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Title: A selection from the verses of John B. Tabb, made by Alice Meynell

Author: John B. Tabb

Compiler: Alice Meynell

Release date: October 26, 2026 [eBook #79865]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1907

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79865

Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SELECTION FROM THE VERSES OF JOHN B. TABB, MADE BY ALICE MEYNELL ***

A SELECTION FROM

POEMS, LYRICS
CHILD VERSE
LATER LYRICS

A SELECTION FROM THE VERSES OF JOHN B. TABB

Made by ALICE MEYNELL

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY BOSTON 1907

To

ALICE MEYNELL

the Maker of this
Selection
With the Author’s very grateful
Acknowledgment of her
Kindness

THE CONTENTS

THE PLAYMATES

Who are thy playmates, boy?

“My favourite is Joy,

Who brings with him his sister, Peace, to stay

The livelong day.

I love them both; but he

Is most to me.”

And where thy playmates now,

O man of sober brow?

“Alas! dear Joy, the merriest, is dead.

But I have wed

Peace; and our babe, a boy

New-born, is Joy.”

MY CAPTIVE

I brought a Blossom home with me

Beneath my roof to stay;

But timorous and frail was she,

And died before the day:

She missed the measureless expanse

Of heaven, and heaven her countenance.

THE REAPER

Tell me whither, maiden June,

Down the dusky slope of noon,

With thy sickle of a moon,

Goest thou to reap.

“Fields of Fancy by the stream

Of night in silvery silence gleam,

To heap with many a harvest-dream

The granary of Sleep.”

INFLUENCE

He cannot as he came depart—

The wind that woos the rose;

Her fragrance whispers in his heart

Wherever hence he goes.

WAYFARERS

O comrade Sun, that day by day

Dost weave a shadow on my way,

Lest, in the luxury of light,

My soul forget the neighbouring night:

Wilt thou whene’er, my journey done,

Thou wanderest our path upon,

Bear in thy beams a memory

Of one who walked the world with thee,

Or mourn, amid the lavishness

Of Life, one hovering shade the less?

TO THE SPHINX

Ah, not alone in Egypt’s desert land

Thy dwelling-place apart!

But wheresoe’er the scorching passion-sand

Hath seared the human heart.

LOVE’S AUTOGRAPH

Once only did he pass my way.

“When wilt thou come again?

Ah, leave some token of thy stay!”

He wrote (and vanished), “Pain.”

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.

OUR FIRST-BORN

It died so young! and yet

Of all that vanished hence,

Is none to lingering Regret

So lost as Innocence.

For wheresoe’er we go,

Whatever else remain,

That Favourite of Heaven we know

We shall not find again.

TO SILENCE

Why the warning finger-tip

Pressed for ever on my lip?

To remind the pilgrim Sound

That it moves on holy ground,

In a breathing-space to be

Hushed for all eternity.

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.

THE EXPECTED OF NATIONS

While Shepherd Stars their nightly vigils keep

Above the clouds of sleep,

Long prophesied, behold the man-child, Morn,

Again is born.

AT THE YEAR’S END

Night dreams of day, and winter seems

In sleep to breathe the balm of May.

Their dreams are true anon; but they,

The dreamers, then, alas, are dreams.

Thus, while our days the dreams renew

Of some forgotten sleeper, we,

The dreamers of futurity,

Shall vanish when our own are true.

KILLDEE

Killdee! Killdee! far o’er the lea

At twilight comes the cry,

Killdee! a marsh-mate answereth

Across the shallow sky.

Killdee! Killdee! thrills over me

A rhapsody of light,

As star to star gives utterance

Between the day and night.

Killdee! Killdee! O Memory,

The twin birds, Joy and Pain,

Like shadows parted by the sun,

At twilight meet again!

THE WHIP-POOR-WILL

From yonder wooded hill

I hear the Whip-poor-will,

Whose mate or wandering echo answers him

Athwart the lowlands dim.

He calls not through the day;

But when the shadows gray

Across the sunset draw their lengthening veil,

He tells his twilight tale.

What unforgotten wrong

Haunts the ill-omened song?

What scourge of Fate has left its loathèd mark

Upon the cringing dark?

“Whip! Whip-poor-will!”

O sobbing voice, be still!

Tell not again, O melancholy bird,

The legend thou hast heard!

STAR-JESSAMINE

Discerning Star from Sister Star,

We give to each its name;

But ye, O countless Blossoms, are

In fragrance and in flame

So like, that He from whom ye came

Alone discerneth each by name.

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?

TO THE VIOLET

Sweet violet, who knows

From whence thy fragrance flows

Or whither hence it goes?

