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here ever wakes an evil wraithTo test the courage of my faith,As life's dark passages are thridded,—"Alone! Alone!" are the words it saith.
Ah, no! the wraith's an angel oneWhose face is always to the sun,A guardian of the heart's temptations,That saves by fear ere the course be run.
'Tis Father love each round of dayThat shadows in a twilight grey,Or with Love's raven pinion covers,To tempt His child from itself away.
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ar up the brook, beyond the lin,I hear the impatient bluejay's din,While in the browning beech, nut-laden,The chipmunk gathers his harvest in.
(Of all earth's trees exceeding fair,Thee have I loved beyond compare,Most human beech! and felt thy spiritTremble to mine in the dusky air.)
The year is rounding up its task,And kingly gives to all that ask;Ay, soon 'twill move in pomp so royalThe world shall seem, but a heavenly mask!
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he full ripe year, these maple hills!The pure October weather fillsEarth's veins so full of glowing crimsonThat every leaf is ablush, and thrills.
An expectation holds the days,And angel sunbeams throng the ways;The luminous skies grow close and tender,And over all is a brooding haze.
'Tis summer's apotheosisIn flame of color, burning kiss,As dew dies in the arms of sunlight—
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dreamed I drew my parting breath,And fell, in sinking swoon of death,To gulfs of utter night all chilly,While woven hands held me close beneath.
And then, as thousand lights on shore,The radiant forms I'd known before;And growing sound of kindly voices,And flood of light through an open door.
And, lo, at stern and prow there stands,Close-veiled, an angel winged!—the sandsBeneath the shallop's keel wake music;Folded am I by the piercëd hands!
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he world's a train at speeding rate;An iron track its wheels await;We're all on board—beyond is darkness,For God is only a name for Fate."
Thus mouths and blasphemes round aboutAn age in bondage to its doubt."Pray!" says the soul, and God, and Christ—andFreedom affirm with a ringing shout
"Believe in God, believe in Me,"Is freedom's voice like sounding sea,Its grand AMEN from Him that livethAnd holds of this, and all worlds, the key.
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ope's clear blue eye is open wide,And hath fair visions that abide;The white light of imaginationGlows on her brows as a heavenly bride.
Her face is lift to veilëd things,To which she mounts as if with wings;The tents of night, the sable future,Are light as day with the song she sings.
As lithe as breadths of silvery ryeWhen wrestling winds its footing try,The spirit that with hope is gleaming;It must look up to the bending sky.
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see that power is not in art,Nor name nor place essential partOf life's reality and glory;The strength of life is the health of heart.
If man but lived the pure white truth,As lives the lily tender ruth,The earth were Paradise to-morrow,The Christ, unveiled, would be here in sooth.
The worldly wise, he does not heed,—What love sees true is true indeed!Immortal blooms this hardy blossom,And deathless fruits in a deathless creed.
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nveiled as kinsman, Love did seekHis wandering brethren, Jew and Greek.(That God made man in His own imageDid human life of our God fore-speak).
Nor mask nor vesture was His mienBy man and angels wistly seen,Nor filmy veil, nor apparition,God's human life as the Nazarene.
A man the Christ of God earth trod,And showed to man, and worlds abroad,The holy, good, and sorrowing Father,Atoning love, and the heart of God.
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glorious light! Thy limpid waveDoth floor of living being pave,And life from out the caves of darknessWaft to His sheltering architrave.
From void of night's lone pall of jet,Yellow and red and violetInto a quivering beam were woven,—His flying looms are aweaving yet.
If man and beast and tree and flowerUnweave not Love's rich beauteous dower,All Danaë again earth darklesBeneath His ceaseless and golden shower.
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ail, Mary, honored of the race!Light of the Home, its fount of grace,Is woman—sister, wife, and mother—Circling a towered and a heavenly place.
She sorrowed oft for Love's dear sake,She did the alabaster break;Like Him she knows of pain and anguish,And doth for life of death's cup partake.
Hope of the race! since from Home's throne(Sweet Love's own gift, and His alone,)She giveth laws to coming ages—Builder from cope to foundation stone!
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rail Lucia of a mutual love!Fair little wingèd cooing dove,Thou'st fluttered down from thy far dovecote,Awhile to nestle in earth's sweet grove.
