A Few More Verses

Published by Good Press, 2019

goodpress@okpublishing.info

EAN 4064066137762

Table of Contents

A BENEDICTION.

CONTENTS TO PART SECOND.

TO ARCITE AT THE WARS. 1759.

NEW EVERY MORNING.

LOHENGRIN.

A SINGLE STITCH.

REPLY.

TALITHA CUMI.

THE BETTER WAY.

FOREVER.

MIRACLE.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

END AND MEANS.

COMFORTED.

WORDS.

INFLUENCE.

AN EASTER SONG.

SO LONG AGO.

A BIRTHDAY.

DERELICT.

H. H.

FREEDOM.

THE VISION AND THE SUMMONS.

FORECAST.

EARLY TAKEN.

SOME LOVER’S DEAR THOUGHT.

ASHES.

ONE LESSER JOY.

CLOSE AT HAND.

ONLY A DREAM.

AT THE ALTAR.

ETERNITY.

RESTFULNESS.

IN AND ON.

A DAY-TIME MOON.

A MIDNIGHT SUN.

HER VOICE.

A FLORENTINE JULIET.

HERE AND THERE.

FORWARD.

IN HER GARDEN.

ON EASTER DAY.

“DER ABEND IST DER BESTE.”

OPTIMISM.

“HE SHALL DRINK OF THE BROOK BY THE WAY.”

THREE PICTURES.

I. LOVE AND DEATH.

II. LOVE AND LIFE.

III. PAOLO È FRANCESCA.

THE TWO SHORES.

“ARISE, SHINE, FOR THY LIGHT HAS COME.”

A WITHERED VIOLET.

DARKENED.

THE KEYS OF GRANADA.

BEREAVED.

“HOW CAN THEY BEAR IT UP IN HEAVEN?”

WAVE AFTER WAVE.

THE WORD WITH POWER.

TO FELICIA SINGING.

EURYDICE.

THREE WORLDS.

OPPORTUNITY.

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. A PICTURE.

NON OMNIS MORIAR.

AT DAWN OF DAY.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

SOME TIME.

THE STARS ARE IN THE SKY ALL DAY.

NOW.

JUST BEYOND.

CONTACT.

AN EASTER SONG.

CONCORD. MAY 31, 1882.

HEREAFTER.

OUR DAILY BREAD.

SLEEPING AND WAKING.

THORNS.

A NEW-ENGLAND LADY.

UNDER THE SNOW.

SONNET FOR A BIRTHDAY.

“MANY WATERS CANNOT QUENCH LOVE.”

UNEXHAUSTED.

WELCOME AND FAREWELL.

LIFE.

SHUT IN.

GOOD-BY.

WHAT THE ANGEL SAID.

COMMONPLACE.

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND MYRRH.

A THOUGHT.

AT FLOOD.

THE ANGELS.

NOT YET.

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW.

“THAT WAS THE TRUE LIGHT, THAT LIGHTETH EVERY MAN THAT COMETH INTO THE WORLD.”

THE STAR.

HELEN.

LUX IN TENEBRIS.

LENT.

PALM SUNDAY.

SOUL AND BODY.

SOUND AT CORE.

THE OLD VILLAGE.

A GREETING.

CHANGELESS.

EASTER.

THE WORLD IS VAST.

A BENEDICTION.

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GOD give thee, love, thy heart’s desire!

What better can I pray?

For though love falter not, nor tire,

And stand on guard all day,

How little can it know or do,

How little can it say!

How hard it strives, and how in vain,

By hope and fear misled,

To make the pathway soft and plain

For the dear feet to tread,

To shield from sun-beat and from rain

The one beloved head!

Its wisdom is made foolishness;

Its best intent goes wrong;

It curses where it fain would bless,

Is weak instead of strong—

Marring with sad, discordant sighs

The joyance of its song.

I do not dare to bless or ban—

I am too blind to see—

But this one little prayer I can

Put up to God for thee,

Because I know what fair, pure things

Thy inmost wishes be;

That what thy heart desires the most

Is what he loves to grant—

The love that counteth not its cost

If any crave or want;

The presence of the Holy Ghost,

The soul’s inhabitant;

The wider vision of the mind;

The spirit bright with sun;

The temper like a fragrant wind,

Chilling and grieving none;

The quickened heart to know God’s will

And on his errands run;

The ministry of little things—

Not counted mean or small

By that dear alchemy which brings

Some grain of gold from all;

The faith to wait as well as work,

Whatever may befall.

So, sure of thee, and unafraid,

I make my daily prayer,

Nor fear that my blind zeal be made

Thy injury or snare:

God give thee, love, thy heart’s desire,

And bless thee everywhere!

---

CONTENTS TO PART SECOND.

