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‏اللغة: English
Verses

Verses

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 5

entrance there,
  For he will start up when lie hears my voice,
  The saints will smile, and he will open quick.
  Only a night to part me from that joy.
  Jesu Maria! let the dawning come.

EASTER LILIES.

  Darlings of June and brides of summer sun,
    Chill pipes the stormy wind, the skies are drear;
  Dull and despoiled the gardens every one:
      What do you here?

  We looked to see your gracious blooms arise
    Mid soft and wooing airs in gardens green,
  Where venturesome brown bees and butterflies
      Should hail you queen.

  Here is no bee nor glancing butterfly;
    They fled on rapid wings before the snow:
  Your sister lilies laid them down to die,
      Long, long ago.

  And here, amid the slowly dropping rain,
    We keep our Easter feast, with hearts whose care
  Mars the high cadence of each lofty strain,
      Each thankful prayer.

  But not a shadow dims your joyance sweet,
    No baffled hope or memory darkly clad;
  You lay your whiteness at the Lord's dear feet,
      And are all glad.

  O coward soul! arouse thee and draw near,
    Led by these fragrant acolytes to-day!
  Let their sweet confidence rebuke thy fear,
      Thy cold delay.

  Come with thy darkness to the healing light,
    Come with thy bitter, which shall be made sweet,
  And lay thy soil beside the lilies white,
      At His dear feet!

EBB-TIDE.

  Long reaches of wet grasses sway
  Where ran the sea but yesterday,
  And white-winged boats at sunset drew
  To anchor in the crimsoning blue.
  The boats lie on the grassy plain,
  Nor tug nor fret at anchor chain;
  Their errand done, their impulse spent,
  Chained by an alien element,
  With sails unset they idly lie,
  Though morning beckons brave and nigh;
  Like wounded birds, their flight denied,
  They lie, and long and wait the tide.

  About their keels, within the net
  Of tough grass fibres green and wet,
  A myriad thirsty creatures, pent
  In sorrowful imprisonment,
  Await the beat, distinct and sweet,
  Of the white waves' returning feet.
  My soul their vigil joins, and shares
  A nobler discontent than theirs;
  Athirst like them, I patiently
  Sit listening beside the sea,
  And still the waters outward glide:
  When is the turning of the tide?

  Come, pulse of God; come, heavenly thrill!
  We wait thy coming,—and we will.
  The world is vast, and very far
  Its utmost verge and boundaries are;
  But thou hast kept thy word to-day
  In India and in dim Cathay,
  And the same mighty care shall reach
  Each humblest rock-pool of this beach.
  The gasping fish, the stranded keel,
  This dull dry soul of mine, shall feel
  Thy freshening touch, and, satisfied,
  Shall drink the fulness of the tide.

FLOOD-TIDE.

  All night the thirsty beach has listening lain,
     With patience dumb,
  Counting the slow, sad moments of her pain;
     Now morn has come,
  And with the morn the punctual tide again.

  I hear the white battalions down the bay
     Charge with a cheer;
  The sun's gold lances prick them on their way,—
     They plunge, they rear,—
  Foam-plumed and snowy-pennoned, they are here!

  The roused shore, her bright hair backward blown,
     Stands on the verge
  And waves a smiling welcome, beckoning on
     The flying surge,
  While round her feet, like doves, the billows crowd and urge.

  Her glad lips quaff the salt, familiar wine;
     Her spent urns fill;
  All hungering creatures know the sound, the sign,—
     Quiver and thrill,
  With glad expectance crowd and banquet at their will.

  I, too, the rapt contentment join and share;
     My tide is full;
  There is new happiness in earth, in air:
     All beautiful
  And fresh the world but now so bare and dull.

  But while we raise the cup of bliss so high,
     Thus satisfied,
  Another shore beneath a sad, far sky
     Waiteth her tide,
  And thirsts with sad complainings still denied.

  On earth's remotest bound she sits and waits
     In doubt and pain;
  Our joy is signal for her sad estates;
     Like dull refrain
  Marring our song, her sighings rise in vain.

  To each his turn—the ebb-tide and the flood,
     The less, the more—
  God metes his portions justly out, I know;
     But still before
  My mind forever floats that pale and grieving shore.

A YEAR.

  She has been just a year in Heaven.
  Unmarked by white moon or gold sun,
  By stroke of clock or clang of bell,
  Or shadow lengthening on the way,
  In the full noon and perfect day,
  In Safety's very citadel,
  The happy hours have sped, have run;
  And, rapt in peace, all pain forgot,
  She whom we love, her white soul shriven,
  Smiles at the thought and wonders not.

  We have been just a year alone,—
  A year whose calendar is sighs,
  And dull, perpetual wishfulness,
  And smiles, each covert for a tear,
  And wandering thoughts, half there, half here,
  And weariful attempts to guess
  The secret of the hiding skies,
  The soft, inexorable blue,
  With gleaming hints of glory sown,
  And Heaven behind, just shining through.

  So sweet, so sad, so swift, so slow,
  So full of eager growth and light,
  So full of pain which blindly grows,
  So full of thoughts which either way
  Have passed and crossed and touched each day,
  To us a thorn, to her a rose;
  The year so black, the year so white,
  Like rivers twain their course have run;
  The earthly stream we trace and know,
  But who shall paint the heavenly one?

  A year! We gather up our powers,
  Our lamps we consecrate and trim;
  Open all windows to the day,
  And welcome every heavenly air.
  We will press forward and will bear,
  Having this word to cheer the way:
  She, storm-tossed once, is safe with Him,
  Healed, comforted, content, forgiven;
  And while we count these heavy hours
  Has been a year,—a year in Heaven.

TOKENS.

  Each day upon the yellow Nile, 'tis said.
  Joseph, the youthful ruler, cast forth wheat,
  That haply, floating to his father's feet,—
  The sad old father, who believed him dead,—
  It might be sign in Egypt there was bread;
  And thus the patriarch, past the desert sands
  And scant oasis fringed with thirsty green,
  Be lured toward

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