“The line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.”
Unripe harvest there hath none to reap it
From the misty gusty place,
Unripe vineyard there hath none to keep it
In unprofitable space.
Living men and women are not found there,
Only masks in flocks and shoals;
Flesh-and-bloodless hazy masks surround there,
Ever wavering orbs and poles;
Flesh-and-bloodless vapid masks abound there,
Shades of bodies without souls.
“These all wait upon Thee.”
Innocent eyes not ours
Are made to look on flowers,
Eyes of small birds and insects small:
Morn after summer morn
The sweet rose on her thorn
Opens her bosom to them all.
The least and last of things
That soar on quivering wings,
Or crawl among the grass blades out of sight,
Have just as clear a right
To their appointed portion of delight
As Queens or Kings.
“Doeth well...doeth better.”
My love whose heart is tender said to me,
“A moon lacks light except her sun befriend her.
Let us keep tryst in heaven, dear Friend,” said she,
My love whose heart is tender.
From such a loftiness no words could bend her:
Yet still she spoke of “us” and spoke as “we,”
Her hope substantial, while my hope grew slender.
Now keeps she tryst beyond earth’s utmost sea,
Wholly at rest, tho storms should toss and rend her;
And still she keeps my heart and keeps its key,
My love whose heart is tender.
Our heaven must be within ourselves,
Our home and heaven the work of faith
All thro’ this race of life which shelves
Downward to death.
So faith shall build the boundary wall,
And hope shall plant the secret bower,
That both may show magnifical
With gem and flower.
While over all a dome must spread,
And love shall be that dome above;
And deep foundations must be laid,
And these are love.
“Vanity of Vanities.”
Of all the downfalls in the world,
The flutter of an Autumn leaf
Grows grievous by suggesting grief:
Who thought, when Spring was first unfurled,
Of this? The wide world lay empearled;
Who thought of frost that nips the world?
Sigh on, my ditty.
There lurk a hundred subtle stings
To prick us in our daily walk:
An apple cankered on its stalk,
A robin snared for all his wings,
A voice that sang but never sings;
Yea, sight or sound or silence stings.
Kind Lord, show pity.
The hills are tipped with sunshine, while I walk
In shadows dim and cold:
The unawakened rose sleeps on her stalk
In a bud’s fold,
Until the sun flood all the world with gold.
The hills are crowned with glory, and the glow
Flows widening down apace:
Unto the sunny hill-tops I, set low,
Lift a tired face,—
Ah, happy rose, content to wait for grace!
How tired a face, how tired a brain, how tired
A heart I lift, who long
For something never felt but still desired;
Sunshine and song,
Song where the choirs of sunny heaven stand choired.
Scarce tolerable life, which all life long
Is dominated by one dread of death;
Is such life, life? if so, who pondereth
May call salt sweetness or call discord song.
Ah me, this solitude where swarms a throng!
Life slowly grows and dwindles breath by breath:
Death slowly grows on us; no word it saith,
Its cords all lengthened and its pillars strong.
Life dies apace, a life that but deceives:
Death reigns as tho’ it lived, and yet is dead:
Where is the life that dies not but that lives?
The sweet long life, immortal, ever young,
True life that wooes us with a silver tongue
Of hope, much said and much more left unsaid.
All heaven is blazing yet
With the meridian sun:
Make haste, unshadowing sun, make haste to set;
O lifeless life, have done.
I choose what once I chose;
What once I willed, I will:
Only the heart its own bereavement knows;
O clamorous heart, lie still.
That which I chose, I choose;
That which I willed, I will;
That which I once refused, I still refuse:
O hope deferred, be still.
That which I chose and choose
And will is Jesus’ Will:
He hath not lost his life who seems to lose:
hope deferred, hope still.
“Balm in Gilead.”
Heartsease I found, where Love-lies-bleeding
Empurpled all the ground:
Whatever flowers I missed unheeding,
Heartsease I found.
Yet still my garden mound
Stood sore in need of watering, weeding,
And binding growths unbound.
Ah, when shades fell to light succeeding
I scarcely dared look round:
“Love-lies-bleeding” was all my pleading,
Heartsease I found.
“In the day of his Espousals.”
That Song of Songs which is Solomon’s
Sinks and rises, and loves and longs.
Thro’ temperate zones and torrid zones,
That Song of Songs.
Fair its floating moon with her prongs:
Love is laid for its paving stones:
Right it sings without thought of wrongs.
Doves it hath with music of moans,
Queens in throngs and damsels in throngs,
High tones and mysterious undertones,
That Song of Songs.
“She came from the uttermost part of the earth.”
