dropcap-T
here are no solitudes to view,The whole world lies in drop of dew;From where it hangs all space is open;It neighbors stars of the crystal blue.
This open vision has my soulAthrill with silent organ-rollOf immanence divine, and feels itUpgather all in harmonious whole,—
Deep waves of God's vast music clear,That pulse one choral atmosphereOf Love's concordant purposes, andFore-score the song of His golden year.
dropcap-I
f mighty angels fair and tall,Each robed as priestly seneschal,On altar-suns burn incense daily,As wheel the systems to Love's sweet call,
Earth's sun is sure an altar-rose,Abloom from dawn to day's bright close.The mighty angel stoops above itWith pulsing wings, as it golden glows,
To fan the incense-waves through space.When buds the light or folds its grace,He lifts erect his glorious stature,Kindling the sky from his ruddy face.
dropcap-A
cross the hills the cattle call,As black the boding shadows fall;Zigzag the lightning writes its messageThat's thundered forth from the mountain wall.
From out the overhanging frownThe loosened rain comes rattling down!The swallow's gone, the daisy cowers—But joy to fields in their tan and brown!
The burnished cypher of the skyNow lets the loud-tongued thunder die.Nature's delight, a timeless rapture,
dropcap-T
he "trees of God," the prophet said,Great trees, with sap, and laurelled head;Ay, trees of God! all strength, all beauty,Wove by invisible Hand and thread,—
With anchors flexed as lissome withe;With boles like mighty monolith;These arms of brawn, outstretched in powerTo brave the storms that would test their pith!
Lords of the scene in blasts and calms,The breath of life within their palms,They rhythmic sway in choral murmurWhile seas and suns chant their rolling psalms.
dropcap-T
he flecks of gold that glorifyThe forest floors to loving eye,Withdraw from me,—a splendor lingersOn trees of God, in their crowns on high.
And as the arch with stars is sprent,I hear balm-dew from firmamentDrip richly from their whispering leafageTo soothe the fields to a sweet content.
In bloom of dark they softly stir,Till arrowy dawn the shadow-blurDispels—God's tingling kiss of morningOn oak and maple and pine and fir.
dropcap-T
he ideal is a lifting skyWherein my soul may upward fly;It moveth as I onward journey,Solace of heart and the light of eye.
Spirit to spirit! Thus is wroughtAll that uplifts the world of thoughtOr wings the soul with aspiration,By which the life to its height is brought.
Great souls the mount of vision trod,While plumy fire their sandals shod;They saw the unseen and eternal.O life is life when 'tis seen in God!
dropcap-T
he spirit firm and swelling soulAre heart of noble self-control,Sources of power transmuting dangerTo clarion-call to the man as whole.
'Tis courage helms the bark that's tostBy wild typhoon, or swept by frost,While sailing life's surprising ocean,—Strike sail to fear and the bark is lost.
O muse, thou sing'st no siren strainTo him who plows this heaven-domed main!Thy starry eyes look down all-wistfulOn souls that toy with a tangled skein.
dropcap-M
an's highest word, as God's above,The golden word of words, is love;Its whisper is the soul's one rapture,Its voice the voice of the brooding dove.
Immortal rose of joy elate,Thy perfume's waft by palace gateOr hovel door, in cloud or sunshine,That breath of Eden which all hearts wait.
Ensouled in clay man's glory is,Yet love dilates this soul of hisTill chrysalis of earth be shattered,And comes the answer to Psyche's quiz.
dropcap-L
ove bows herself in holy prayerTo worship ever the All Fair;She coins her heart in largess golden,And beggars self on her altar-stair.
Love lifts her hands that, liker yetTo One whom on the way she met,All hearts may glow, as sea to sky light,Till earth shall never its heaven forget.
Love bears upon her ardent breastThe fainting ones in east and west,And yearning cries: Let come Thy kingdom,Be Thou of sorrowing hearts the guest.
dropcap-A
s on a hill-top near the sunThe stars are unseen, every one,While from its base within the valleyTheir festal pomp is e'en now begun;
So lowly lives 'mid shadows passedHave higher skies above them massed,See galaxies and constellations—The many mansions o'er them englassed.
Encamped am I; earth's not my home.The glory flashing 'neath yon dome,Refusing to be leashed, like music,Supernal is, and it beckons, Come!
dropcap-S
unshine, O soul, is not a mood—Open the life unto the good.The great sun globes itself at morningIn dewy lawns, but 'tis dark in wood.
