*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79865 *** A SELECTION FROM POEMS, LYRICS CHILD VERSE LATER LYRICS A SELECTION FROM THE VERSES OF JOHN B. TABB Made by ALICE MEYNELL [Illustration] 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 _Page_ 1 My Captive 2 The Reaper 3 Influence 4 Wayfarers 5 To the Sphinx 6 Love’s Autograph 6 Slumber-Song 7 Our First-born 8 To Silence 9 The Expected of Nations 10 The Postulant 10 At the Year’s End 11 Killdee 12 The Whip-Poor-Will 13 Star-Jessamine 14 Clover 15 To the Violet 16 The Water-Lily 17 Mignonette 18 An Idolater 18 To her First-born 19 Aspiration 20 Childhood 21 To the Babe Niva 22 Good Night! 22 Missing 23 Confided 24 “Chanticleer” 25 Father Damien 26 Angels of Pain 26 God’s Likeness 27 To the Christ 28 My Mediator 28 “Is thy Servant a Dog?” 29 Limitation 30 The Young Tenor 31 Outlines 32 Nekros 33 “Vox Clamantis” 34 To a Photograph 35 Frost 36 The Statue 37 The Pilgrim 38 The Mid-Sea Sun 38 The Lonely Mountain 39 An Influence 40 Whisper 41 Anticipation 41 The Precursor 42 Wood-grain 43 Consecration 44 Regret 45 Compensation 46 A Remonstrance 47 Soothsayers 48 The Arctic 49 Evolution 50 Spectators 51 The Lost Anchor 52 To My Shadow 53 Cleopatra to the Asp 54 Intimations 55 Loves Hybla 56 The Sleeping Beauty 57 Adieu 58 Westward 59 Memory 60 Light in Darkness 61 Bereft 62 Outspeeded 63 Vale 64 O’erspent 64 Wrecked 65 Bread 66 Sand 67 Life 68 The Truant 69 The Bubble 69 The Mist 70 The Brook 70 The Lake 71 Ice 72 A Sunset 73 Midnight 74 Autumn 74 October 75 Indian Summer 76 December 76 The Lark 77 The Fall of the Sparrow 77 The Marsh 78 Fulfilment 79 Betrayal 79 The Dayspring 80 The Midday Moon 80 Meadow Frogs 81 Fern Song 82 Winter Trees 83 Baby’s Dimples 83 A Bunch of Roses 84 To a Star 85 Beethoven and Angelo 86 Milton 86 Shelley 87 Shelley in Nature 88 Keats—Sappho 89 Poe’s Purgatory 90 Silence 91 Daybreak 92 Glimpses 93 Homeless 94 Unmoored 95 The Agony 96 The Petrel 97 The Portrait 98 The Boy Bishop 99 Asleep 100 St Afra to the Flames 101 An Interpreter 102 Earth’s Tribute 103 Holy Ground 103 The Householders 104 Insomnia 104 Anonymous 105 Bartimeus to the Bird 105 The Old Pastor 106 At Sea 106 Stilling the Tempest 107 All in All 107 The Good Seed 108–109 The Angel’s Christmas Quest 110 The Lamb-Child 111 Out of Bounds 111 A Lenten Thought 112 On Calvary 113 Mater Dolorosa 113 Stabat 114 Rabboni! 114 Easter Morning 115 Easter Lilies 115 Easter Lambs 116 The Assumption 116 Triumph 117 My Angel 118 To Her Three Days’ Child 119 Ave Atque Vale 120 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. 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. 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. 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? 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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! 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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! 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! 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! 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. 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. 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. 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. 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!” 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!” 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. 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. 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. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79865 ***