A pious pilgrim here

To Winter’s sepulchre

Thou comest year by year;

Alert with balmier store

Than Magdalen of yore

To Love’s anointing bore.

Methinks that thou hast been

So oft the go-between

’Twixt sight and things unseen

That with thy wafted breath

Alternate echoeth

Each bank of sundering Death.

THE WATER-LILY

Whence, O fragrant form of light,

Has thou drifted through the night,

Swanlike, to a leafy nest,

On the restless waves, at rest?

Art thou from the snowy zone

Of a mountain-summit blown,

Or the blossom of a dream,

Fashioned in the foamy stream?

Nay, methinks the maiden moon,

When the daylight came too soon,

Fleeting from her bath to hide,

Left her garment in the tide.

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.

AN IDOLATER

The Baby has no skies

But Mother’s eyes;

Nor any God above

But Mother’s love.

His Angel sees the Father’s face,

But He the Mother’s, full of grace;

And yet the Heavenly Kingdom is

Of such as this.

TO HER FIRST-BORN

Long I waited, wondering

How, so near my heart,

Love another life could bring,

Made of mine a part,

Nor let me, save in fancy, gaze

Soul-centred, on the cloistered face!

But now, the mystery removed,

Thou liest on my breast,

A form so fervently beloved,

So tenderly caressed,

That as my spirit compassed thine,

Thy soul the limit seems of mine.

So life, that vanishes anon,

Perchance about us lies

Too near for Love to look upon

With unanointed eyes,

Till, past the interval of pain,

We clasp the living form again.

ASPIRATION

I envy not the sun

His lavish light;

But O to be the one

Pale orb of night,

In silence and alone

Communing with mine own!

I envy not the rain

That freshens all

The parching hill and plain;

But O the small

Night-dewdrop now to be,

My noonday flower, for thee!

CHILDHOOD

Old Sorrow I shall meet again,

And Joy, perchance—but never, never,

Happy Childhood, shall we twain

See each other’s face for ever!

And yet I would not call thee back,

Dear Childhood, lest the sight of me,

Thine old companion, on the rack

Of Age, should sadden even thee.

TO THE BABE NIVA

Niva, Child of Innocence,

Dust to dust we go:

Thou, when Winter wooed thee hence,

Wentest snow to snow.

GOOD NIGHT!

Good night, dear Lord! and now

Let them that loved to keep

Thy little bed in Bethlehem,

Be near me while I sleep;

For I—more helpless, Lord—of them

Have greater need than Thou.

MISSING

Thou that didst leave the ninety and the nine

To seek the one,

Behold, among the many that are mine,

A lamb is gone.

The one perchance the worthiest to be,

Dear Lord, with Thee;

And so the saddest for the Mother’s heart

With him to part.

O Thou, Thyself a mourning Mother’s Son,

Fold close my little one!

CONFIDED

Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold,

Within this quiet fold,

Among Thy Father’s sheep

I lay to sleep!

A heart that never for a night did rest

Beyond its mother’s breast.

Lord, keep it close to Thee,

Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me!

“CHANTICLEER”

A crowing, cuddling little Babe was he,

A child for little children far or near.

When he stood and crowed upon his mother’s knee,

The morning echoed, “Welcome, Chanticleer!”

He was a crowing, cuddling little Babe!

When his mother wore, alas, her life away,

He was wonder wide to see the children weep;

But he crowed, and cuddled close enough to lay

His head upon her heart, and went to sleep:—

He was a cuddling, crowing little Babe!

God Himself was tender to him; for, behold,

An Angel in a dream (the children said)

Came and kissed him till his little cheek was cold;

So he never saw the tears the Twilight shed.

He was a crowing, cuddling little Babe!

FATHER DAMIEN

O God, the cleanest offering

Of tainted earth below,

Unblushing to Thy feet we bring—

“A leper white as snow!”

ANGELS OF PAIN

Ah, should they come revisiting the spot

Whence by our prayers we drove them utterly,

Shame were it for their saddened eyes to see

How soon their visitations are forgot.

GOD’S LIKENESS

Not in mine own, but in my neighbour’s face

Must I Thine image trace:

Nor he in his, but in the light of mine,

Behold Thy Face Divine.

TO THE CHRIST

Thou hast on earth a Trinity—

Thyself, my fellow-man and me;

When one with him, then one with Thee;

Nor, save together, Thine are we.

MY MEDIATOR

“None betwixt God and me?

Behold, my neighbour, thee

Unto His lofty throne

He makes my stepping-stone.”

“IS THY SERVANT A DOG?”

So must he be who, in the crowded street,

Where shameless Sin and flaunting Pleasure meet,

Amid the noisome footprints finds the sweet

Faint vestige of Thy feet.

