Soundlessly — shadowly — such move on,Dim as the dream of a child asleep;And no one knoweth 'till they are goneHow lofty their souls — their hearts how deep.Bright souls these —God only sees.
Lonely and hiddenly in the world —Tho' in the world 'tis their lot to stay —The tremulous wings of their hearts are furledUntil they fly from the world away,And find their restOn "Our Father's" breast,Where earth's unknown shall be known the best,And the hidden hearts shall be brightest blest.
A Death
Crushed with a burden of woe,Wrecked in the tempest of sin:Death came, and two lips murmured low,"Ah! once I was white as the snow,In the happy and pure long ago;But they say God is sweet — is it so?Will He let a poor wayward one in —In where the innocent are?Ah! justice stands guard at the gate;Does it mock at a poor sinner's fate?Alas! I have fallen so far!Oh, God! Oh, my God! 'tis too late!I have fallen as falls a lost star:
"The sky does not miss the gone gleam,But my heart, like the lost star, can dreamOf the sky it has fall'n from. Nay!I have wandered too far — far away.Oh! would that my mother were here;Is God like a mother? Has HeAny love for a sinner like me?"
Her face wore the wildness of woe —Her words, the wild tones of despair;Ah! how can a heart sink so low?How a face that was once bright and so fair,Can be furrowed and darkened with care?Wild rushed the hot tears from her eyes,From her lips rushed the wildest of sighs,Her poor heart was broken; but thenHer God was far gentler than men.
A voice whispered low at her side,"Child! God is more gentle than men,He watches by passion's dark tide,He sees a wreck drifting — and thenHe beckons with hand and with voice,And he sees the poor wreck floating inTo the haven on Mercy's bright shore;And He whispers the whisper of yore:`The angels of heaven rejoiceO'er the sinner repenting of sin.'"
* * * * *
And a silence came down for a while,And her lips they were moving in prayer,And her face it wore just such a smileAs, perhaps, it was oft wont to wear,Ere the heart of the girl knew a guile,Ere the soul of the girl knew the wile,That had led her to passion's despair.
Death's shadows crept over her face,And softened the hard marks of care;Repentance had won a last grace,And the Angel of Mercy stood there.
The Rosary of My Tears
Some reckon their age by years,Some measure their life by art;But some tell their days by the flow of their tears,And their lives by the moans of their heart.
The dials of earth may showThe length, not the depth, of years,Few or many they come, few or many they go,But time is best measured by tears.
Ah! not by the silver grayThat creeps thro' the sunny hair,And not by the scenes that we pass on our way,And not by the furrows the fingers of care
On forehead and face have made.Not so do we count our years;Not by the sun of the earth, but the shadeOf our souls, and the fall of our tears.
For the young are ofttimes old,Though their brows be bright and fair;While their blood beats warm, their hearts are cold —O'er them the spring — but winter is there.
And the old are ofttimes young,When their hair is thin and white;And they sing in age, as in youth they sung,And they laugh, for their cross was light.
But bead, by bead, I tellThe rosary of my years;From a cross to a cross they lead; 'tis well,And they're blest with a blessing of tears.
Better a day of strifeThan a century of sleep;Give me instead of a long stream of lifeThe tempests and tears of the deep.
A thousand joys may foamOn the billows of all the years;But never the foam brings the lone back home —It reaches the haven through tears.
Death
Out of the shadows of sadness,Into the sunshine of gladness,Into the light of the blest;Out of a land very dreary,Out of a world very weary,Into the rapture of rest.
Out of to-day's sin and sorrow,Into a blissful to-morrow,Into a day without gloom;Out of a land filled with sighing,Land of the dead and the dying,Into a land without tomb.
Out of a life of commotion,Tempest-swept oft as the ocean,Dark with the wrecks drifting o'er;Into a land calm and quiet,Never a storm cometh nigh it,Never a wreck on its shore.
Out of a land in whose bowersPerish and fade all the flowers:Out of the land of decay,Into the Eden where fairestOf flowerets, and sweetest and rarest,Never shall wither away.
Out of the world of the wailingThronged with the anguished and ailing;Out of the world of the sad,Into the world that rejoices —World of bright visions and voices —Into the world of the glad.
Out of a life ever mournful,Out of a land very lornful,Where in bleak exile we roam,Into a joy-land above us,Where there's a Father to love us —Into our home — "Sweet Home".
What Ails the World?
"What ails the world?" the poet cried;"And why does death walk everywhere?And why do tears fall anywhere?And skies have clouds, and souls have care?"Thus the poet sang, and sighed.
For he would fain have all things glad,All lives happy, all hearts bright;Not a day would end in night,Not a wrong would vex a right —And so he sang — and he was sad.
Thro' his very grandest rhymesMoved a mournful monotone —Like a shadow eastward thrownFrom a sunset — like a moanTangled in a joy-bell's chimes.
"What ails the world?" he sang and asked —And asked and sang — but all in vain;No answer came to any strain,And no reply to his refrain —The mystery moved 'round him masked.
"What ails the world?" An echo came —"Ails the world?" The minstrel bands,With famous or forgotten hands,Lift up their lyres in all the lands,And chant alike, and ask the same
From him whose soul first soared in song,A thousand, thousand years away,To him who sang but yesterday,In dying or in deathless lay —"What ails the world?" comes from the throng.
They fain would sing the world to rest;And so they chant in countless keys,As many as the waves of seas,And as the breathings of the breeze,Yet even when they sing their best —
When o'er the list'ning world there floatsSuch melody as 'raptures men —When all look up entranced — and whenThe song of fame floats forth, e'en thenA discord creepeth through the notes —
Their sweetest harps have broken strings,Their grandest accords have their jars,Like shadows on the light of stars,And somehow, something ever marsThe songs the greatest minstrel sings.
And so each song is incomplete,And not a rhyme can ever roundInto the chords of perfect soundThe tones of thought that e'er surroundThe ways walked by the poet's feet.
