To whom the fates have given No toilsome task thou knowest, Thou knowest no toil for raiment, Yet we of grosser stature When thou art tired returning, Within our souls are folden Yet oft, when day is gleaming We would exchange our dreaming We have the long to-morrow, My wife and I had kissed at morn, We slept last night clasped hand in hand, Ve dreamed of love, and did not see And in the dark her gentle soul She paused a moment, who can tell?- It would be like her; well we know Ah, friend! you let her stray too far One day within that gloom there shone A heavenly dawn, and with wide eyes She saw God's city crown the skies, Since when she hasted to be gone. much you yielded to her grace ; ouncing self, she thus became angel with a human name, ni angels coveted her face. Earth's door you set so wide, alack Dear friend, what can I say or sing, The child at play is ignorant The path she wends we cannot track: Frances Isabel Parnell AFTER DEATH SHALL mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country? Shall mine eyes behold thy glory? Or shall the darkness close around them, ere the sun-blaze break at last upon thy story? When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle, as a sweet new sister hail thee, Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence, that have known but to bewail thee? A SONG OF DERIVATIONS I COME from nothing; but from where Down, through long links of death and birth, From the past poets of the earth. My immortality is there. I am like the blossom of an hour. Or I am like a stream that flows In morning lands, in distant hills; Voices I have not heard possessed My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed With relics of the far unknown; And mixed with memories not my own The sweet streams throng into my breast. Before this life began to be, Woke long ago, and far apart Heavily on this little heart Presses this immortality. SONG My Fair, no beauty of thine will last, Thy sweet words vanish day by day, Except the few that sing to me. Hide then within my heart, oh, hide I fear much more must flow from worthier veins Ere England's hurt be healed. Crom. How powerful are base things to destroy ! The brute's part in them kills the god's in us, And robs the world of many glorious deeds; In all the histories of famous men We never find the greatest overthrown Falls by some chance blow of an obscure hand, And glory cannot guard the hero's heart I fain would win as far as yonder house; It was my dear dead wife's; such shapes are there As I would see about my dying bed, me, love, Forgive That I am loath to come yet to thy heart; I have only lived without thee, O my best, That I might live for England! Is Cromwell come? Crom. How is it with you, cousin? Hamp. Very well; With hope to be soon better; gentle cousin, I have scant time to speak and much to eyes God shall seclude from sight of our gross Earth, And for the dull light of our darker day Give all heaven to his vision, star with star Shining, and splendid and sonorous spheres To make him music; and those sacred lips, More eloquent than the Mantuan's, praising thee, Shall make thy fame a memory for all time, And set a loftier laurel on thy head Whom thou forget not still to love and serve, Holding thy greatness given to make her great, Thy strength to keep her strong; then (since oblivion Is what men chiefly fear in death), dear cousin, I would not be forgotten of thy love. speak Must be of strife yet I must utter them; Be not of those that vex the angry times With meek-mouthed proffers of rejected peace; When men have set the justice of their cause To sharp arbitrament of answering arms, Tougues should keep mute, and steel hol speech with steel, Till victory can plead the conquered's cause, And make soft mercy no more dangerous. We must o'ercome our foes to make them friends. These Thy hand, dear cousin thy voice ... Sweet, I hear |