LIMITATION

Breathe above me or below;

Never canst thou farther go

Than the spirit’s octave-span,

Harmonizing God and Man.

Thus within the iris-bound

Light a prisoner is found;

Thus within my soul I see

Life in Time’s captivity.

THE YOUNG TENOR

I woke; the harboured 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.

OUTLINES

O frame me in thy love, as I

The landscape in the branches low;

That none beneath the bending sky

Our sylvan secret know.

For ’tis of Life the mystery

That, whereso’er its fibres run,

In time or in eternity,

The many shape the one.

NEKROS

Lo! all thy glory gone!

God’s masterpiece undone!

The last created and the first to fall;

The noblest, frailest, godliest of all.

Death seems the conqueror now,

And yet his victor thou:

The fatal shaft its venom quenched in thee,

A mortal raised to immortality.

Child of the humble sod,

Wed with the breath of God,

Descend! for with the lowest thou must lie—

Arise! thou hast inherited the sky.

“VOX CLAMANTIS”

O sea, for ever calling to the shore

With menace or caress,—

A voice like his unheeded that of yore

Cried in the wilderness;

A deep for ever yearning unto deep,

For silence out of sound,—

Thy restlessness the cradle of a sleep

That thou hast never found.

TO A PHOTOGRAPH

O tender shade!

Lone captive of enamoured Light,

That from an angel visage bright

A glance betrayed.

Dost thou not sigh

To wander from thy prison-place?

To seek again the vanished face,

Or else to die?

A shade like thee,

Dim Eidolon—a dream disproved—

A memory of light removed,

Behold in me!

FROST

I left my window wide, for Love

To enter while I slept:

The moon, his homeward path above

Her midnight vigil kept.

But suddenly, as o’er a glass,

A clouding vapour spread;

The heavens were cold: and Love, alas!

Before the dawn was dead.

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 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.

THE MID-SEA SUN

No peak to hide his splendour till the day

Has passed away;

Nor dial-shade of any tree or flower

To mark the hour:

A wave his orient cradle, and a wave

His western grave.

THE LONELY MOUNTAIN

One bird, that ever with the wakening spring

Was wont to sing,

I wait, through all my woodlands, far and near,

In vain to hear.

The voice of many waters, silent long,

Breaks forth in song;

Young breezes to the listening leaves outpour

Their heavenly lore:

A thousand other wingèd warblers sweet,

Returning, greet

Their fellows, and rebuild upon my breast

The wonted nest.

But unto me one fond familiar strain

Comes not again—

A breath whose faintest echo, farthest heard,

A mountain stirred.

AN INFLUENCE

I see thee,—heaven’s unclouded face

A vacancy around thee made,

Its sunshine a subservient grace

Thy lovelier light to shade.

I feel thee, as the billows feel

A river freshening the brine;

A life’s libation poured to heal

The bitterness of mine.

WHISPER

Close cleaving unto Silence, into sound

She ventures as a timorous child from land,

Still glancing, at each wary step, around,

Lest suddenly she lose her sister’s hand.

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 PRECURSOR

“As John of old before His face did go

To make the rough ways smooth, that all might know

The level road that leads to Bethlehem, lo,

I come,” proclaims the snow.

WOOD-GRAIN

This is the way that the sap-river ran

From the root to the top of the tree—

Silent and dark,

Under the bark,

Working a wonderful plan

That the leaves never know,

And the branches that grow

On the brink of the tide never see.

CONSECRATION

The Twilight to my Star,

Her hoary head

A Hope receding far,

To Life re-led.

Apart and poor I lay,

My fevered frame

Slow withering away,

When soft she came,

From comfort, to my care;

And Pity sweet

Subdued her, kneeling there,

To kiss my feet.

A Magdalen adored

Her God in Thee:—

A greater love, O Lord,

Anointed me.

REGRET

What pleading passion or the dark

Hath left the Morning pale?

She listens! “’Tis, alas, the Lark,

And not the Nightingale!

O for the gloom-encircled sphere,

Whose solitary bird

Outpours for Love’s awakening ear

What noon hath never heard!”

COMPENSATION

How many an acorn falls to die

For one that makes a tree!

How many a heart must pass me by

For one that cleaves to me!

How many a suppliant wave of sound

Must still unheeded roll,

For one low utterance that found

An echo in my soul!

A REMONSTRANCE

Sing me no more, sweet warbler, for the dart

Of joy is keener than the flash of pain:

Sing me no more, for the re-echoed strain

Together with the silence breaks my heart.

SOOTHSAYERS

The winds that, gipsy-wise, foretold

The fortune of to-day,

At twilight, with the gathered gold

Of sunset, stole away:

And of their cloud accomplices

That prophesied the rain,

Upon the night-forsaken skies

No vestiges remain.