"What ails the world?" he sings and sighs;No answer cometh to his cry.He asks the earth and asks the sky —The echoes of his song pass byUnanswered — and the poet dies.
A Thought
There never was a valley without a faded flower,There never was a heaven without some little cloud;The face of day may flash with light in any morning hour,But evening soon shall come with her shadow-woven shroud.
There never was a river without its mists of gray,There never was a forest without its fallen leaf;And joy may walk beside us down the windings of our way,When, lo! there sounds a footstep, and we meet the face of grief.
There never was a seashore without its drifting wreck,There never was an ocean without its moaning wave;And the golden gleams of glory the summer sky that fleck,Shine where dead stars are sleeping in their azure-mantled grave.
There never was a streamlet, however crystal clear,Without a shadow resting in the ripples of its tide;Hope's brightest robes are 'broidered with the sable fringe of fear,And she lures us, but abysses girt her path on either side.
The shadow of the mountain falls athwart the lowly plain,And the shadow of the cloudlet hangs above the mountain's head,And the highest hearts and lowest wear the shadow of some pain,And the smile has scarcely flitted ere the anguish'd tear is shed.
For no eyes have there been ever without a weary tear,And those lips cannot be human which have never heaved a sigh;For without the dreary winter there has never been a year,And the tempests hide their terrors in the calmest summer sky.
The cradle means the coffin, and the coffin means the grave;The mother's song scarce hides the ~De Profundis~ of the priest;You may cull the fairest roses any May-day ever gave,But they wither while you wear them ere the ending of your feast.
So this dreary life is passing — and we move amid its maze,And we grope along together, half in darkness, half in light;And our hearts are often burdened by the mysteries of our ways,Which are never all in shadow and are never wholly bright.
And our dim eyes ask a beacon, and our weary feet a guide,And our hearts of all life's mysteries seek the meaning and the key;And a cross gleams o'er our pathway — on it hangs the Crucified,And He answers all our yearnings by the whisper, "Follow Me."Life is a burden; bear it;Life is a duty; dare it;Life is a thorn-crown; wear it,Though it break your heart in twain;Though the burden crush you down;Close your lips, and hide your pain,First the Cross, and then, the Crown.
In Rome
At last the dream of youthStands fair and bright before me,The sunshine of the home of truthFalls tremulously o'er me.
And tower, and spire, and lofty domeIn brightest skies are gleaming;Walk I, to-day, the ways of Rome,Or am I only dreaming?
No, 'tis no dream; my very eyesGaze on the hill-tops seven;Where crosses rise and kiss the skies,And grandly point to Heaven.
Gray ruins loom on ev'ry side,Each stone an age's story;They seem the very ghosts of prideThat watch the grave of glory.
There senates sat, whose sceptre soughtAn empire without limit;There grandeur dreamed its dream and thoughtThat death would never dim it.
There rulers reigned; yon heap of stonesWas once their gorgeous palace;Beside them now, on altar-thrones,The priests lift up the chalice.
There legions marched with bucklers bright,And lances lifted o'er them;While flags, like eagles plumed for flight,Unfurled their wings before them.
There poets sang, whose deathless nameIs linked to deathless verses;There heroes hushed with shouts of fameTheir trampled victim's curses.
There marched the warriors back to home,Beneath yon crumbling portal,And placed upon the brow of RomeThe proud crown of immortal.
There soldiers stood with armor on,In steel-clad ranks and serried,The while their red swords flashed uponThe slaves whose rights they buried.
Here pagan pride, with sceptre, stood,And fame would not forsake it,Until a simple cross of woodCame from the East to break it.
That Rome is dead — here is the grave —Dead glory rises never;And countless crosses o'er it wave,And will wave on forever.
Beyond the Tiber gleams a domeAbove the hill-tops seven;It arches o'er the world from Rome,And leads the world to Heaven.
____ December 6, 1872.
After Sickness
I nearly died, I almost touched the doorThat swings between forever and no more;I think I heard the awful hinges grate,Hour after hour, while I did weary waitDeath's coming; but alas! 'twas all in vain:The door half-opened and then closed again.
What were my thoughts? I had but one regret —That I was doomed to live and linger yetIn this dark valley where the stream of tearsFlows, and, in flowing, deepens thro' the years.My lips spake not — my eyes were dull and dim,But thro' my heart there moved a soundless hymn —A triumph song of many chords and keys,Transcending language — as the summer breeze,Which, through the forest mystically floats,Transcends the reach of mortal music's notes.A song of victory — a chant of bliss:Wedded to words, it might have been like this:
"Come, death! but I am fearless,I shrink not from your frown;The eyes you close are tearless;Haste! strike this frail form down.Come! there is no dissemblingIn this last, solemn hour,But you'll find my heart untremblingBefore your awful power.My lips grow pale and paler,My eyes are strangely dim,I wail not as a wailer,I sing a victor's hymn.My limbs grow cold and colder,My room is all in gloom;Bold death! — but I am bolder —Come! lead me to my tomb!'Tis cold, and damp, and dreary,'Tis still, and lone, and deep;Haste, death! my eyes are weary,I want to fall asleep.
`Strike quick! Why dost thou tarry?Of time why such a loss?Dost fear the sign I carry?'Tis but a simple cross.Thou wilt not strike? Then hear me:Come! strike in any hour,My heart shall never fear theeNor flinch before thy power.I'll meet thee — time's dread lictor —And my wasted lips shall sing:`Dread death! I am the victor!Strong death! where is thy sting?'"
____ Milan, January, 1873.
Old Trees
Old trees, old trees! in your mystic gloomThere's many a warrior laid,And many a nameless and lonely tombIs sheltered beneath your shade.Old trees, old trees! without pomp or prayerWe buried the brave and the true,We fired a volley and left them thereTo rest, old trees, with you.
Old trees, old trees! keep watch and wardOver each grass-grown bed;'Tis a glory, old trees, to stand as guardOver the Southern dead;Old trees, old trees! we shall pass awayLike the leaves you yearly shed,But ye, lone sentinels, still must stay,Old trees, to guard "our dead".