“The half was not told me,” said Sheba’s Queen,
Weighing that wealth of wisdom and of gold:
“Thy fame falls short of this that I have seen:
The half was not told.
“Happy thy servants who stand to behold,
Stand to drink in thy gracious speech and mien;
Happy, thrice happy, the flock of thy fold.
“As the darkened moon while a shadow between
Her face and her kindling sun is rolled,
I depart; but my heart keeps memory green:
The half was not told.”
Alleluia! or Alas! my heart is crying:
So yours is sighing;
Or replying with content undying,
Alleluia!
Alas! grieves overmuch for pain that is ending,
Hurt that is mending,
Life descending soon to be ascending,
Alleluia!
The Passion Flower hath sprung up tall,
Hath east and west its arms outspread;
The heliotrope shoots up its head
To clear the shadow of the wall:
Down looks the Passion Flower,
The heliotrope looks upward still,
Hour by hour
On the heavenward hill.
The Passion Flower blooms red or white,
A shadowed white, a cloudless red;
Caressingly it droops its head,
Its leaves, its tendrils, from the light:
Because that lowlier flower
Looks up, but mounts not half so high,
Hour by hour
Tending toward the sky.
God’s Acre.
Hail, garden of confident hope!
Where sweet seeds are quickening in darkness and cold;
For how sweet and how young will they be
When they pierce thro’ the mould.
Balm, myrtle, and heliotrope
There watch and there wait out of sight for their Sun:
While the Sun, which they see not, doth see
Each and all one by one.
“The flowers appear on the Earth.”
Young girls wear flowers,
Young brides a flowery wreath,
But next we plant them
In garden plots of death.
Whose lot is best:
The maiden’s curtained rest,
Or bride’s whose hoped-for sweet
May yet outstrip her feet?
Ah! what are such as these
To death’s sufficing ease?
He sleeps indeed who sleeps in peace
Where night and morning meet.
Dear are the blossoms
For bride’s or maiden’s head,
But dearer planted
Around our blessed dead.
Those mind us of decay
And joys that fade away,
These preach to us perfection,
Long love and resurrection.
We make our graveyards fair,
For spirit-like birds of air,
For Angels may be finding there
Lost Eden’s own delection.
“Thou knewest...thou oughtest therefore.”
Behold in heaven a floating dazzling cloud,
So dazzling that I could but cry Alas!
Alas, because I felt how low I was;
Alas, within my spirit if not aloud,
Foreviewing my last breathless bed and shroud:
Thus pondering, I glanced downward on the grass;
And the grass bowed when airs of heaven would pass,
Lifting itself again when it had bowed.
That grass spake comfort; weak it was and low,
Yet strong enough and high enough to bend
In homage at a message from the sky:
As the grass did and prospered, so will I;
Tho’ knowing little, doing what I know,
And strong in patient weakness till the end.
“Go in peace.”
Can peach renew lost bloom,
Or violet lost perfume,
Or sullied snow turn white as overnight?
Man cannot compass it, yet never fear:
The leper Naaman
Shows what God will and can;
God Who worked there is working here;
Wherefore let shame, not gloom, betinge thy brow,
God Who worked then is working now.
“Half Dead”
O Christ the Life, look on me where I lie
Ready to die:
O Good Samaritan, nay, pass not by.
O Christ, my Life, pour in Thine oil and wine
To keep me Thine;
Me ever Thine, and Thee for ever mine.
Watch by Thy saints and sinners, watch by all
Thy great and small:
Once Thou didst call us all,—O Lord, recall.
Think how Thy saints love sinners, how they pray
And hope alway,
And thereby grow more like Thee day by day.
O Saint of saints, if those with prayer and vow
Succour us now...
It was not they died for us, it was Thou.
“One of the Soldiers with a Spear pierced his Side.”
Ah, Lord, we all have pierced Thee: wilt Thou be
Wroth with us all to slay us all?
Nay, Lord, be this thing far from Thee and me:
By whom should we arise, for we are small,
By whom if not by Thee?
Lord, if of us who pierced Thee Thou spare one,
Spare yet one more to love Thy Face,
And yet another of poor souls undone,
Another, and another—God of grace,
Let mercy overrun.
Where love is, there comes sorrow
To-day or else to-morrow:
Endure the mood,
Love only means our good.
Where love is, there comes pleasure
With or withouten measure,
Early or late
Cheering the sorriest state.
Where love is, all perfection
Is stored for heart’s delection;
For where love is
Dwells every sort of bliss.
Who would not choose a sorrow
Love’s self will cheer to-morrow?
One day of sorrow,
Then such a long to-morrow!