THE ARCTIC

Is it a shroud or bridal veil

That hides it from our sight,

The lonely sepulchre of Day,

Or banquet-hall of Night?

Are those the lights of revelry

That glimmer o’er the deep,

Or flashes of a funeral pyre

Above the corpse of Sleep?

Beyond those peaks impregnable

Of everlasting snow,

One star—a steadfast beacon—burns

To guard the coast below.

Whence come the ghostly galleons

The pirate Sun to brave,

And furl the shadowy flag of Death

Above a warmer grave?

EVOLUTION

Out of the dusk a shadow,

Then, a spark;

Out of the cloud a silence,

Then, a lark;

Out of the heart a rapture,

Then, a pain;

Out of the dead cold ashes,

Life again.

SPECTATORS

Around us, wheresoe’er we tread,

The while our shadows pass them by,

As in Bethsaida’s porch the dead

With upturned faces lie,

Dreading, perchance, the vanished light,

And Life’s subsided fever-breath,

As we the charnel-house of Night

Beyond the Vale of Death.

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.

TO MY SHADOW

Friend for ever in the light

Cleaving to my side,

Harbinger of endless night

That must soon betide;

“Hither,” seemest thou to say,

“From the twilight now:

In the darkness when I stay,

Never thence wilt thou.”

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.

INTIMATIONS

I knew the flowers had dreamed of you,

And hailed the morning with regret;

For all their faces with the dew

Of vanished joy were wet.

I knew the winds had passed your way,

Though not a sound the truth betrayed;

About their pinions all the day

A summer fragrance stayed.

And so, awaking or asleep,

A memory of lost delight

By day the sightless breezes keep,

And silent flowers by night.

LOVE’S HYBLA

My thoughts fly to thee, as the bees

To find their favourite flower;

Then home, with honeyed memories

Of many a fragrant hour:

For with thee is the place apart

Where sunshine ever dwells,

The Hybla, whence my hoarding heart

Would fill its wintry cells.

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.

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.

WESTWARD

And dost thou lead him hence with thee,

O setting sun,

And leave the shadows all to me,

When he is gone?

Ah, if my grief his guerdon be,

My dark his light,

I count each loss felicity,

And bless the night.

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.

LIGHT IN DARKNESS

The day—of sorrows pitiless—

Proclaims “He is not here”;

But never hath the tenderness

Of Night denied thee near.

Nay, with the twilight sympathy

Returning from afar,

She wakes again for memory

The dawn-extinguished star.

BEREFT

As when her calf is taken, far and near

The restless mother roves,

So now my heart lows, wandering everywhere,

To wake the voice it loves.

O distance, are the echoes backward thrown

In mockery of pain?

Or doth remembered anguish of thine own

Bring them to birth again?

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.

VALE

Farewell! I go my way;

And if in long delay

Thou must remain,

Forget not, ’tis the track

We trod, that leads us back

To God again.

O’ERSPENT

My soul is as a fainting noonday star,

And thou, the absent night;

Haste, that thy healing shadow from afar

May touch me into light.

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.

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,

Twin-born 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.

LIFE

Me, in the midst of dateless centuries,

By Love concealed,

Now, newly swathed in mortal destinies,

Hath Time revealed.

A breathing space, a silence, and behold

What I have been,

Unswathed, the circling centuries enfold,

Again unseen.

With Days and Nights brief fellowship was mine;

But unto thee

I come, a child inseparably thine,

Eternity.

THE TRUANT

Listen! ’tis the Rain

Coming home again;

Not as when he went away,

Silent, but in tears to say

He is sorry to have gone

With the Mist that lured him on;

And he promises anew

Nevermore the like to do.

Alas! no sooner shines the sun

Than the selfsame deed is done.

THE BUBBLE

Why should I stay? Nor seed nor fruit have I;

But, sprung at once to beauty’s perfect round,

Nor loss, nor gain, nor change in me is found,—

A life-complete in death-complete to die.

THE BROOK

It is the mountain to the sea

That makes a messenger of me:

And, lest I loiter on the way

And lose what I am sent to say,

He sets his reverie to song

And bids me sing it all day long.

Farewell! for here the stream is slow,

And I have many a mile to go.

THE MIST

Eurydice eludes the dark

To follow Orpheus, the Lark

That leads her to the dawn

With rhapsodies of star-delight,

Till, looking backward in his flight,

He finds that she is gone.

THE LAKE

I am a lonely woodland lake:

The trees that round me grow,

The glimpse of heaven above me, make

The sum of all I know.

The mirror of their dreams to be

Alike in shade and shine,

To clasp in Love’s captivity,

And keep them one—is mine.