Table of Contents

	Page
To Arcite at the Wars	13
New every Morning	15
Lohengrin	17
A Single Stitch	19
Reply	20
Talitha Cumi	23
The Better Way	25
Forever	27
Miracle	29
Charlotte Brontë	32
End and Means	34
Comforted	36
Words	39
Influence	41
An Easter Song	43
So Long Ago	45
A Birthday	47
Derelict	49
H. H	51
Freedom	54
The Vision and the Summons	56
Forecast	59
Early Taken	61
Some Lover’s Dear Thought	64
Ashes	66
One Lesser Joy	68
Close at Hand	71
Only a Dream	73
At the Altar	77
Eternity	79
Restfulness	81
In and On	83
A Day-time Moon	85
A Midnight Sun	87
Her Voice	90
A Florentine Juliet	92
Here and There	106
Forward	108
In her Garden	110
On Easter Day	113
“Der Abend ist der Beste”	115
Optimism	117
“He shall drink of the Brook by the Way”	120
Three Pictures	122
The Two Shores	125
“Arise, shine, for thy Light has come”	127
A Withered Violet	129
Darkened	131
The Keys of Granada	133
Bereaved	135
“How can they bear it up in Heaven?”	138
Wave after Wave	141
The Word with Power	143
To Felicia Singing	146
Eurydice	148
Three Worlds	150
Opportunity	153
Christ before Pilate	155
Non Omnis Moriar	158
At Dawn of Day	161
What might have been	163
Some Time	166
The Stars are in the Sky all Day	168
Now	171
Just Beyond	172
Contact	175
An Easter Song	178
Concord	181
Hereafter	184
Our Daily Bread	186
Sleeping and Waking	188
Thorns	190
A New-England Lady	192
Under the Snow	195
Sonnet for a Birthday	197
“Many Waters cannot quench Love”	198
Unexhausted	201
Welcome and Farewell	203
Life	205
Shut in	207
Good-by	209
What the Angel said	211
Commonplace	216
Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh	217
A Thought	219
At Flood	221
The Angels	223
Not Yet	225
To-day and To-morrow	227
“That was the True Light, that lighteth every Man that cometh into the World”	228
The Star	230
Helen	232
Lux in Tenebris	235
Lent	237
Palm Sunday	240
Soul and Body	242
Sound at Core	245
The Old Village	247
A Greeting	252
Changeless	254
Easter	255
The World is Vast	257

---

TO ARCITE AT THE WARS.
1759.

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A THOUSAND leagues of wind-blown space,

A thousand leagues of sea,

Half of the great earth’s hiding face

Divides mine eyes from thee;

The world is strong, the waves are wide,

But my good-will is stronger still,

My love, than wind or tide.

These sentinels which Fate has set

To bar and hold me here

I make my errand-men, to get

A message to thine ear.

The winds shall waft, the waters bear,

And spite of seas I, when I please,

Can reach thee everywhere.

Prayers are like birds to find the way;

Thoughts have a swifter flight;

And mine stream forth to thee all day,

Nor stop to rest by night.

Like silent angels at thy side

They stand unseen, they bend and lean,

They bless and warn and guide.

There is no near, there is no far,

There is no loss or change,

To love which, like a fixèd star,

Abideth in one range,

And shines, and shines, with quenchless eyes,

And sends long rays in many ways

To lighten distant skies.

Where sight is not, faith brighter burns;

So faithfully I wait,

Secure that loyal loving earns

Its guerdon soon or late—

Secure, though lacking word or sign,

That thy true thought keeps as it ought

Tryst with each thought of mine.

---

NEW EVERY MORNING.

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EVERY day is a fresh beginning,

Every morn is the world made new.

You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,

Here is a beautiful hope for you—

A hope for me and a hope for you.

All the past things are past and over;

The tasks are done and the tears are shed.

Yesterday’s errors let yesterday cover;

Yesterday’s wounds, which smarted and bled,

Are healed with the healing which night has shed.

Yesterday now is a part of forever,

Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight,

With glad days, and sad days, and bad days, which never

Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight,

Their fulness of sunshine or sorrowful night.

Let them go, since we cannot re-live them,

Cannot undo and cannot atone;

God in his mercy receive, forgive them!

Only the new days are our own;

To-day is ours, and to-day alone.

Here are the skies all burnished brightly,

Here is the spent earth all re-born,

Here are the tired limbs springing lightly

To face the sun and to share with the morn

In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn.

Every day is a fresh beginning;

Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain,

And, spite of old sorrow and older sinning,

And puzzles forecasted and possible pain,

Take heart with the day, and begin again.

---

LOHENGRIN.

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TO have touched Heaven and failed to enter in!

Ah, Elsa, prone upon the lonely shore,

Watching the swan-wings beat along the blue,

Watching the glimmer of the silver mail,

Like flash of foam, till all are lost to view—

What may thy sorrow or thy watch avail?

He cometh nevermore.

All gone the new hope of thy yesterday—

The tender gaze and strong, like dewy fire,

The gracious form with airs of Heaven bedight,

The love that warmed thy being like a sun:—

Thou hadst thy choice of noonday or of night;

Now the swart shadows gather, one by one,

To give thee thy desire!

To every life one heavenly chance befalls;

To every soul a moment, big with fate,

When, grown importunate with need and fear,

It cries for help, and lo! from close at hand,

The voice Celestial answers, “I am here!”

Oh, blessed souls, made wise to understand,

Made bravely glad to wait!