Bury Hope out of sight,
No book for it and no bell;
It never could bear the light
Even while growing and well:
Think if now it could bear
The light on its face of care
And grey scattered hair.
No grave for Hope in the earth,
But deep in that silent soul
Which rang no bell for its birth
And rings no funeral toll.
Cover its once bright head;
Nor odours nor tears be shed:
It lived once, it is dead.
Brief was the day of its power,
The day of its grace how brief:
As the fading of a flower,
As the falling of a leaf,
So brief its day and its hour;
No bud more and no bower
Or hint of a flower.
Shall many wail it? not so:
Shall one bewail it? not one:
Thus it hath been from long ago,
Thus it shall be beneath the sun.
O fleet sun, make haste to flee;
O rivers, fill up the sea;
O Death, set the dying free.
The sun nor loiters nor speeds,
The rivers run as they ran,
Thro’ clouds or thro’ windy reeds
All run as when all began.
Only Death turns at our cries:—
Lo, the Hope we buried with sighs
Alive in Death’s eyes!
A Churchyard Song of Patient Hope.
All tears done away with the bitter unquiet sea,
Death done away from among the living at last,
Man shall say of sorrow—Love grant it to thee and me!—
At last, “It is past.”
Shall I say of pain, “It is past,” nor say it with thee,
Thou heart of my heart, thou soul of my soul, my Friend?
Shalt thou say of pain, “It is past,” nor say it with me
Beloved to the end?
One woe is past. Come what come will
Thus much is ended and made fast:
Two woes may overhang us still;
One woe is past.
As flowers when winter puffs its last
Wake in the vale, trail up the hill,
Nor wait for skies to overcast;
So meek souls rally from the chill
Of pain and fear and poisonous blast,
To lift their heads: come good, come ill,
One woe is past.
“Take no thought for the morrow.”
Who knows? God knows: and what He knows
Is well and best.
The darkness hideth not from Him, but glows
Clear as the morning or the evening rose
Of east or west.
Wherefore man’s strength is to sit still:
Not wasting care
To antedate to-morrow’s good or ill;
Yet watching meekly, watching with good will,
Watching to prayer.
Some rising or some setting ray
From east or west,
If not to-day, why then another day
Will light each dove upon the homeward way
Safe to her nest.
“Consider the Lillies of the field.”
Solomon most glorious in array
Put not on his glories without care:—
Clothe us as Thy lilies of a day,
As the lilies Thou accountest fair,
Lilies of Thy making,
Of Thy love partaking,
Filling with free fragrance earth and air:
Thou Who gatherest lilies, gather us and wear.
“Son, remember.”
I laid beside thy gate, am Lazarus;
See me or see me not I still am there,
Hungry and thirsty, sore and sick and bare,
Dog-comforted and crumbs-solicitous:
While thou in all thy ways art sumptuous,
Daintily clothed, with dainties for thy fare:
Thus a world’s wonder thou art quit of care,
And be I seen or not seen I am thus.
One day a worm for thee, a worm for me:
With my worm angel songs and trumpet burst
And plenitude an end of all desire:
But what for thee, alas! but what for thee?
Fire and an unextinguishable thirst,
Thirst in an unextinguishable fire.
“Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
No thing is great on this side of the grave,
Nor any thing of any stable worth:
Whatso is born from earth returns to earth:
No thing we grasp proves half the thing we crave:
The tidal wave shrinks to the ebbing wave:
Laughter is folly, madness lurks in mirth:
Mankind sets off a-dying from the birth:
Life is a losing game, with what to save?
Thus I sat mourning like a mournful owl,
And like a doleful dragon made ado,
Companion of all monsters of the dark:
When lo! the light cast off its nightly cowl,
And up to heaven flashed a carolling lark,
And all creation sang its hymn anew.
While all creation sang its hymn anew
What could I do but sing a stave in tune?
Spectral on high hung pale the vanishing moon
Where a last gleam of stars hung paling too.
Lark’s lay—a cockcrow—with a scattered few
Soft early chirpings—with a tender croon
Of doves—a hundred thousand calls, and soon
A hundred thousand answers sweet and true.
These set me singing too at unawares:
One note for all delights and charities,
One note for hope reviving with the light,
One note for every lovely thing that is;
Till while I sang my heart shook off its cares
And revelled in the land of no more night.
“The Will of the Lord be done.”
O Lord, fulfil Thy Will
Be the days few or many, good or ill:
Prolong them, to suffice
For offering up ourselves Thy sacrifice;
Shorten them if Thou wilt,
To make in righteousness an end of guilt.
Yea, they will not be long
To souls who learn to sing a patient song;
Yea, short they will not be
To souls on tiptoe to flee home to Thee.