ICE

I once was water, and again

My former self shall be;

No keep of Cold

May captive hold

A spirit of the Sea.

Beyond this prison-wall of Pain,

So echoless and chill,

Despite his guardsmen Frost and Snow,

Anon through Dimple-gate I go

To wander where I will.

A SUNSET

What means it, Lord? No Daniel

In Nature’s banquet-hall

Appears, thy messenger, to spell

The writing on the wall.

Is it the Babylonian doom,

A kingdom passed away,

A midnight monarch to assume

The majesty of Day?

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.

AUTUMN

Now at the aged Year’s decline,

Behold the messenger divine

With Love’s celestial countersign—

The sacrament of bread and wine.

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, affrighted, forth,

And, phantom-like, anon

Pursue the phantoms gone.

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.

DECEMBER

Dull sky above, dead leaves below;

And hungry winds that winding go,

Like faithful hounds upon the track

Of one beloved that comes not back.

THE LARK

He rose, and singing passed from sight—

A shadow kindling with the sun,

His joy ecstatic flamed, till light

And heavenly song were one.

THE FALL OF THE SPARROW

Are you dying, little Bird?

“Yea; the song so often heard,

And the gift of suffering,

Back to God again I bring.

“All in each, and each in all,

Counting in the Sparrow’s fall,

By the power of sinless pain

(His and ours) He cleanseth stain.

Suffering, He deigned to die

Poor and innocent as I.”

THE MARSH

The woods have voices, and the sea

Her choral-song and threnody:

But thou alike to sun and rain

Dost mute and motionless remain.

As pilgrim 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.

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.

BETRAYAL

“Whom I shall kiss?” I heard a Sunbeam say,

“Take him and lead away!”

Then, with the Traitor’s salutation, “Hail!”

He kissed the Dawn-Star pale.

THE DAYSPRING

What hand with spear of light

Hath cleft the side of Night,

And from the red wound wide

Fashioned the Dawn, his bride

Was it the deed of Death?

Nay, but of Love, that saith,

“Henceforth be Shade and Sun,

In bonds of Beauty, one.”

THE MIDDAY MOON

Behold, whatever wind prevail,

Slow westering, a phantom sail—

The lonely soul of Yesterday—

Unpiloted, pursues her way.

MEADOW FROGS

Ere yet the earliest warbler wakes

Of coming spring to tell,

From every marsh a chorus breaks—

A choir invisible—

As though the blossoms underground

A breath of utterance had found.

Whence comes the liquid melody?

The summer clouds can bring

No fresher music from the sky

Than here the marshes sing.

Methinks the mists about to rise

Are chanting their rain prophecies.

FERN SONG

Dance to the beat of the rain, little Fern,

And spread out your palms again,

And say, “Tho’ the sun

Hath my vesture spun,

He had laboured, alas, in vain,

But for the shade

That the Cloud hath made,

And the gift of the Dew and the Rain.”

Then laugh and upturn

All your fronds, little Fern,

And rejoice in the beat of the rain!

WINTER TREES

Like champions of old,

Their garments at their feet,

Defiant of the cold,

The wrestling winds they meet:

Anon, if victors found,

With vernal trophies crowned.

BABY’S DIMPLES

Love goes playing hide-and-seek

’Mid the roses on her cheek,

With a little imp of Laughter,

Who, the while he follows after,

Leaves the footprints that we trace

All about the Kissing-place.

A BUNCH OF ROSES

The rosy mouth and rosy toe

Of little baby brother

Until about a month a ago

Had never met each other;

But nowadays the neighbours sweet,

In every sort of weather,

Half-way with rosy fingers meet,

To kiss and play together.

TO A STAR

Am I the only child awake

Beneath thy midnight beams?

If so, for gentle Slumber’s sake,

The brighter be their dreams!

But shouldst thou, travelling the deep,

The silent angel see

That puts the little ones to sleep,

Bright star, remember me!

BEETHOVEN AND ANGELO

One made the surging sea of tone

Subservient to his rod:

One, from the sterile womb of stone,

Raised children unto God.

MILTON

So fair thy vision that the night

Abided with thee, lest the light,

A flaming sword before thine eyes,

Had shut thee out from Paradise.

SHELLEY

At Shelley’s birth

The Lark, dawn-spirit, with an anthem loud

Rose from the dusky earth

To tell it to the Cloud,

That, like a flower night-folded in the gloom,

Burst into morning bloom.

At Shelley’s death

The Sea, that deemed him an immortal, saw

A god’s extinguished breath,

And landward, as in awe,

Upbore him to the altar whence he came,

And the rekindling flame.