Up, up, and purge thy spirit's sight.See wheeling wings, superb in flight,Of golden eagle's aspiration!E'en thus aspire to the Central Light.
In loom divine the clouds are wove,And shot with hues of irised dove,The blinding shafts of light to temperWith airy curtains of Love's own love.
dropcap-A
bird on sudden, as I write,Through open door in eager flightSeeks refuge from a falcon's talons,Upon my breast, in its fearful plight.
Slight bird and dark in olive green,With yellow throat, thy living sheenDoth come and go with thy heart's throbbing,—Safe, safe art thou from his talons keen!
I am as God to thee, poor thing!Now take thee to thy heaven and singA virelay for thy deliverance,Sweet vireo of the olive wing!
dropcap-F
resh sprig of greenest southernwood,Thou call'st me back to my childhood!Thy aromatic odors wakenA thousand echoes. I hear the good
Old man of God, long-haired and tall,In the old church, to great and small,His lightning message give, and listenThe echoing thunder that rolled o'er all.
The tiny child twirls oft its sprayOf southernwood,—'tis a far day,Yet fresh I smell the keen aroma,
dropcap-I
feel the season's dreamy callIn hawkbit, asters, 'pyeweed tall,—Glory of August ere SeptemberTrumpet the note of the hasting fall.
A flash in crystal waters cold—O dream in silver, red, and gold—The speckled trout above the gravelLies by the rock where the stream is rolled!
Grasshoppers chirp and crickets chir,The rich-tagged alders nod and pur,The kine bells drowse the distant pasture,—All nature waits for the coming stir.
dropcap-T
his golden-browed September landIs rich of heart and free of hand;Fresh from the mint of God, and taintless,Are flung her guineas of gold, like sand.
Here where the road winds round the hill,And down beside the tidal mill,Marsh goldenrod and its plumed sisterTheir spangled ore in a largess spill.
The Sabbath sabbatize, said He,—This gold is sacred unto me,—Rich gift of God unknown of mammon,Kingdom of Heaven by the roadside, free!
dropcap-I
keep one picture in my heart,To be of life a cherished part,—A picture waiting yet its canvasFrom master hand of divinest art:
A wan blind man and Christ sun-brown,Hand in His hand, are walking downThe throngèd street into the openBeyond the walls of Bethsaida town.
Light of the world with night in kiss!Pathetic scene—a scene of bliss!The rayless eyes are touched to healing!Was ever picture so sweet as this?
dropcap-A
s turns my heart its crimson leaves,And life's own diary freshly weaves,I see the pages glow intenser,A wondrous story my bosom heaves.
Beneath the careless lines there writAppear in beauty, clear, sunlit,Mysterious Love's own tender story,How this poor heart to His own was knit.
Mine, mine, while moons the waters move!Mine, while Heaven lasts, and Love is Love!Methinks He hid this sweet love favorThat I might find it—my treasure-trove.
dropcap-S
ure in this realm of Sense and TimePasses an endless pantomimeOf life and thought, whose tone and colorA shadow is of a heavenly prime.
The rose unfolds from the unseen;It was not to the senses keen;'Tis broken to the vision softly,A crown of crowns of the summer's green.
In hushed and breathless Beauty's name,From out the veiled deeps as flameIt comes, a thing of sense, of spirit,And passeth out by the way it came.
dropcap-A
ll day an ashen light sereneHas brooded o'er this longed-for scene,Its tints and damask flush all hiding,As if obscured by a dusky screen.
Here when a child I used to lieFor hours, and watch the clouds go by,See the black shadows climb the mountainOr safely ride o'er the billowy rye.
O Beauty, shy as sylvan run,Demure as some sweet-hooded nun,And wrapt about with grey of gloaming,Unveil thy face to the sinking sun.
dropcap-N
ever before has my ear heardA sweeter music, passion stirred,Nor depth and purity so azurn,Of breathing dawn and of morning bird.
She comes, in heyday of her blood,Over the groves and waiting flood!The air is vital with her presence,And banners wave from the woodbine's bud.
AEolian sylphs touch soft their lutes,Brooks tinkle, tinkle past the roots,As Beauty, hidden in the cover,Fingers the stops of her melting flutes.
dropcap-D
imly beheld, thou excellent,Ideal of grace! 'tis ravishmentTo breathe thy atmosphere, O Beauty,Whene'er thou stirr'st in thy greening tent.