After Seeing Pius IX
I saw his face to-day; he looks a chiefWho fears not human rage, nor human guile;Upon his cheeks the twilight of a grief,But in that grief the starlight of a smile.Deep, gentle eyes, with drooping lids that tellThey are the homes where tears of sorrow dwell;A low voice — strangely sweet — whose very toneTells how these lips speak oft with God alone.I kissed his hand, I fain would kiss his feet;"No, no," he said; and then, in accents sweet,His blessing fell upon my bended head.He bade me rise; a few more words he said,Then took me by the hand — the while he smiled —And, going, whispered: "Pray for me, my child."
Sentinel Songs
When falls the soldier brave,Dead at the feet of wrong,The poet sings and guards his graveWith sentinels of song.
Songs, march! he gives command,Keep faithful watch and true;The living and dead of the conquered landHave now no guards save you.
Gray ballads! mark ye well!Thrice holy is your trust!Go! halt by the fields where warriors fell;Rest arms! and guard their dust.
List, songs! your watch is long,The soldiers' guard was brief;Whilst right is right, and wrong is wrong,Ye may not seek relief.
Go! wearing the gray of grief!Go! watch o'er the dead in gray!Go! guard the private and guard the chief,And sentinel their clay!
And the songs, in stately rhymeAnd with softly sounding tread,Go forth, to watch for a time — a time —Where sleep the Deathless Dead.
And the songs, like funeral dirge,In music soft and low,Sing round the graves, whilst hot tears surgeFrom hearts that are homes of woe.
What tho' no sculptured shaftImmortalize each brave?What tho' no monument epitaphedBe built above each grave?
When marble wears awayAnd monuments are dust,The songs that guard our soldiers' clayWill still fulfil their trust.
With lifted head and stately tread,Like stars that guard the skies,Go watch each bed where rest the dead,Brave songs, with sleepless eyes.
* * * * *
When falls the cause of Right,The poet grasps his pen,And in gleaming letters of living lightTransmits the truth to men.
Go, songs! he says who sings;Go! tell the world this tale;Bear it afar on your tireless wings:The Right will yet prevail.
Songs! sound like the thunder's breath!Boom o'er the world and say:Brave men may die — Right has no death!Truth never shall pass away!
Go! sing thro' a nation's sighs!Go! sob thro' a people's tears!Sweep the horizons of all the skies,And throb through a thousand years!
* * * * *
And the songs, with brave, sad face,Go proudly down their way,Wailing the loss of a conquered raceAnd waiting an Easter-day.
Away! away! like the birds,They soar in their flight sublime;And the waving wings of the poet's wordsFlash down to the end of time.
When the flag of justice fails,Ere its folds have yet been furled,The poet waves its folds in wailsThat flutter o'er the world.
Songs, march! and in rank by rankThe low, wild verses go,To watch the graves where the grass is dank,And the martyrs sleep below.
Songs! halt where there is no name!Songs! stay where there is no stone!And wait till you hear the feet of FameComing to where ye moan.
And the songs, with lips that mourn,And with hearts that break in twainAt the beck of the bard — a hope forlorn —Watch the plain where sleep the slain.
* * * * *
When the warrior's sword is loweredEre its stainless sheen grows dim,The bard flings forth its dying gleamOn the wings of a deathless hymn.
Songs, fly far o'er the worldAnd adown to the end of time:Let the sword still flash, tho' its flag be furled,Thro' the sheen of the poet's rhyme.
Songs! fly as the eagles fly!The bard unbars the cage;Go, soar away, and afar and highWave your wings o'er every age.
Shriek shrilly o'er each day,As futureward ye fly,That the men were right who wore the gray,And Right can never die.
And the songs, with waving wing,Fly far, float far awayFrom the ages' crest; o'er the world they flingThe shade of the stainless gray.
Might! sing your triumph-songs!Each song but sounds a shame;Go down the world, in loud-voiced throngs,To win, from the future, fame.
Our ballads, born of tears,Will track you on your way,And win the hearts of the future yearsFor the men who wore the gray.
And so — say what you will —In the heart of God's own lawsI have a faith, and my heart believes stillIn the triumph of our cause.
Such hope may all be vain,And futile be such trust;But the weary eyes that weep the slain,And watch above such dust,
They cannot help but liftTheir visions to the skies;They watch the clouds, but wait the riftThrough which their hope shall rise.
The victor wields the sword:Its blade may broken beBy a thought that sleeps in a deathless word,To wake in the years to be.
We wait a grand-voiced bard,Who, when he sings, will sendImmortal songs' "Imperial Guard"The Lost Cause to defend.
He has not come; he will.But when he chants, his songWill stir the world to its depths and thrillThe earth with its tale of wrong.
The fallen cause still waits —Its bard has not come yet.His sun through one of to-morrow's gatesShall shine, but never set.
But when he comes he'll sweepA harp with tears all stringed,And the very notes he strikes will weepAs they come from his hand woe-winged.
Ah! grand shall be his strain,And his songs shall fill all climes,And the rebels shall rise and march againDown the lines of his glorious rhymes.
And through his verse shall gleamThe swords that flashed in vain,And the men who wore the gray shall seemTo be marshaling again.
But hush! between his wordsPeer faces sad and pale,And you hear the sound of broken chordsBeat through the poet's wail.
Through his verse the orphans cry —The terrible undertone —And the father's curse and the mother's sigh,And the desolate young wife's moan.
* * * * *
But harps are in every landThat await a voice that sings,And a master-hand — but the humblest handMay gently touch its strings.
I sing with a voice too lowTo be heard beyond to-day,In minor keys of my people's woe,But my songs pass away.
To-morrow hears them not —To-morrow belongs to Fame —My songs, like the birds', will be forgot,And forgotten shall be my name.
And yet who knows? BetimesThe grandest songs depart,While the gentle, humble, and low-toned rhymesWill echo from heart to heart.
