Afterward
Released
The Room's Width
The First Christmas Apart
The Angel Joy
"Absent!"
The Unseen Comrades
Stronger than Death
Vittoria
New Neighbors
By the Hearth
Told in Confidence
What the Violins Said
Won
Spent
Parted
An April Gust
The Answer
Thorns
The Indian Girl
Sealed
Guinevere
Sung to a Friend
Incompletion
Rafe's Chasm
Galatea
Part of the Price
Eurydice
Elaine and Elaine
The Poet and the Poem
Overtasked
Stranded
Gloucester Harbor
The Terrible Test
My Dreams are of the Sea
Song
An Interpretation
The Sphinx
Victuræ Salutamus
The Ermine
Unquenched
The King's Image
At the Party
A Jewish Legend
The Songs of Seventy Years
Birthday Verses
A Tribute
To O. W. H.
Whose shall the Welcome be?
Exeat
George Eliot
Her Jury
A Prayer. (Matins.)
An Acknowledgment
Hymn
Answered
Westward
Three Friends
A New Friend
An Etching
To my Father
The Gates Between
A Prayer. (Vespers.)
There is no vacant chair. The loving meet—
A group unbroken—smitten, who knows how?
One sitteth silent only, in his usual seat;
We gave him once that freedom. Why not now?
Perhaps he is too weary, and needs rest;
He needed it too often, nor could we
Bestow. God gave it, knowing how to do so best.
Which of us would disturb him? Let him be.
There is no vacant chair. If he will take
The mood to listen mutely, be it done.
By his least mood we crossed, for which the heart must ache,
Plead not nor question! Let him have this one.
Death is a mood of life. It is no whim
By which life's Giver mocks a broken heart.
Death is life's reticence. Still audible to Him,
The hushed voice, happy, speaketh on, apart.
There is no vacant chair. To love is still
To have. Nearer to memory than to eye,
And dearer yet to anguish than to comfort, will
We hold him by our love, that shall not die.
For while it doth not, thus he cannot. Try!
Who can put out the motion or the smile?
The old ways of being noble all with him laid by?
Because we love, he is. Then trust awhile.
Oh, joy of the dying!
At last thou art mine.
And leaping to meet thee,
Impatient to greet thee,
A rapid and rapturous, sensitive, fine
Gayety steals through my pulses to-day,
Daring and doubting like pleasure
Forbidden, or Winter looking at May.
Oh, sorrow of living!
Make way for the thrill
Of the soul that is starting—
Onlooking—departing
Across the threshold of clay.
Bend, bow to the will
Of the soul that is up and away!
I think if I should cross the room,
Far as fear;
Should stand beside you like a thought—
Touch you, Dear!
Like a fancy. To your sad heart
It would seem
That my vision passed and prayed you,
Or my dream.
Then you would look with lonely eyes—
Lift your head—
And you would stir, and sigh, and say—
"She is dead."
Baffled by death and love, I lean
Through the gloom.
O Lord of life! am I forbid
To cross the room?
The shadows watch about the house;
Silent as they, I come.
Oh, it is true that life is deaf,
And not that death is dumb.
The Christmas thrill is on the earth,
The stars throb in the sky.
Love listens in a thousand homes,—
The Christmas bells ring by.
I cross the old familiar door
And take the dear old chair.
You look with desolated eyes
Upon me sitting there.
You gaze and see not, though the tears
In gazing burn and start.
Believe, the living are the blind,
Not that the dead depart.
A year ago some words we said
Kept sacred 'twixt us twain,
'T is you, poor Love, who answer not,
The while I speak again.
I lean above you as before,
Faithful, my arms enfold.
Oh, could you know that life is numb,
Nor think that death is cold!
Senses of earth, how weak ye are!
Joys, joys of Heaven how strong!
Loves of the earth, how short and sad,
Of Heaven how glad and long!
Heart of my heart! if earth or Heaven
Had speech or language fine
Enough, or death or life could give
Me symbol, sound, or sign
To reach you—thought, or touch, or eye,
Body or soul—I 'd die
Again, to make you understand:
My darling! This is I!
Oh, was it a death-dream not dreamed through,
That eyed her like a foe?
Or only a sorrow left over from life,
Half-finished years ago?
How long was it since she died—who told?
Or yet what was death—who knew?
She said: "I am come to Heaven at last,
And I 'll do as the blessed do."
But the custom of earth was stronger than Heaven,
And the habit of life than death,
How should an anguish as old as thought
Be healed by the end of breath?
Tissue and nerve and pulse of her soul
Had absorbed the disease of woe.
The strangest of all the angels there
Was Joy. (Oh, the wretched know!)
"I am too tired with earth," she said,
"To rest me in Paradise.
Give me a spot to creep away,
And close my heavy eyes.
"I must learn to be happy in Heaven," she said,
"As we learned to suffer below."—
"Our ways are not your ways," he said,
"And ours the ways you go."
As love, too wise for a word, puts by
All a woman's weak alarms,
Joy hushed her lips, and gathered her
Into his mighty arms.
He took her to his holy heart,
And there—for he held her fast—
The saddest spirit in the world,
Came to herself at last.
"ABSENT!"[1]