I cannot see thee as thou art,Nor trace thy goings but in part;O dearer thus, like starry musicHalf heard, that thrills with its string my heart.
If thou shouldst part thy sheeny veilAnd strike thy fires, my heart would quailBeneath the eye of naked glory,The molten sun, as the moon, be pale.
dropcap-F
air as the light on fire-tipt hills,From out her hollow hand she spillsThe pale and powdery moonbeams, siftingO'er sleeping farms and the winking rills.
The silvered leaves smile in their sleep;Headlands their hoary watches keep;The glimmering ships the moonglade furrow—The path where beauty fore-walks the deep.
And now the powdery beam is thrownOn marguerite and pearl moonstone,On fluffy bird with wing aweary,—Soft, dreaming child! 'tis her silver blown.
dropcap-W
ith lathe of viewless hyaline,She shapes the shell and scale and fin,Dropping unseen her pearls of moonlight,And blushes all as her kith and kin.
Distaff of light is in her hand,From which she spins the lily, andThe sendal robes of field and forest,With dewy odors in every strand.
And from her snow-white palette's dyesShe paints the peacock's hundred eyes,The robin's egg, the apple blossom,
dropcap-H
er steps fall sweet as summer rain,And lull to dream the thoughts of pain,—O glowing grass, O violet skyey,Ye hint of something of fairer grain!
She outruns sympathy of crowds;Her dwelling is above the clouds;She stoops to kiss the rose to crimson—Her face no featureless mask enshrouds.
Her chatelaine's of amber fine;No hue of coming autumn's wineBut she outpours from tawny beaker,And fills each grape of the swelling vine.
dropcap-C
elestial sweetness swift outstripsThe light unleashed of its eclipse!—A fire of dew burns in her bosom,And steady glows through her eyes and lips.
She holds fair forms of ferns and seeds,Lichens and fruits and burnished reeds,And pours, in wake of mellow harvest,Splendors of flame on the leaves and weeds.
O give, give me my own of thatWhich sweeps and circles like the batAround me as I walk in ether,O fair Divine, at whose feet I've sat!
dropcap-U
nnumbered traits shine in thy face,Harmonious blent in Time and Space;Ideal of form, of tone, of color,Of thought, emotion, and deed, O Grace!
Ay me! I speak familiar words.Thou art a presence of my Lord's!Spirit of splendor, thou, O Beauty,That lights His brow, and that crowns and girds.
O Christ, Thou bright Heaven's Morning Star,In whom all live and move and are,Thou Chiefest, altogether lovely,Beauty in Time is Thy avatar!
dropcap-T
he scarlet arch of evening fillsHeights o'er the vapor-laden hillsWith brilliant samite robes that flutterSomething beneath that my spirit thrills.
O Infinite, and Whom I bless!Glow of embodied perfectness!O Sea of supersensuous Being,Whose tides the unutterable express!
(This, this it was that Plato sawOn back of Heaven!)—Let self withdrawFrom this o'ermastering light and splendor,These rolling waves of a trembling awe!
dropcap-T
his tiny life, with exquisite wings,Is one with all earth's moving things;The light that burns in great ArcturusIs tinct with gold of our wedding rings.
In every fibre, every jot,The universe is one, I wotGreat God, Thou'rt One, and we Thy offspringCan see some angles of Thy wide thought.
Thy footprints mark the ageless years,Thy hand authenticates the spheres;The voice of Time, the hush eternal,One anthem sound in Thy listening ears.
dropcap-P
hilosophy doth dig and draw;Instinct translateth into law,—The universe in one God dwelling,The poet's vision forekenned with awe.
He is a seer in night of Time,Casting red foregleams in his rhyme,Of rising stars on man's horizon;Herald of truth of a choral clime,—
Impassioned truth from inward deeps,That oft like lightning sudden leapsFrom darkness, blazing a far pathwayTo hills of God, which the sunlight steeps.
dropcap-T
he infinite in grand reposeMoves under life's tempestuous throes,As move the waters deep of oceanFar 'neath the ship when the tempest blows.
The cloud-rack streams across the sky,The breaking billows threaten high;These are Time's shadows on the voyage,And bring the infinite Presence nigh.
All sunlit seas in joyous danceMight show life but as happy chance,Nor hint of One who saves divinely,—My faith is linked with deliverance.
dropcap-T
wo lives made one, the man and wife(A mystic thing to world of strife),Serenity of oneness, wholeness,Repose of love as the law of life!