But, oh! if in song or speech,In major or minor key,My voice could over the ages reach,I would whisper the name of Lee.
In the night of our defeatStar after star had gone,But the way was bright to our soldiers' feetWhere the star of Lee led on.
But sudden there came a cloud,Out rung a nation's knell;Our cause was wrapped in its winding shroud,All fell when the great Lee fell.
From his men, with scarce a word,Silence when great hearts part!But we know he sheathed his stainless swordIn the wound of a broken heart.
He fled from Fame; but FameSought him in his retreat,Demanding for the world one nameMade deathless by defeat.
Nay, Fame! success is best!All lost! and nothing won:North, keep the clouds that flush the West,We have the sinking sun.
All lost! but by the gravesWhere martyred heroes rest,He wins the most who honor saves —Success is not the test.
All lost! a nation weeps;By all the tears that fall,He loses naught who conscience keeps,Lee's honor saves us all.
All lost! but e'en defeatHath triumphs of her own,Wrong's paean hath no note so sweetAs trampled Right's proud moan.
The world shall yet decide,In truth's clear, far-off light,That the soldiers who wore the gray, and diedWith Lee, were in the right.
And men, by time made wise,Shall in the future seeNo name hath risen, or ever shall rise,Like the name of Robert Lee.
Ah, me! my words are weak,This task surpasses me;Dead soldiers! rise from your graves and speak,And tell how you loved Lee.
The banner you bore is furled,And the gray is faded, too!But in all the colors that deck the worldYour gray blends not with blue.
The colors are far apart,Graves sever them in twain;The Northern heart and the Southern heartMay beat in peace again;
But still till time's last day,Whatever lips may plight,The blue is blue, but the gray is gray,Wrong never accords with Right.
Go, Glory! and forever guardOur chieftain's hallowed dust;And Honor! keep eternal ward!And Fame! be this thy trust!
Go! with your bright emblazoned scrollAnd tell the years to be,The first of names that flash your rollIs ours — great Robert Lee.
Lee wore the gray! since then'Tis Right's and Honor's hue!He honored it, that man of men,And wrapped it round the true.
Dead! but his spirit breathes!Dead! but his heart is ours!Dead! but his sunny and sad land wreathesHis crown with tears for flowers.
A statue for his tomb!Mould it of marble white!For Wrong, a spectre of death and doom;An angel of hope for Right.
But Lee has a thousand gravesIn a thousand hearts, I ween;And teardrops fall from our eyes in wavesThat will keep his memory green.
Ah! Muse, you dare not claimA nobler man than he,Nor nobler man hath less of blame,Nor blameless man hath purer name,Nor purer name hath grander fame,Nor fame — another Lee.
Fragments from an Epic Poem
A Mystery
His face was sad; some shadow must have hungAbove his soul; its folds, now falling dark,Now almost bright; but dark or not so dark,Like cloud upon a mount, 'twas always there —A shadow; and his face was always sad.
His eyes were changeful; for the gloom of grayWithin them met and blended with the blue,And when they gazed they seemed almost to dreamThey looked beyond you into far-away,And often drooped; his face was always sad.
His eyes were deep; I often saw them dim,As if the edges of a cloud of tearsHad gathered there, and only left a mistThat made them moist and kept them ever moist.He never wept; his face was always sad.
I mean, not many saw him ever weep,And yet he seemed as one who often wept,Or always, tears that were too proud to flowIn outer streams, but shrunk within and froze —Froze down into himself; his face was sad.
And yet sometimes he smiled — a sudden smile,As if some far-gone joy came back again,Surprised his heart, and flashed across his faceA moment like a light through rifts in clouds,Which falls upon an unforgotten grave;He rarely laughed; his face was ever sad.
And when he spoke his words were sad as wails,And strange as stories of an unknown land,And full of meanings as the sea of moans.At times he was so still that silence seemedTo sentinel his lips; and not a wordWould leave his heart; his face was strangely sad.
But then at times his speech flowed like a stream —A deep and dreamy stream through lonely dellsOf lofty mountain-thoughts, and o'er its wavesHung mysteries of gloom; and in its flowIt rippled on lone shores fair-fringed with flowers,And deepened as it flowed; his face was sad.
He had his moods of silence and of speech.I asked him once the reason, and he said:"When I speak much, my words are only words,When I speak least, my words are more than words,When I speak not, I then reveal myself!"It was his way of saying things — he spokeIn quaintest riddles; and his face was sad.
And, when he wished, he wove around his wordsA nameless spell that marvelously thrilledThe dullest ear. 'Twas strange that he so coldCould warm the coldest heart; that he so hardCould soften hardest soul; that he so stillCould rouse the stillest mind: his face was sad.
He spoke of death as if it were a toyFor thought to play with; and of life he spokeAs of a toy not worth the play of thought;And of this world he spoke as captives speakOf prisons where they pine; he spoke of menAs one who found pure gold in each of them.He spoke of women just as if he dreamedAbout his mother; and he spoke of GodAs if he walked with Him and knew His heart —But he was weary, and his face was sad.
He had a weary way in all he did,As if he dragged a chain, or bore a cross;And yet the weary went to him for rest.His heart seemed scarce to know an earthly joy,And yet the joyless were rejoiced by him.He seemed to have two selves — his outer selfWas free to any passer-by, and kind to all,And gentle as a child's; that outer selfKept open all its gates, that who so wishedMight enter them and find therein a place;And many entered; but his face was sad.
The inner self he guarded from approach,He kept it sealed and sacred as a shrine;He guarded it with silence and reserve;Its gates were locked and watched, and none might passBeyond the portals; and his face was sad.But whoso entered there — and few were they —So very few — so very, very few,They never did forget; they said: "How strange!"They murmured still: "How strange! how strangely strange!"They went their ways, but wore a lifted look,And higher meanings came to common words,And lowly thoughts took on the grandest tones;And, near or far, they never did forgetThe "Shadow and the Shrine"; his face was sad.