But thou, pale watcher on the lonely shore,

Where the surf thunders, and the foam-bells fly,

Is there no place for penitence and pain,

No saving grace in thy all-piteous rue?

Will the bright vision never come again?

Alas, the swan-wings vanish in the blue,

There cometh no reply!

---

A SINGLE STITCH.

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ONE stitch dropped as the weaver drove

His nimble shuttle to and fro,

In and out, beneath, above,

Till the pattern seemed to bud and grow

As if the fairies had helping been—

One small stitch which could scarce be seen.

But the one stitch dropped pulled the next stitch out,

And a weak place grew in the fabric stout;

And the perfect pattern was marred for aye

By the one small stitch that was dropped that day.

One small life in God’s great plan,

How futile it seems as the ages roll,

Do what it may, or strive how it can

To alter the sweep of the infinite whole!

A single stitch in an endless web,

A drop in the ocean’s flow and ebb!

But the pattern is rent where the stitch is lost,

Or marred where the tangled threads have crossed;

And each life that fails of its true intent

Mars the perfect plan that its Master meant.

---

REPLY.

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“WHAT, then, is Love?” she said.

Love is a music, blent in curious key

Of jarring discords and of harmony;

’Tis a delicious draught which, as you sip,

Turns sometimes into poison on your lip.

It is a sunny sky infolding storm,

The fire to ruin or the fire to warm;

A garland of fresh roses fair to sight,

Which then becomes a chain and fetters tight.

It is a half-heard secret told to two,

A life-long puzzle or a guiding clew.

The joy of joys, the deepest pain of pain;—

All these Love has been and will be again.

“How may I know?” she said.

Thou mayest not know, for Love has conned the art

To blind the reason and befool the heart.

So subtle is he, not himself may guess

Whether he shall be more or shall be less;

Wrapped in a veil of many colored mists,

He flits disguisèd wheresoe’er he lists,

And for the moment is the thing he seems,

The child of vagrant hope and fairy dreams;

Sails like a rainbow bubble on the wind,

Now high, now low, before us or behind;

And only when our fingers grasp the prize,

Changes his form and swiftly vanishes.

“Then best not love,” she said.

Dear child, there is no better and no best;

Love comes not, bides not at thy slight behest.

As well might thy frail fingers seek to stay

The march of waves in yonder land-locked bay,

As stem the surging tide which ebbs and fills

Mid human energies and human wills.

The moon leads on the strong, resisting sea;

And so the moon of love shall beckon thee,

And at her bidding thou wilt leap and rise,

And follow o’er strange seas, ’neath unknown skies,

Unquestioning; to dash, or soon or late,

On sand or cruel crag, as is thy fate.

“Then woe is me!” she said.

Weep not; there is a harder, sadder thing—

Never to know this sweetest suffering!

Never to see the sun, though suns may slay,

Or share the richer feast as others may.

Sooner the sealed and closely guarded wine

Shall seek again its purple clustered vine,

Sooner the attar be again the rose,

Than Love unlearn the secret that it knows!

Abide thy fate, whether for good or ill;

Fearlessly wait, and be thou certain still,

Whether as foe disguised or friendly guest

He comes, Love’s coming is of all things best.

---

TALITHA CUMI.

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OUR little one was sick, and the sickness pressed her sore.

We sat beside her bed, and we felt her hands and head,

And in our hearts we prayed this one prayer o’er and o’er:

“Come to us, Christ the Lord; utter thine old-time word,

‘Talitha cumi!’ ”

And as the night wore on, and the fever flamed more high,

And a new look burned and grew in the eyes of tender blue,

Still louder in our hearts uprose the voiceless cry,

“O Lord of love and might, say once again to-night,

‘Talitha cumi!’ ”

And then, and then—he came; we saw him not, but felt.

And he bent above the child, and she ceased to moan, and smiled;

And although we heard no sound, as around the bed we knelt,

Our souls were made aware of a mandate in the air,

“Talitha cumi!”

And as at dawn’s fair summons faded the morning star,

Holding the Lord’s hand close, the child we loved arose,

And with him took her way to a country far away;

And we would not call her dead, for it was his voice that said,

“Talitha cumi!”

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THE BETTER WAY.

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WHO serves his country best?

Not he who, for a brief and stormy space,

Leads forth her armies to the fierce affray.

Short is the time of turmoil and unrest,

Long years of peace succeed it and replace:

There is a better way.

Who serves his country best?

Not he who guides her senates in debate,

And makes the laws which are her prop and stay;

Not he who wears the poet’s purple vest,

And sings her songs of love and grief and fate:

There is a better way.

He serves his country best,

Who joins the tide that lifts her nobly on;

For speech has myriad tongues for every day,

And song but one; and law within the breast

Is stronger than the graven law on stone:

There is a better way.

He serves his country best

Who lives pure life, and doeth righteous deed,

And walks straight paths, however others stray,

And leaves his sons as uttermost bequest

A stainless record which all men may read:

This is the better way.

No drop but serves the slowly lifting tide,

No dew but has an errand to some flower,

No smallest star but sheds some helpful ray,

And man by man, each giving to all the rest,

Makes the firm bulwark of the country’s power:

There is no better way.

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FOREVER.

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