre, where she shall wear
  All forms of revelation, all men bear
  Tapers in acolyte humility.
  O master-maker, thy exultant art
  Goes forth in making makers! Pictures? No,
  But painters, who in love and truth shall show
  Glad secrets from thy God's rejoicing heart.
  Sudden, green grass and waving corn up start
  When through dead sands thy living waters go.

XVI.

  From the beginning good and fair are one,
  But men the beauty from the truth will part,
  And, though the truth is ever beauty's heart,
  After the beauty will, short-breathed, run,
  And the indwelling truth deny and shun.
  Therefore, in cottage, synagogue, and mart,
  Thy thoughts came forth in common speech, not art;
  With voice and eye, in Jewish Babylon,
  Thou taughtest—not with pen or carved stone,
  Nor in thy hand the trembling wires didst take:
  Thou of the truth not less than all wouldst make;
  For Truth's sake even her forms thou didst disown:
  Ere, through the love of beauty, truth shall fail,
  The light behind shall burn the broidered veil!

XVII.

  Holy of holies, my bare feet draw nigh:
  Jesus, thy body is the shining veil
  By which I look on God, nor grow death-pale.
  I know that in my verses poor may lie
  Things low, for see, the thinker is not high!
  But were my song as loud as saints' all-hail,
  As pure as prophet's cry of warning wail,
  As holy as thy mother's ecstasy—
  He sings a better, who, for love or ruth,
  Into his heart a little child doth take.
  Nor thoughts nor feelings, art nor wisdom seal
  The man who at thy table bread shall break.
  Thy praise was not that thou didst know, or feel,
  Or show, or love, but that thou didst the truth.

XVIII.

  Despised! Rejected by the priest-led roar
  Of the multitude! The imperial purple flung
  About the form the hissing scourge had stung,
  Witnessing naked to the truth it bore!
  True son of father true, I thee adore.
  Even the mocking purple truthful hung
  On thy true shoulders, bleeding its folds among,
  For thou wast king, art king for evermore!
  I know the Father: he knows me the truth.
  Truth-witness, therefore the one essential king,
  With thee I die, with thee live worshipping!
  O human God, O brother, eldest born,
  Never but thee was there a man in sooth,
  Never a true crown but thy crown of thorn!

A MEMORIAL OF AFRICA.

I.

  Upon a rock I sat—a mountain-side,
  Far, far forsaken of the old sea's lip;
  A rock where ancient waters' rise and dip,
  Recoil and plunge, eddy, and oscillant tide,
  Had worn and worn, while races lived and died,
  Involved channels. Where the sea-weed's drip
  Followed the ebb, now crumbling lichens sip
  Sparse dews of heaven that down with sunset slide.
  I sat long-gazing southward. A dry flow
  Of withering wind sucked up my drooping strength,
  Itself weak from the desert's burning length.
  Behind me piled, away and up did go
  Great sweeps of savage mountains—up, away,
  Where snow gleams ever, panthers roam, they say.

II.

  This infant world has taken long to make,
  Nor hast Thou done with it, but mak'st it yet,
  And wilt be working on when death has set
  A new mound in some churchyard for my sake.
  On flow the centuries without a break;
  Uprise the mountains, ages without let;
  The lichens suck; the hard rock's breast they fret;
  Years more than past, the young earth yet will take.
  But in the dumbness of the rolling time,
  No veil of silence shall encompass me—
  Thou wilt not once forget and let me be;
  Rather wouldst thou some old chaotic prime
  Invade, and, moved by tenderness sublime,
  Unfold a world, that I, thy child, might see.

A. M. D.

  Methinks I see thee, lying straight and low,
  Silent and darkling, in thy earthy bed,
  The mighty strength in which I trusted, fled,
  The long arms lying careless of kiss or blow;
  On thy tall form I see the night-robe flow
  Down from the pale, composed face—thy head
  Crowned with its own dark curls: though thou wast dead,
  They dressed thee as for sleep, and left thee so!
  My heart, with cares and questionings oppressed,
  Not oft since thou didst leave us turns to thee;
  But wait, my brother, till I too am dead,
  And thou shalt find that heart more true, more free,
  More ready in thy love to take its rest,
  Than when we lay together in one bed.

TO GARIBALDI—WITH A BOOK.

  When at Philippi, he who would have freed
  Great Rome from tyrants, for the season brief
  That lay 'twixt him and battle, sought relief
  From painful thoughts, he in a book did read,
  That so the death of Portia might not breed
  Unmanful thoughts, and cloud his mind with grief:
  Brother of Brutus, of high hearts the chief,
  When thou at length receiv'st thy heavenly meed,
  And I have found my hoping not in vain,
  Tell me my book has wiled away one pang
  That out of some lone sacred memory sprang,
  Or wrought an hour's forgetfulness of pain,
  And I shall rise, my heart brimful of gain,
  And thank my God amid the golden clang.

TO S. F. S.