O Lord, fulfil Thy Will:
Make Thy Will ours, and keep us patient still
Be the days few or many, good or ill.
“Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”
Treasure plies a feather,
Pleasure spreadeth wings,
Taking flight together,—
Ah! my cherished things.
Fly away, poor pleasure,
That art so brief a thing:
Fly away, poor treasure,
That hast so swift a wing.
Pleasure, to be pleasure,
Must come without a wing:
Treasure, to be treasure,
Must be a stable thing.
Treasure without feather,
Pleasure without wings,
Elsewhere dwell together
And are heavenly things.
“Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”
“One sorrow more? I thought the tale complete.”—
He bore amiss who grudges what he bore:
Stretch out thy hands and urge thy feet to meet
One sorrow more.
Yea, make thy count for two or three or four:
The kind Physician will not slack to treat
His patient while there’s rankling in the sore.
Bear up in anguish, ease will yet be sweet;
Bear up all day, for night has rest in store:
Christ bears thy burden with thee, rise and greet
One sorrow more.
“Then shall ye shout.”
It seems an easy thing
Mayhap one day to sing;
Yet the next day
We cannot sing or say.
Keep silence with good heart,
While silence fits our part:
Another day
We shall both sing and say.
Keep silence, counting time
To strike in at the chime:
Prepare to sound.—
Our part is coming round.
Can we not sing or say?
In silence let us pray,
And meditate
Our love-song while we wait.
Everything that is born must die;
Everything that can sigh may sing;
Rocks in equal balance, low or high,
Everything.
Honeycomb is weighed against a sting;
Hope and fear take turns to touch the sky;
Height and depth respond alternating.
O my soul, spread wings of love to fly,
Wings of dove that soars on home-bound win;
Love trusts Love, till Love shall justify
Everything.
Lord, grant us calm, if calm can set forth Thee;
Or tempest, if a tempest set Thee forth;
Wind from the east or west or south or north,
Or congelation of a silent sea,
With stillness of each tremulous aspen tree.
Still let fruit fall, or hang upon the tree;
Still let the east and west, the south and north,
Curb in their winds, or plough a thundering sea;
Still let the earth abide to set Thee forth,
Or vanish like a smoke to set forth Thee.
Changing Chimes.
It was not warning that our fathers lacked,
It is not warning that we lack to-day.
The Voice that cried still cries: “Rise up and act:
Watch alway,—watch and pray,—watch alway,—
All men.”
Alas, if aught was lacked goodwill was lacked;
Alas, goodwill is what we lack to-day.
O gracious Voice, grant grace that all may act,
Watch and act,—watch and pray,—watch alway.—
Amen.
“Thy Servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”
Sorrow of saints is sorrow of a day,
Gladness of saints is gladness evermore:
Send on thy hope, send on thy will before
To chant God’s praise along the narrow way.
Stir up His praises if the flesh would sway,
Exalt His praises if the world press sore,
Peal out His praises if black Satan roar
A hundred thousand lies to say them nay.
Devil and Death and Hades, threefold cord
Not quickly broken, front thee to thy face;
Front thou them with a face of tenfold flint
Shout for the battle, David I never stint
Body or breath or blood, but proof in grace
Die for thy Lord, as once for thee thy Lord.
Thro’ burden and heat of the day
How weary the hands and the feet
That labour with scarcely a stay,
Thro’ burden and heat!
Tired toiler whose sleep shall be sweet,
Kneel down, it will rest thee to pray:
Then forward, for daylight is fleet.
Cool shadows show lengthening and grey,
Cool twilight will soon be complete:
What matters this wearisome way
Thro’ burden and heat?
“Then I commended Mirth”
“A merry heart is a continual feast.”
Then take we life and all things in good part:
To fast grows festive while we keep at least
A merry heart
Well pleased with nature and well pleased with art;
A merry heart makes cheer for man and beast,
And fancies music in a creaking cart.
Some day, a restful heart whose toils have ceased,
A heavenly heart gone home from earthly mart:
To-day, blow wind from west or wind from east,
A merry heart.
Sorrow hath a double voice,
Sharp to-day but sweet to-morrow
Wait in patience, hope, rejoice,
Tried friends of sorrow.
Pleasure hath a double taste,
Sweet to-day but sharp to-morrow:
Friends of pleasure, rise in haste,
Make friends with sorrow.
Pleasure set aside to-day
Comes again to rule to-morrow:
Welcomed sorrow will not stay,
Farewell to sorrow!
Shadows to-day, while shadows show God’s Will.
Light were not good except He sent us light.
