"Greeting!" "And may you speak, indeed?" All in the dark her sense grew clearer; She knew that she had, for company, All day an angel near her. "May you tell us of the life divine, To us unknown, to angels given?" "Count me your earthly joys, and I May teach you those of heaven." "They say the pleasures of earth are vain ; Delusions all, to lure from duty; But while God hangs his bow in the rain, Can I help my joy in beauty? "And while he quickens the air with song, My breaths with scent, my fruits with flavor, Will he, dear angel, count as sin "See, at our feet the glow-worm shines, Lo! in the east a star arises; And thought may climb from worm to world Forever through fresh surprises: "And thought is joy. . . . And, hark! in the vale Music, and merry steps pursuing; They leap in the dance,- a soul in my blood Cries out, Awake, be doing! "Action is joy; or power at play, "And are these all?" She flushed in the dark. "These are not all. I have a lover; At sound of his voice, at touch of his hand, The cup of my life runs over. "Once, unknowing, we looked and neared, And doubted, and neared, and rested never, Till life seized life, as flame meets flame, To escape no more forever. "Lover and husband; then was love The wine of my life, all life enhancing: Now 't is my bread, too needful and sweet To be kept for feast-day chancing. “I have a child." She seemed to change ; The deep content of some brooding creature Looked from her eyes. "O, sweet and strange! Angel, be thou my teacher: "When He made us one in a babe, Was it for joy, or sorest proving! For now I fear no heaven could win Our hearts from earthly loving. "I have a friend. Howso I err, I see her uplifting love bend o'er me; Howso I climb to my best, I know Her foot will be there before me. THE curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept And strewn with rushes; rosemary and may Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay, Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept. He leaned above me, thinking that I slept, And could not hear him; but I heard him say, "Poor child! poor child!" and as he turned away, Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold That hid my face, or take my hand in his, Orruffle the smooth pillows for my head. He did not love me living: but once dead He pitied me; and very sweet it is To know he still is warm, though I am cold. THE SUNFLOWER. TILL the slow daylight pale, A willing slave, fast bound to one above, I wait; he seems to speed, and change, and fail; I know he will not move. VESPERS. ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER. WHEN I have said my quiet say, How sweet the summons, “Come away," I thought beside the water's flow What matter now for promise lost, Thou lovest still the poor; O, blest 273 UNKNOWN. WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME WHEN the grass shall cover me, Head to foot where I am lying; When not any wind that blows, Summer bloom or winter snows, Shall awake me to your sighing: Close above me as you pass, You will say, "How kind she was," You will say, "How true she was," When the grass grows over me. When the grass shall cover me, Holden close to earth's warm bosom; While I laugh, or weep, or sing, Nevermore for anything You will find in blade and blossom, Sweet small voices, odorous, Tender pleaders of my cause, That shall speak me as I was, When the grass grows over me. When the grass shall cover me! Ah, beloved in my sorrow, Very patient can I wait; Knowing that or soon or late, There will dawn a clearer morrow: When your heart will moan, "Alas, Now I know how true she was; Now I know how dear she was,' When the grass grows over me. UNKNOWN. AGAIN. O, SWEET and fair! O, rich and rare! That day so long ago. The autumn sunshine everywhere, The heather all aglow, The ferns were clad in cloth of gold, The waves sang on the shore. O, fit and few! O, tried and true! And so in earnest play The hours flew past, until at last The twilight kissed the shore. We said, "Such days shall come again Forever evermore." LUCY LARCOM. [U. s. A.] A STRIP OF BLUE. I Do not own an inch of land, They bring me tithes divine, Wild scents and subtle essences, A tribute rare and free: Richer am I than he who owns I freight them with my untold dreams, My ships that sail into the East Sometimes they seem like living shapes, - From violet mists they bloom! All souls find sailing-room. The ocean grows a weariness With nothing else in sight; Its east and west, its north and south, Spread out from morn to night: We miss the warm, caressing shore, Its brooding shade and light. A part is greater than the whole; By hints are mysteries told; The fringes of eternity, God's sweeping garment-fold, In that bright shred of glimmering sea, I reach out for, and hold. LUCY LARCOM. The sails, like flakes of roseate pearl, Float in upon the mist; The waves are broken precious stones, Sapphire and amethyst, Washed from celestial basement walls Out through the utmost gates of space, Here sit I, as a little child: The threshold of God's door In height or depth, to me; BY THE FIRESIDE. 275 Whose presence, like the free air, could inspire A winged life and boundless sympathies. Eyes with a glow like that in the brown beech, When sunset through its autumn beauty shines; Or the blue gentian's look of silent speech, To heaven appealing as earth's light declines; Voices and steps forever fled away From the familiar glens, the haunted hills, Most pitiful and strange it is to stay Without you in a world your lost love fills. Do you forget us, under Eden trees, God, Who miss you from the shadow and the breeze, And tints and perfumes of the woodland sod? Dear for your sake the fireside where we sit Watching these sad, bright pictures come and go That waning years are with your memory lit, Is the one lonely comfort that we know. And breath of violets sweet about their Is it all memory? Lo, these forest-boughs roots; And earthy odors of the moss and fern; Burst on the hearth into fresh leaf and bloom; |