SHELLEY IN NATURE

Shelley, the ceaseless music of thy soul

Breathes in the Cloud and in the Skylark’s song,

That float as an embodied dream along

The dewy lids of morning. In the dole

That haunts the West Wind, in the joyous roll

Of Arethusan fountains, or among

The wastes where Ozymandias the strong

Lies in colossal ruin, thy control

Speaks in the wedded rhyme. Thy spirit gave

A fragrance to all nature, and a tone

To inexpressive silence. Each apart—

Earth, Air and Ocean—claims thee as its own;

The twain that bred thee, and the panting wave

That clasped thee, like an overflowing heart.

KEATS—SAPPHO

Methinks, when first the nightingale

Was mated to thy deathless song,

That Sappho with emotion pale,

Amid the Olympian throng,

Again, as in the Lesbian grove,

Stood listening with lips apart,

To hear in thy melodious love

The pantings of her heart.

100

POE’S PURGATORY

All others rest; but I

Dream-haunted lie—

A distant roar,

As of tumultuous waters, evermore

About my brain.

E’en Sleep, tho’ fain

To soothe me, flies affrighted, and alone

I bear the incumbent stone

Of Death

That stifles breath,

But not the hideous chorus crying “Shame!”

Upon my name.

Had I not Song?

Yea; and it lingers yet

The souls to fret

Of an ignoble throng,

Aflame with hate

Of the exulting Fate

That hurls their idols from her temple fair,

And shrines me there.

101

SILENCE

Temple of God, from all eternity

Alone like Him without beginning found;

Of time and space and solitude the bound,

Yet in thyself of all communion free.

Is, then, the temple holier than He

That dwells therein? Must reverence surround

With barriers the portal, lest a sound

Profane it? Nay; behold a mystery!

What was, abides; what is, hath ever been:

The lowliest the loftiest sustains.

A silence, by no breath of utterance stirred—

Virginity in motherhood—remains,

Clear, ’midst a cloud of all-pervading sin,

The voice of Love’s unutterable word.

102

DAYBREAK

What was thy dream, sweet Morning? for, behold,

Thine eyes are heavy with the balm of night,

And, as reluctant lilies to the light,

The languid lids of lethargy unfold.

Was it the tale of Yesterday retold—

An echo wakened from the western height,

Where the warm glow of sunset dalliance bright

Grew, with the pulse of waning passion, cold?

Or was it some heraldic vision grand

Of legends that forgotten ages keep

In twilight, where the sundering shoals of day

Vex the dim sails, unpiloted, of Sleep,

Till, one by one, the freighting fancies gay,

Like bubbles, vanish on the treacherous strand?

103

GLIMPSES

As one who in the hush of twilight hears

The pausing pulse of Nature, when the Light

Commingles in the dim mysterious rite

Of Darkness with the mutual pledge of tears,

Till soft, anon, one timorous star appears,

Pale-budding as the earliest blossom white

That comes in Winter’s livery bedight,

To hide the gifts of genial Spring she bears—

So, unto me—what time the mysteries

Of consciousness and slumber weave a dream

And pause above it with abated breath,

Like intervals in music—lights arise,

Beyond prophetic Nature’s farthest gleam,

That teach me half the mystery of Death.

104

HOMELESS

Methinks that if my spirit could behold

Its earthly habitation void and chill,

Whence all its time-encircled good and ill

Expanded to eternity, ’twould fold

Its trembling pinions o’er the bosom cold,

Recalling there the pulse’s wonted thrill,

And lean, perchance, to catch the echo still

That erst in life the dream of passion told.

How calm the dissolution! Could she spurn

Her spouse, so late, and brother? Could she trace

The strange familiar lineaments, and mark

The doom of her own writing in the face,

To find, alas! no more the vital spark,

Nor breathe one sigh of pity to return?

105

UNMOORED

To die in sleep—to drift from dream to dream

Along the banks of slumber, beckoned on

Perchance by forms familiar, till anon,

Unconsciously, the ever-widening stream

Beyond the breakers bore thee, and the beam

Of everlasting morning woke upon

Thy dazzled gaze, revealing one by one

Thy visions grown immortal in its gleam.

O blessed consummation! thus to feel

In Death no touch of terror. Tenderly

As shadows to the evening hills, he came

In garb of God’s dear messenger to thee,

Nor on thy weary eyelids broke the seal,

In reverence for a brother’s holier name.

106

THE AGONY

I wrestled, as did Jacob, till the dawn,

With the reluctant Spirit of the Night

That keeps the keys of Slumber. Worn and white,

We paused a panting moment, while anon

The darkness paled around us. Thereupon—

His mighty limbs relaxing in affright—

The Angel pleaded: “Lo, the morning light!

O Israel, release me, and begone!”