  They say that lonely sorrows do not chance:
  More gently, I think, sorrows together go;
  A new one joins the funeral gliding slow
  With less of jar than when it breaks the dance.
  Grief swages grief, and joy doth joy enhance;
  Nature is generous to her children so.
  And were they quick to spy the flowers that blow,
  As quick to feel the sharp-edged stones that lance
  The foot that must walk naked in life's way,—
  Blest by the roadside lily, free from fear,
  Oftener than hurt by dash of flinty spear,
  They would walk upright, bold, and earnest-gay;
  And when the soft night closed the weary day,
  Would sleep like those that far-off music hear.

RUSSELL GURNEY.

  In that high country whither thou art gone,
  Right noble friend, thou walkest with thy peers,
  The gathered great of many a hundred years!
  Few are left like thee—few, I say, not none,
  Else were thy England soon a Babylon,
  A land of outcry, mockery, and tears!
  Higher than law, a refuge from its fears,
  Wast thou, in whom embodied Justice shone.
  The smile that gracious broke on thy grand face
  Was like the sunrise of a morn serene
  Among the mountains, making sweet their awe.
  Thou both the gentle and the strong didst draw;
  Thee childhood loved, and on thy breast would lean,
  As, whence thou cam'st, it knew the lofty place.

TO ONE THREATENED WITH BLINDNESS.

I.

  Lawrence, what though the world be growing dark,
  And twilight cool thy potent day inclose!
  The sun, beneath the round earth sunk, still glows
  All the night through, sleepless and young and stark.
  Oh, be thy spirit faithful as the lark,
  More daring: in the midnight of thy woes,
  Dart through them, higher than earth's shadow goes,
  Into the Light of which thou art a spark!
  Be willing to be blind—that, in thy night,
  The Lord may bring his Father to thy door,
  And enter in, and feast thy soul with light.
  Then shall thou dream of darksome ways no more,
  Forget the gloom that round thy windows lies,
  And shine, God's house, all radiant in our eyes.

II.

  Say thou, his will be done who is the good!
  His will be borne who knoweth how to bear!
  Who also in the night had need of prayer,
  Both when awoke divinely longing mood,
  And when the power of darkness him withstood.
  For what is coming take no jot of care:
  Behind, before, around thee as the air,
  He o'er thee like thy mother's heart will brood.
  And when thou hast wearied thy wings of prayer,
  Then fold them, and drop gently to thy nest,
  Which is thy faith; and make thy people blest
  With what thou bring'st from that ethereal height,
  Which whoso looks on thee will straightway share:
  He needs no eyes who is a shining light!

TO AUBREY DE VERE.

  Ray of the Dawn of Truth, Aubrey de Vere,
  Forgive my play fantastic with thy name,
  Distilling its true essence by the flame
  Which Love 'neath Fancy's limbeck lighteth clear.
  I know not what thy semblance, what thy cheer;
  If, as thy spirit, hale thy bodily frame,
  Or furthering by failure each high aim;
  If green thy leaf, or, like mine, growing sear;
  But this I think, that thou wilt, by and by—
  Two journeys stoutly, therefore safely trod—
  We laying down the staff, and He the rod—
  So look on me I shall not need to cry—
  "We must be brothers, Aubrey, thou and I:
  We mean the same thing—will the will of God!"

GENERAL GORDON.

I.

  Victorious through failure! faithful Lord,
  Who for twelve angel legions wouldst not pray
  From thine own country of eternal day,
  To shield thee from the lanterned traitor horde,
  Making thy one rash servant sheathe his sword!—
  Our long retarded legions, on their way,
  Toiling through sands, and shouldering Nile's down-sway,
  To reach thy soldier, keeping at thy word,
  Thou sawest foiled—but glorifiedst him,
  Over ten cities giving him thy rule!
  We will not mourn a star that grew not dim,
  A soldier-child of God gone home from school!
  A dregless cup, with life brimmed, he did quaff,
  And quaffs it now with Christ's imperial staff!

II.

  Another to the witnesses' roll-call
  Hath answered, "Here I am!" and so stept out—
  With willingness crowned everywhere about,
  Not the head only, but the body all,
  In one great nimbus of obedient fall,
  His heart's blood dashing in the face of doubt—
  Love's last victorious stand amid the rout!
  —Silence is left, and the untasted gall.
  No chariot with ramping steeds of fire
  The Father sent to fetch his man-child home;
  His brother only called, "My Gordon, come!"
  And like a dove to heaven he did aspire,
  His one wing Death, his other, Heart's-desire.
  —Farewell a while! we climb where thou hast clomb!

THE CHRYSALIS.

  Methought I floated sightless, nor did know
  That I had ears until I heard the cry
  As of a mighty man in agony:
  "How long, Lord, shall I lie thus foul and slow?
  The arrows of thy lightning through me go,
  And sting and torture me—yet here I lie
  A shapeless mass that scarce can mould a sigh!"
  The darkness thinned; I saw a thing below
  Like sheeted corpse, a knot at head and feet.
  Slow clomb the sun the mountains of the dead,
  And looked upon the world: the silence broke!
  A blinding struggle! then the thunderous beat
  Of great exulting pinions stroke on stroke!
  And from that world a mighty angel fled.