He was not young nor old — yet he was both;Nor both by turns, but always both at once;For youth and age commingled in his ways,His words, his feelings, and his thoughts and acts.At times the "old man" tottered in his thoughts,The child played thro' his words; his face was sad.
I one day asked his age; he smiled and said:"The rose that sleeps upon yon valley's breast,Just born to-day, is not as young as I;The moss-robed oak of twice a thousand storms —An acorn cradled ages long ago —Is old, in sooth, but not as old as I."It was his way — he always answered thus,But when he did his face was very sad.
* * * * *
Spirit Song
Thou wert once the purest waveWhere the tempests roar;Thou art now a golden waveOn the golden shore —Ever — ever — evermore!
Thou wert once the bluest waveShadows e'er hung o'er;Thou art now the brightest waveOn the brightest shore —Ever — ever — evermore!
Thou wert once the gentlest waveOcean ever bore;Thou art now the fairest waveOn the fairest shore —Ever — ever — evermore!
Whiter foam than thine, O wave,Wavelet never wore,Stainless wave; and now you laveThe far and stormless shore —Ever — ever — evermore!
Who bade thee go, O bluest wave,Beyond the tempest's roar?Who bade thee flow, O fairest wave,Unto the golden shore,Ever — ever — evermore?
Who waved a hand, O purest wave?A hand that blessings bore,And wafted thee, O whitest wave,Unto the fairest shore,Ever — ever — evermore?
Who winged thy way, O holy wave,In days and days of yore?And wept the words: "O winsome wave,This earth is not thy shore!"Ever — ever — evermore?
Who gave thee strength, O snowy wave —The strength a great soul wore —And said: "Float up to God! my wave,His heart shall be thy shore!"Ever — ever — evermore?
Who said to thee, O poor, weak wave:"Thy wail shall soon be o'er,Float on to God, and leave me, wave,Upon this rugged shore!"Ever — ever — evermore?
And thou hast reached His feet! Glad wave,Dost dream of days of yore?Dost yearn that we shall meet, pure wave,Upon the golden shore,Ever — ever — evermore?
Thou sleepest in the calm, calm wave,Beyond the wild storm's roar!I watch amid the storm, bright wave,Like rock upon the shore;Ever — ever — evermore!
Sing at the feet of God, white wave,Song sweet as one of yore!I would not bring thee back, heart wave,To break upon this shore,Ever — ever — evermore!
* * * * *
"No, no," he gently spoke: "You know me not;My mind is like a temple, dim, vast, lone;Just like a temple when the priest has gone,And all the hymns that rolled along the vaultsAre buried deep in silence; when the lightsThat flashed on altars died away in dark,And when the flowers, with all their perfumed breathAnd beauteous bloom, lie withered on the shrine.My mind is like a temple, solemn, still,Untenanted save by the ghosts of gloomWhich seem to linger in the holy place —The shadows of the sinners who passed there,And wept, and spirit-shriven left uponThe marble floor memorials of their tears."
And while he spake, his words sank low and low,Until they hid themselves in some still depthHe would not open; and his face was sad.
When he spoke thus, his very gentlenessPassed slowly from him, and his look, so mild,Grew marble cold; a pallor as of deathWhitened his lips, and clouds rose to his eyes,Dry, rainless clouds, where lightnings seemed to sleep.His words, as tender as a rose's smile,Slow-hardened into thorns, but seemed to stingHimself the most; his brow, at such times, bentMost lowly down, and wore such look of painAs though it bore an unseen crown of thorns.Who knows? perhaps it did!
But he would passHis hand upon his brow, or touch his eyes,And then the olden gentleness, like lightWhich seems transfigured by the touch of dark,Would tremble on his face, and he would lookMore gentle then than ever, and his toneWould sweeten, like the winds when storms have passed.
I saw him, one day, thus most deeply movedAnd darkened; ah! his face was like a tombThat hid the dust of dead and buried smiles,But, suddenly, his face flashed like a throne,And all the smiles arose as from the dead,And wore the glory of an Easter morn;And passed beneath the sceptre of a hopeWhich came from some far region of his heart,Came up into his eyes, and reigned a queen.I marveled much; he answered to my lookWith all his own, and wafted me these words:
"There are transitions in the lives of all.There are transcendent moments when we standIn Thabor's glory with the chosen three,And weak with very strength of human loveWe fain would build our tabernacles there;And, Peter-like, for very human joyWe cry aloud: `'Tis good that we are here;'Swift are these moments, like the smile of God,Which glorifies a shadow and is gone.
"And then we stand upon another mount —Dark, rugged Calvary; and God keeps us thereFor awful hours, to make us there His ownIn Crucifixion's tortures; 'tis His way.We wish to cling to Thabor; He says: `No.'And what He says is best because most true.We fain would fly from Calvary; He says: `No.'And it is true because it is the best.And yet, my friend, these two mounts are the same.
"They lie apart, distinct and separate,And yet — strange mystery! — they are the same.For Calvary is a Thabor in the dark,And Thabor is a Calvary in the light.It is the mystery of Holy Christ!It is the mystery of you and me!Earth's shadows move, as moves far-heaven's sun,And, like the shadows of a dial, weTell, darkly, in the vale the very hoursThe sun tells brightly in the sinless skies.Dost understand?" I did not understand —Or only half; his face was very sad."Dost thou not understand me? Then your lifeIs shallow as a brook that brawls alongBetween two narrow shores; you never wept —You never wore great clouds upon your browAs mountains wear them; and you never woreStrange glories in your eyes, as sunset skiesOft wear them; and your lips — they never sighedGrand sighs which bear the weight of all the soul;You never reached your arms a-broad — a-high —To grasp far-worlds, or to enclasp the sky.Life, only life, can understand a life;Depth, only depth, can understand the deep.The dewdrop glist'ning on the lily's faceCan never learn the story of the sea."