Then said I, “Nay, a captive to my will

I hold thee, till the blessing thou dost keep

Be mine.” Whereat he breathed upon my brow;

And, as the dew upon the twilight hill,

So on my spirit, over-wearied now,

Came tenderly the benediction, Sleep.

107

THE PETREL

A wanderer o’er the sea-graves ever green,

Whereon the foam-flowers blossom day by day,

Thou flittest as a doomful shadow gray

That from the wave no sundering light can wean.

What wouldst thou from the deep unfathomed glean,

Frail voyager? and whither leads thy way?

Or art thou, as the sailor legends say,

An exile from the spirit-world unseen?

Lo! desolate, above a colder tide,

Pale Memory, a sea-bird like to thee,

Flits outward, where the whitening billows hide

What seemed of Life the one reality—

A mist whereon the morning bloom hath died,

Returning, ghost-like, to the restless sea.

108

THE PORTRAIT

Each has his Angel-Guardian. Mine, I know,

Looks on me from that pictured face. Behold,

How clear, between those rifted clouds of gold,

The radiant brow! It is the morning glow

Of innocence, ere yet the heart let go

The leading-strings of heaven. Upon the eyes

No shadow: like the restful noonday skies

They sanctify the teeming world below.

Why bows my soul before it? None but thou,

O tender child, has known the life estranged

From thee and all that made thy days of joy

The measure of my own. Behold me now—

The man that begs a blessing of the boy—

His very self; but from himself how changed!

109

THE BOY BISHOP

“A game, Marcellus!” “Well, what shall it be?

Let’s play we’re Christians.” And with one accord

The children grouped around their mimic lord,

Marcellus, throned as Sovereign Pontiff. He

The part so often played in mockery

With solemn rite enacted—word for word

Repeating as on each in turn he poured

The waters of a new Nativity.

Then burst the thunders of an edict. Rome

Trembled, and all her gods offended frowned,

Foreshadowing the hurricane to be.

Men faltered; but among the faithful found—

The yeanlings of the flock—with martyrdom

Marcellus and his neophytes were crowned.

110

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?

111

ST AFRA TO THE FLAMES

Here, on the prey of passion, famished Flames,

Feed here! Spare not your victim. Torture tames

The wanton flesh rebellious. Let the heat

Of these your fierce caresses free the feet

And loose the fettered pinions of desire.

Delay not! Leap the barriers and fire

The citadel, the heart. A flame is there

To which your kiss is coldness. Clothe me fair,

O Christ, with purple penance. Crown me queen

Of agonies that cleave all mists between

My God and me! Life’s vintage drop by drop

Fast fills the destined measure of my cup.

Quaff, Lord, my potion! Pledge me, and Thy breath

Shall sweeten all the bitterness of death.

112

AN INTERPRETER

What, O Eternity,

Is Time to thee?—

What to the boundless All

My portion small?

Lift up thine eyes, my soul!

Against the tidal roll

Stands many a stone,

Whereon the breakers thrown

Are dashed to spray—

Else were the Ocean dumb.

So, in the way

Of tides eternal, thou

Abidest now;

And God himself doth come

A suppliant to thee,

Love’s prisoned thought to free.

113

EARTH’S TRIBUTE

First the grain, and then the blade—

The one destroyed, the other made;

Then stalk and blossom, and again

The gold of newly minted grain.

So Life, by Death the reaper cast

To earth, again shall rise at last;

For ’tis the service of the sod

To render God the things of God.

HOLY GROUND

Pause where apart the fallen sparrow lies,

And lightly tread;

For there the pity of a Father’s eyes

Enshrines the dead.

114

THE HOUSEHOLDERS

One plucked the grape, and trod the wine,

And headlong rushed the sotted swine

To perish in the sea.

One blessed the cup, and poured the blood,

And lo! about His banquet stood

The brides of Chastity.

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 ’twas while others calmly slept around,

That Thou alone in sleeplessness wast found,

To comfort me.

115

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 labour done,

God saw His work, and smiled thereon;

His glory in the picture shone,

But name upon the canvas, none.

BARTIMEUS TO THE BIRD

Had I no revelation but thy voice—

No word but thine—

Still would my soul in certitude rejoice

That love divine

Thy heart, his hidden instrument, employs,

To waken mine.

116

THE OLD PASTOR

How long, O Lord, to wait

Beside this open gate?

My sheep with many a lamb

Have entered, and I am

Alone, and it is late.

AT SEA

Thy beauty fills each bubble-dome

Upon the waters wide:

So may it in Thy lowliest home—

My bosom—Lord, abide.

117

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!”

ALL IN ALL

We know Thee, each in part—

A portion small;

But love Thee, as Thou art—

The All in all:

For Reason and the rays thereof

Are starlight to the noon of Love.