Shadows to-day, because this day is night
Whose marvels and whose mysteries fulfil
Their course and deep in darkness serve Him still.
Thou dim aurora, on the extremest height
Of airy summits wax not over-bright;
Refrain thy rose, refrain thy daffodil.
Until God’s Word go forth to kindle thee
And garland thee and bid thee stoop to us,
Blush in the heavenly choirs and glance not down:
To-day we race in darkness for a crown,
In darkness for beatitude to be,
In darkness for the city luminous.
“Truly the light is sweet.”
Light colourless doth colour all things else:
Where light dwells pleasure dwells
And peace excels.
Then rise and shine,
Thou shadowed soul of mine,
And let a cheerful rainbow make thee fine.
Light, fountain of all beauty and delight,
Leads day forth from the night,
Turns blackness white.
Light waits for thee
Where all have eyes to see:
Oh, well is thee, and happy shalt thou be!
“Are ye not much better than they?”
The twig sprouteth,
The moth outeth,
The plant springeth,
The bird singeth:
Tho’ little we sing to-day
Yet are we better than they;
Tho’ growing with scarce a showing,
Yet, please God, we are growing.
The twig teacheth,
The moth preacheth,
The plant vaunteth,
The bird chanteth,
God’s mercy overflowing
Merciful past man’s knowing.
Please God to keep us growing
Till the awful day of mowing.
“Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house.”
Wisest of sparrows that sparrow which sitteth alone
Perched on the housetop, its own upper chamber, for nest;
Wisest of swallows that swallow which timely has flown
Over the turbulent sea to the land of its rest:
Wisest of sparrows and swallows, if I were as wise!
Wisest of spirits that spirit which dwelleth apart
Hid in the Presence of God for a chapel and nest,
Sending a wish and a will and a passionate heart
Over the eddy of life to that Presence in rest:
Seated alone and in peace till God bids it arise.
“I am small and of no reputation.”
The least, if so I am;
If so, less than the least,
May I reach heaven to glorify the Lamb
And sit down at the Feast.
I fear and I am small,
Whence am I of good cheer;
For I who hear Thy call, have heard Thee call
To Thee the small who fear.
O Christ my God Who seest the unseen,
O Christ my God Who knowest the unknown,
Thy mighty Blood was poured forth to atone
For every sin that can be or hath been.
O Thou Who seest what I cannot see,
Thou Who didst love us all so long ago,
O Thou Who knowest what I must not know,
Remember all my hope, remember me.
Yea, if Thou wilt, Thou canst put up Thy sword;
But what if Thou shouldst sheathe it to the hilt
Within the heart that sues to Thee, O Lord?
Yea, if Thou wilt.
For if Thou wilt Thou canst purge out the guilt
Of all, of any, even the most abhorred:
Thou canst pluck down, rebuild, build up the unbuilt.
Who wanders, canst Thou gather by love’s cord?
Who sinks, uplift from the under-sucking silt
To set him on Thy rock within Thy ward?
Yea, if Thou wilt.
Sweetness of rest when Thou sheddest rest,
Sweetness of patience till then;
Only the Will of our God is best
For all the millions of men.
For all the millions on earth to-day,
On earth and under the earth;
Waiting for earth to vanish away,
Waiting to come to the birth.
O foolish Soul! to make thy count
For languid falls and much forgiven,
When like a flame thou mightest mount
To storm and carry heaven.
A life so faint,—is this to live?
A goal so mean,—is this a goal?
Christ love thee, remedy, forgive,
Save thee, O foolish Soul.
Before the beginning Thou hast foreknown the end,
Before the birthday the death-bed was seen of Thee:
Cleanse what I cannot cleanse, mend what I cannot mend,
O Lord All-Merciful, be merciful to me.
While the end is drawing near I know not mine end;
Birth I recall not, my death I cannot foresee:
O God, arise to defend, arise to befriend,
O Lord All-Merciful, be merciful to me.
The goal in sight! Look up and sing,
Set faces full against the light,
Welcome with rapturous welcoming
The goal in sight.
Let be the left, let be the right:
Straight forward make your footsteps ring
A loud alarum thro’ the night.
Death hunts you, yea, but reft of sting;
Your bed is green, your shroud is white:
Hail! Life and Death and all that bring
The goal in sight.
Looking back along life’s trodden way
Gleams and greenness linger on the track;
Distance melts and mellows all to-day,
Looking back.
Rose and purple and a silvery grey,
Is that cloud the cloud we called so black?
Evening harmonizes all to-day,
Looking back.
Foolish feet so prone to halt or stray,
Foolish heart so restive on the rack!
Yesterday we sighed, but not to-day
Looking back.