* * * * *
One day we strolled together to the sea.Gray evening and the night had almost met,We walked between them, silent, to the shore.The feet of weird faced waves ran up the beachLike children in mad play, then back againAs if the spirit of the land pursued;Then up again — and farther — and they flungWhite, foamy arms around each other's neck;Then back again with sudden rush and shout,As if the sea, their mother, called them home;Then leaned upon her breast, as if so tired,But swiftly tore themselves away and rushedAway, and farther up the beach, and fellFor utter weariness; and loudly sobbedFor strength to rise and flow back to the deep.But all in vain, for other waves swept onAnd trampled them; the sea cried out in grief,The gray beach laughed and clasped them to the sands.It was the flood-tide and the even-tide —Between the evening and the night we walked —We walked between the billows and the beach,We walked between the future and the past,Down to the sea we twain had strolled — to part.
The shore was low, with just the faintest riseOf many-colored sands and shreds of shells,Until about a stone's far throw they metA fringe of faded grass, with here and thereA pale-green shrub; and farther into land —Another stone's throw farther — there were trees —Tall, dark, wild trees, with intertwining arms,Each almost touching each, as if they fearedTo stand alone and look upon the sea.The night was in the trees — the evening on the shore.We walked between the evening and the night —Between the trees and tide we silent strolled.There lies between man's silence and his speechA shadowy valley, where thro' those who passAre never silent, tho' they may not speak;And yet they more than breathe. It is the valeOf wordless sighs, half uttered and half-heard.It is the vale of the unutterable.We walked between our silence and our speech,And sighed between the sunset and the stars,One hour beside the sea.
There was a cloudFar o'er the reach of waters, hanging low'Tween sea and sky — the banner of the storm,Its edges faintly bright, as if the raysThat fled far down the West had rested thereAnd slumbered, and had left a dream of light.Its inner folds were dark — its central, more.It did not flutter; there it hung, as calmAs banner in a temple o'er a shrine.Its shadow only fell upon the sea,Above the shore the heavens bended blue.We walked between the cloudless and the cloud,That hour, beside the sea.
But, quick as thought,There gleamed a sword of wild, terrific light —Its hilt in heaven, its point hissed in the sea,Its scabbard in the darkness — and it toreThe bannered cloud into a thousand shreds,Then quivered far away, and bent and brokeIn flashing fragments;
And there came a pealThat shook the mighty sea from shore to shore,But did not stir a sand-grain on the beach;Then silence fell, and where the low cloud hungClouds darker gathered — and they proudly wavedLike flags before a battle.
We twain walked —We walked between the lightning's parted gleams,We walked between the thunders of the skies,We walked between the wavings of the clouds,We walked between the tremblings of the sea,We walked between the stillnesses and roarsOf frightened billows; and we walked betweenThe coming tempest and the dying calm —Between the tranquil and the terrible —That hour beside the sea.
There was a rockFar up the winding beach that jutted inThe sea, and broke the heart of every waveThat struck its breast; not steep enough nor highTo be a cliff, nor yet sufficient roughTo be a crag; a simple, low, lone rock;Yet not so low as that its brow was lavedBy highest tide, yet not sufficient highTo rise beyond the reach of silver sprayThat rained up from the waves — their tears that fellUpon its face, when they died at its feet.Around its sides damp seaweed hung in long,Sad tresses, dripping down into the sea.A tuft or two of grass did green the rock,A patch or so of moss; the rest was bare.
Adown the shore we walked 'tween eve and night;But when we reached the rock the eve and nightHad met; light died; we sat down in the darkUpon the rock.
Meantime a thousand cloudsCareered and clashed in air — a thousand wavesWhirled wildly on in wrath — a thousand windsHowled hoarsely on the main, and down the skiesInto the hollow seas the fierce rain rushed,As if its ev'ry drop were hot with wrath;And, like a thousand serpents intercoiled,The lightnings glared and hissed, and hissed and glared,And all the horror shrank in horror backBefore the maddest peals that ever leapedOut from the thunder's throat.
Within the darkWe silent sat. No rain fell on the rock,Nor in on land, nor shore; only on seaThe upper and the lower waters metIn wild delirium, like a thousand heartsFar parted — parted long — which meet to break,Which rush into each other's arms and breakIn terror and in tempests wild of tears.No rain fell on the rock; but flakes of foamSwept cold against our faces, where we satBetween the hush and howling of the winds,Between the swells and sinking of the waves,Between the stormy sea and stilly shore,Between the rushings of the maddened rains,Between the dark beneath and dark above.
We sat within the dread heart of the night:One, pale with terror; one, as calm and stillAnd stern and moveless as the lone, low rock.
* * * * *
Lake Como
Winter on the mountainsSummer on the shore,The robes of sun-gleams woven,The lake's blue wavelets wore.
Cold, white, against the heavens,Flashed winter's crown of snow,And the blossoms of the spring-tideWaved brightly far below.
The mountain's head was dreary,The cold and cloud were there,But the mountain's feet were sandaledWith flowers of beauty rare.
And winding thro' the mountainsThe lake's calm wavelets rolled,And a cloudless sun was gildingTheir ripples with its gold.
Adown the lake we glidedThro' all the sunlit day;The cold snows gleamed above us,But fair flowers fringed our way
The snows crept down the mountain,The flowers crept up the slope,Till they seemed to meet and mingle,Like human fear and hope.
But the same rich, golden sunlightFell on the flowers and snow,Like the smile of God that flashesOn hearts in joy or woe.
And on the lake's low marginThe trees wore stoles of green,While here and there, amid them,A convent cross was seen.
Anon a ruined castle,Moss-mantled, loomed in view,And cast its solemn shadowAcross the water's blue.
And chapel, cot, and villa,Met here and there our gaze,And many a crumbling towerThat told of other days.
And scattered o'er the watersThe fishing boats lay still,And sound of song so softlyCame echoed from the hill.
At times the mountain's shadowFell dark across the scene,And veiled with veil of purpleThe wavelets' silver sheen.