Uncaught by skill of painter's art,There glows a radiance of the heartIn which the naked truth, as sculpture,Is seen in colorless calm apart,—
A luminous calm of spiritual light,Dissolving drop serene of sightOft gathering o'er the eye of reason,And robing day in the folds of night.
dropcap-T
he mirrored silence of this poolReveals a world of noiseless rule.It soothes and rests my fevered spirit—A bath of balm of the deeps, and cool.
Still move the clouds, still wheel the skies,The aspiring tree no longer sighs,—Fair thoughts of God, full-clothed in Heaven,All calm and beautiful in Love's eyes!
Glassed in the light of Heaven's repose,He wears perfection, like a rose!Impatient heart, be still! Thou seëstHe brings His work to a perfect close.
dropcap-O
ver the brow of lofty scarQuivers the light of evening star,And throws within the gorge's gloamingA kiss of beams on the brook afar.
Quivers the stream with strange delightThrough all the murmuring hours of night,And to the pale moss tells its story,And lichens fumbling far up the height.
And in its dusk, for aye the brookTo cliffy covert, caverned nook,Brattles its sweet and starry secret—
dropcap-L
ook now! The crested waters sleep;White stars their emerald twilight keepAbove the tryst of pensile gloriesThat kiss to purple-and-gold the deep.
Blossoms the rose red as its name;The trees aspire to heaven, like flame;Articulate the gold-eyed songsters;While angels lean from their place of fame.
O sleep, sleep now, sleep silverly,Radiant, divine, deep-bosomed sea!Thy cradle rocks to skyey breathings,Bright fall Love's shadows on you and me.
dropcap-H
ow swift soft-feathered Time sails onIts skyward flight, nor stays to conThe gulfs of space it wingeth over,—Mere pools that hint of a shoreless yon!
Sunsets and dawns, mirage, the sea,Foreshadow Nature's fixed decree,While steady rolls the round of seasons,—The soul foreknows its eternity.
From spiritual heights beyond the spheres,My ear elusive music hears;In stressful hours it falls and hovers,And life is lift to AEonian years.
dropcap-M
y quickened sense can only plod.Imagination waves its rod,My spirit burns with lightning splendor,Emotive faith tastes the bread of God.
As moves the wind on sightless wings,Nor shadow o'er the landscape flings,While seas to chafe of foam are beaten,And plectrum sweeps all the forest strings;
So through the world doth Spirit move,And presence by His working prove,—A mystery of might and music,A lonelihood of eternal love.
dropcap-W
hat Nature mirrors and reveals—The purblind vision it unsealsTo sight of awesome Presence holy,That chastens sore ere He soothes and heals,—
The reign of law, with ethic ruleE'en in the breast of idle fool,(As moon and stars are heavenly picturedWithin the breast of a noisome pool)—
Herein is claim of Nature's worth.Though I forget the forms of earth,Of gilded cloud and circling planet,I know His fire lives within their girth.
dropcap-G
reen tracery of fern to rust;The shouldering hills to level dust,—This is the law of rhythmic nature,The ebb and flow of its may and must.
I hear the wind-harp's wilding tonesSobbing a requiem o'er their bones;"The golden-globëd skies shall perish,"The harper harps as he wails and moans.
Wild heart, within thy ruby vaultIs flashed a purpose, free of faultFrom great High Priest's own breast-plate splendid,—E'en deathless life out of death's assault.
dropcap-W
hat, though the sea-shell cheats the ear,And from my blood, free-coursing near,Unspheres the far and murmurous phantomOf breaking seas that I faintly hear?
Of life beyond there come to meHints truer than shell's phantom sea,—I brood all space, the past, the present,And timeless realms of eternity!
The rose-lipt thing has lost its pearl,—Death's chamber is its polished whorl;I am a life, and feel of BeingNo phantom touch, but the vital swirl.
dropcap-S
ays one who with the sad condoles:"No delicate delight unrollsBut soon o'er it is flung a shadow."O feeblest folly of shallow souls!
A foolishness all overworn,Yet deadly as the frost of scorn!The serious mind is born of sorrow;On Love's brow rested a crown of thorn.
The shadowland is rift with bright—It did the deed of deeds incite!The Son of Man, Jehovah's Servant,Through shadows passed to His crown of light.