118

THE GOOD SEED

The Magi came to Bethlehem,

The House of Bread, and following them,

As they the Star, I too am led

To Christ, the living House of Bread.

A pilgrim from the hour of birth,

The night-cold bosom of the earth

I traversed, heavenward journeying,

A hidden prophecy of Spring

My only guide, a lifted blade

My only weapon, till the Shade,

The latest to withstand me, lay

Death-smitten at the door of Day.

O Light! O heavenly Warmth! to you,

My cup-bearers, I quaffed the dew,

The pledge and sacramental sign

Of Life that mingling first with mine—

A sap-like inspiration—ran

To mingle with the life of man.

As leaped the Infant in the womb,

At Mary’s voice, e’en so to bloom

And ripeness, while the reapers sang,

My soul—their songs inspiring—sprang

119

To meet the scythe, the flail, the stone

Of sacrifice, whereby alone,

Through waves of palpitating flame,

The Bread upon the altar came.

And here, O mystery of Love!

Behold, from highest heaven above,

Through Me, the Son of God again

A victim for the sons of men!

120

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!

121

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.

OUT OF BOUNDS

A little Boy of heavenly birth,

But far from home to-day,

Comes down to find His ball, the Earth,

That sin has cast away.

O comrades, let us one and all

Join in to get Him back His ball!

122

A LENTEN THOUGHT

Alone with Thee, who canst not be alone,

At midnight, in Thine everlasting day;

Lo, less than naught, of nothingness undone,

I, prayerless, pray.

Behold—and with Thy bitterness make sweet,

What sweetest is in bitterness to hide—

Like Magdalen, I grovel at Thy feet,

In lowly pride.

Smite, till my wounds beneath Thy scourging cease;

Soothe, till my heart in agony hath bled;

Nor rest my soul with enmity at peace,

Till Death be dead.

123

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.

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.

124

STABAT

Why, O my God, hast Thou forsake Men?

Not so my Mother; for behold and see,

She steadfast stands! O Father, shall it be

That she abides when Thou forsakest Me?

RABBONI!

“I bring Thee balm, and lo! Thou art not here!

Twice have I poured mine ointment on thy brow,

And washed Thy feet with tears. Disdain’st Thou now

The spikenard and the myrrh?

“Has Death, alas, betrayed Thee with a kiss

That seals Thee from the memory of mine?”

“Mary!” It is the selfsame Voice Divine,

“Rabboni!”—only this.

125

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 LILIES

Though long in wintry sleep ye lay,

The powers of darkness could not stay

Your coming at the call of day,

Proclaiming Spring.

Nay, like the faithful virgins wise,

With lamps replenished ye arise,

Ere dawn the death-anointed eyes

Of Christ the king.

126

EASTER LAMBS

Ours is the echoed cry

Of helpless Innocents about to die.

Remembering them

In Ramah for the Lamb of Bethlehem

Untimely slain,

We, when the paschal sacrifice is nigh,

Lament again.

THE ASSUMPTION

Behold! the mother bird

The Fledgeling’s voice hath heard!

He calls anew,

“It was thy breast

That warmed the nest

From whence I flew.

Upon a loftier tree

Of life I wait for thee;

Rise, mother-dove, and come,

Thy Fledgeling calls thee home!”

127

TRIUMPH

Despite the North Wind’s boast,

Despite the muffled host

Of hushing snow,

There cometh from below

Out of the darkness wakened, one by one

The dreamers of the Sun—

Not in the bleak array

Of winter, but with fragrant banners gay

Leaping the barriers strong

Of Ice, and loosing Song,

The prisoner, and letting go

Long-fettered Laughter, as the shadowy Foe

Shrinks from the echoing cry

Of “Life and Victory!”

128

MY ANGEL

O little child, that once was I,

And still in part must be,

When other children pass me by,

Again thy face I see.

Where art thou? Can the Innocence

That here no more remains,

Forget, tho’ early banished hence,

What Memory retains?

Alas! and could’st thou look upon

The features that were thine,

To see of tender graces none

Abiding now in mine,

Thy heart compassionate would plead,

And, haply, not in vain,

As Angel Guardian, home to lead

The wanderer again.

129

TO HER THREE DAYS’ CHILD

I only, its mother, have known

The life that is taken away.

As the grape and the vine have we grown

Hour by hour, day by day;

Flesh of flesh, blood of blood, bone of bone.

As it was, evermore must it be,

O Babe from thy mother removed;

As light unto shadow are we,

Each in other approved,

Two in one, and in God, one in three.

130

AVE ATQUE VALE

Where wast thou, little song,

That hast delayed so long

To come to me?

“Mute in the mind of God:

Till where thy feet had trod,

I followed thee.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.