But for a moment onlyThe lake would wind, and lo!The waves would near the gloryOf the sunlight's brightest glow.
At times there fell a silenceUnbroken by a tone,As if no sound of voicesHad ever there been known.
Through strange and lonely placesWe glided thus for hours;We saw no other facesBut the faces of the flowers.
The shores were sad and lonelyAs hearts without a love,While darker and more drearyThe mountains rose above.
But sudden round a headlandThe lake would sweep again,And voices from a villageWould meet us with their strain.
Thus all the day we glided,Until the Vesper bellGave to the day, at sunset,Its sweet and soft farewell.
Then back again we glidedUpon our homeward way,When twilight wrapped the watersAnd the mountains with its gray.
But brief the reign of twilight,The night came quickly on;The dark brow o'er the mountains,Star-wreathed, brightly shone.
And down thro' all the shadowsThe star-gleams softly crept,And kissed, with lips all shining,The wavelets ere they slept.
The lake lay in a slumber,The shadows for its screen,While silence waved her sceptreAbove the sleeping scene.
The spirit of the darknessMoved, ghost-like, everywhere;Wherever starlight glimmered,Its shadow, sure, fell there.
The lone place grew more lonely,And all along our wayThe mysteries of the night-timeHeld undisputed sway.
Thro' silence and thro' darknessWe glided down the tideThat wound around the mountainsThat rose on either side.
No eyes would close in slumberWithin our little bark;What charmed us so in daylightSo awed us in the dark.
Upon the deck we lingered,A whisper scarce was heard;When hearts are stirred profoundest,Lips are without a word.
"Let's say the Chaplet," softlyA voice beside me spake."Christ walked once in the darknessAcross an Eastern lake,
"And to-night we know the secretThat will charm Him to our side:If we call upon His Mother,He will meet us on the tide."
So we said the beads together,Up and down the little bark;And I believe that Jesus met us,With His Mother, in the dark.
And our prayers were scarcely endedWhen, on mountain-top afar,We beheld the morning meetingWith the night's last fading star.
And I left the lake; but neverShall the years to come effaceFrom my heart the dream and visionOf that strange and lonely place.
____ February 1, 1873.
"Peace! Be Still"
Sometimes the Saviour sleeps, and it is dark;For, oh! His eyes are this world's only light,And when they close wild waves rush on His bark,And toss it through the dead hours of the night.
So He slept once upon an eastern lake,In Peter's bark, while wild waves raved at will;A cry smote on Him, and when He did wake,He softly whispered, and the sea grew still.
It is a mystery: but He seems to sleepAs erst he slept in Peter's waved-rocked bark;A storm is sweeping all across the deep,While Pius prays, like Peter, in the dark.
The sky is darkened, and the shore is far,The tempest's strength grows fiercer every hour:Upon the howling deep there shines no star —Why sleeps He still? Why does He hide His power?
Fear not! a holy hand is on the helmThat guides the bark thro' all the tempest's wrath;Quail not! the wildest waves can never whelmThe ship of faith upon its homeward path.
The Master sleeps — His pilot guards the bark;He soon will wake, and at His mighty willThe light will shine where all before was dark —The wild waves still remember: "Peace! be still."
____ Rome, 1873.
Good Friday
O Heart of Three-in-the evening,You nestled the thorn-crowned head;He leaned on you in His sorrow,And rested on you when dead.
Ah! Holy Three-in-the eveningHe gave you His richest dower;He met you afar on Calvary,And made you "His own last hour".
O Brow of Three-in-the evening,Thou wearest a crimson crown;Thou art Priest of the hours forever,And thy voice, as thou goest down
The cycles of time, still murmursThe story of love each day:"I held in death the Eternal,In the long and the far-away."
O Heart of Three-in-the evening,Mine beats with thine to-day;Thou tellest the olden story,I kneel — and I weep and pray.
____ Boulogne, sur mer.
My Beads
Sweet, blessed beads! I would not partWith one of you for richest gemThat gleams in kingly diadem;Ye know the history of my heart.
For I have told you every griefIn all the days of twenty years,And I have moistened you with tears,And in your decades found relief.
Ah! time has fled, and friends have failedAnd joys have died; but in my needsYe were my friends, my blessed beads!And ye consoled me when I wailed.
For many and many a time, in grief,My weary fingers wandered roundThy circled chain, and always foundIn some Hail Mary sweet relief.
How many a story you might tellOf inner life, to all unknown;I trusted you and you alone,But ah! ye keep my secrets well.
Ye are the only chain I wear —A sign that I am but the slave,In life, in death, beyond the grave,Of Jesus and His Mother fair.
At Night
Dreary! weary!Weary! dreary!Sighs my soul this lonely night.Farewell gladness!Welcome sadness!Vanished are my visions bright.
Stars are shining!Winds are pining!In the sky and o'er the sea;Shine foreverStars! but neverCan the starlight gladden me.
Stars! you nightlySparkle brightly,Scattered o'er your azure dome;While earth's turning,There you're burning,Beacons of a better home.
Stars! you brightenAnd you lightenMany a heart-grief here below;But your gleamingAnd your beamingCannot chase away my woe.
Stars! you're shining,I am pining —I am dark, but you are bright;Hanging o'er meAnd before meIs a night you cannot light.
Night of sorrow,Whose to-morrowI may never, never see,Till upon meAnd around meDawns a bright eternity.
Winds! you're sighing,And you're crying,Like a mourner o'er a tomb;Whither go ye,Whither blow ye,Wailing through the midnight gloom?
Chanting lowly,Softly, lowly,Like the voice of one in woe;Winds so lonely,Why thus moan ye?Say, what makes you sorrow so?
Are you grievingFor your leavingScenes where all is fair and gay?For the flowersIn their bowers,You have met with on your way?
For fond faces,For dear places,That you've seen as on you swept?Are you sighing,Are you crying,O'er the memories they have left?
Earth is sleepingWhile you're sweepingThrough night's solemn silence by;On forever,Pausing never —How I love to hear you sigh!
Men are dreaming,Stars are gleamingIn the far-off heaven's blue;Bosom aching,Musing, waking,Midnight winds, I sigh with you!
Nocturne ["Betimes, I seem to see in dreams"]
Betimes, I seem to see in dreamsWhat when awake I may not see;Can night be God's more than the day?Do stars, not suns, best light his way?Who knoweth? Blended lights and shadesArch aisles down which He walks to me.
I hear him coming in the nightAfar, and yet I know not how;His steps make music low and sweet;Sometimes the nails are in his feet;Does darkness give God better lightThan day, to find a weary brow?
Does darkness give man brighter raysTo find the God, in sunshine lost?Must shadows wrap the trysting-placeWhere God meets hearts with gentlest grace?Who knoweth it? God hath His waysFor every soul here sorrow-tossed.
The hours of day are like the wavesThat fret against the shores of sin:They touch the human everywhere,The Bright-Divine fades in their glare;And God's sweet voice the spirit cravesIs heard too faintly in the din.
When all the senses are awake,The mortal presses overmuchUpon the great immortal part —And God seems further from the heart.Must souls, like skies, when day-dawns break,Lose star by star at sunlight's touch?
But when the sun kneels in the west,And grandly sinks as great hearts sink;And in his sinking flings adownBright blessings from his fading crown,The stars begin their song of rest,And shadows make the thoughtless think.
The human seems to fade away;And down the starred and shadowed skiesThe heavenly comes — as memories comeOf home to hearts afar from home;And thro' the darkness after dayMany a winged angel flies.
And somehow, tho' the eyes see less,Our spirits seem to see the more;When we look thro' night's shadow-barsThe soul sees more than shining stars,Yea — sees the very lovelinessThat rests upon the "Golden Shore".
Strange reveries steal o'er us then,Like keyless chords of instruments,With music's soul without the notes;And subtle, sad, and sweet there floatsA melody not made by men,Nor ever heard by outer sense.
And "what has been", and "what will be",And "what is not", but "might have been",The dim "to be", the "mournful gone",The little things life rested onIn "Long-ago's", give tone, not key,To reveries beyond our ken.
Sunless Days
They come to ev'ry life — sad, sunless days,With not a light all o'er their clouded skies;And thro' the dark we grope along our waysWith hearts fear-filled, and lips low-breathing sighs.
What is the dark? Why cometh it? and whence?Why does it banish all the bright away?How does it weave a spell o'er soul and sense?Why falls the shadow where'er gleams the ray?
Hast felt it? I have felt it, and I knowHow oft and suddenly the shadows rollFrom out the depths of some dim realm of woe,To wrap their darkness round the human soul.
Those days are darker than the very night;For nights have stars, and sleep, and happy dreams;But these days bring unto the spirit-sightThe mysteries of gloom, until it seems
The light is gone forever, and the darkHangs like a pall of death above the soul,Which rocks amid the gloom like storm-swept bark,And sinks beneath a sea where tempests roll.
____ Winter on the Atlantic.
A Reverie ["Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?"]
Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?Why ask when the night only knoweth?The night — and the angel of sleep!But ever since then a music deep,Like a stream thro' a shadow-land, flowethUnder each thought of my spirit that growethInto the blossom and bloom of speech —Under each fancy that cometh and goeth —Wayward, as waves when evening breeze blowethOut of the sunset and into the beach.And is it a wonder I wept to-day?For I mused and thought, but I cannot sayIf I dreamed of a song, or sang in a dream.In the silence of sleep, and the noon of night;And now — even now — 'neath the words I write,The flush of the dream or the flow of the song —I cannot tell which — moves strangely along.But why write more? I am puzzled sore:Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?Ah! hush, heart! hush! 'tis of no avail;The words of earth are a darksome veil,The poet weaves it with artful grace;Lifts it off from his thoughts at times,Lets it rustle along his rhymes,But gathers it close, covering the faceOf ev'ry thought that must not partFrom out the keeping of his heart.
St. Mary's
Back to where the roses restRound a shrine of holy name,(Yes — they knew me when I came)More of peace and less of fameSuit my restless heart the best.
Back to where long quiets brood,Where the calm is never stirredBy the harshness of a word,But instead the singing birdSweetens all my solitude.
With the birds and with the flowersSongs and silences unite,From the morning unto night;And somehow a clearer lightShines along the quiet hours.
God comes closer to me here —Back of ev'ry rose leaf thereHe is hiding — and the airThrills with calls to holy prayer;Earth grows far, and heaven near.
Every single flower is fraughtWith the very sweetest dreams,Under clouds or under gleamsChangeful ever — yet meseemsOn each leaf I read God's thought.
Still, at times, as place of death,Not a sound to vex the ear,Yet withal it is not drear;Better for the heart to hear,Far from men — God's gentle breath.
Where men clash, God always clings:When the human passes by,Like a cloud from summer sky,God so gently draweth nigh,And the brightest blessings brings.
List! e'en now a wild bird sings,And the roses seem to hearEvery note that thrills my ear,Rising to the heavens clear,And my soul soars on its wings
Up into the silent skiesWhere the sunbeams veil the star,Up — beyond the clouds afar,Where no discords ever mar,Where rests peace that never dies.
So I live within the calm,And the birds and roses knowThat the days that come and goAre as peaceful as the flowOf a prayer beneath a psalm.
De Profundis
Ah! days so dark with death's eclipse!Woe are we! woe are we!And the nights are ages long!From breaking hearts, thro' pallid lipsO my God! woe are we!Trembleth the mourner's song;A blight is falling on the fair,And hope is dying in despair,And terror walketh everywhere.
All the hours are full of tears —O my God! woe are we!Grief keeps watch in brightest eyes —Every heart is strung with fears,Woe are we! woe are we!All the light hath left the skies,And the living awe struck crowdsSee above them only clouds,And around them only shrouds.