Would it were sweeter, child, for thee—Sweet as the silver-breaking sea(When Indian summer broods upon it)Doth flute and fife to the golden tree!
Thine angel listens for thy breathWhene'er he hears the wings of death,Looks in the Father's face and prayeth—"For earth's sake spare her," he softly saith.
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patriot, ruler, leader great,Master of labor, builder of state,Man of the mart, and king of commerce,His lips have spoken—why longer wait?
One brotherhood, one family,And love its great economy!The law of might is rule of evil—-The ethic lives in man's spirit free.
No borrowed laws of clay, nor brute,Can e'er the freeman's spirit suit!He gave him choice!—Hark! how he thunders!Through human strife—nor is deaf nor mute!
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he sword and spear and savage knife,Wherewith the world is dowered of strife,Are but as flotsam on the currentOf purpose vast of the Lord of Life.
His rising winds and swelling surge,And underflowing tidal-urge,Shall grind to dust these lethal spiritsAnd chant in triumph their sounding dirge.
Break way, break way, Fell Evil, cease!O soldiers of the King's increase!O happy homes! O happy peoples!
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ove's inspirations of the lyreUpsway the heart's intense desire,And rulership and kingdoms nobleAre seen within the revealing fire.
The frost of selfish blood gives placeTo breath of life, and salt of grace;New armor takes the cloistered spirit,And man becomes of a higher race.
Hark! 'Tis an angel's throbbing wing!His messenger the age to bring,When, crown of brotherhood upon him,Each man shall be to his neighbor king!
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ike oxeye daisies of the field,The stars their countless numbers yieldIn this pure sky of depth unfathomed,Wherein they lay, and so deep, concealed.
Gardens of light, environed fairWith tremulous bloom of azure, whereAll-sweet star-buds unroll their gloriesIn silent dews of etherial air!
O Tiller of the fields of heaven,Gardener of space, by day and evenThe circling earth, a once fair garden,Lifts up its face for Thy promise given.
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he sovereign law of human lifeThat Love ordained for man and wife,For homes whence stream the generationsTo joyous service and not to strife—
This law gives rest and labor fit,God's air on surface and in pit,Wealth for the soul, and mind, and body,And fellowship with the race, close-knit.
O golden year, when law and lifeIncorporate are, as man and wife,And wingëd hosts of light are saying:"Peace and goodwill on the earth are rife!"
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reak into flower, O garden fair!Long hast thou known the Gardener's care;The rain and dew from heaven have fallen,And sunbeams warm on thy bosom bare.
The grains of seed all viewless fellWithin the mellow soil to dwell,—Silent the fall as that of pebblesCast in oblivion's sunless well.
List, music ether-fine up-goesFrom swelling seed and life's keen throes!O Earth, thy riven breast shall blossomIn Heaven's own beauty, e'en as the rose!
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mmortal Love, immortal ruth,Thorn-crowned, and crowned with deathless youth!Source of pure faith and of right-reason,Thou art Authority and the Truth.
Blest Bond of Being, why and whence!In realm of thought, in realm of sense,In world of human life and action,True Centre, Thou, and Circumference.
The sun and moon from spacious height,And stars, may crumble into night!Ongoing Lord! Eternal Order,And Fount of Beauty and Love and Light!
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hy bird of the silver arrows of song,That cleave our Northern air so clear,Thy notes prolong, prolong,I listen, I hear:"I—love—dear—Canada,Canada, Canada."
O plumes of the pointed dusky fir,Screen of a swelling patriot heart,The copse is all astir,And echoes thy part!...
Now willowy reeds tune their silver flutesAs the noise of the day dies down;And silence strings her lutes,The Whitethroat to crown....
O bird of the silver arrows of song,Shy poet of Canada dear,Thy notes prolong, prolong,We listen, we hear:"I—love—dear—Canada,Canada, Canada."
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come, unpack the heart of care!Kingcups sun the meadows o'er,The yellowbugle sudden blowsBy the river's tidal flows,And the heavens are bare.
Room, room, and open sky,River or brook or lake hard by,Buttercups, daisies, grasses, clover,Bobolinks, meadowlarks—these love I!Whiskodink!
Sail, swallows, sail this emerald seaWaving to the west wind's breath!Earth has few other fields like these,Sweet of sun and tidal breeze,And the droning bee.
Room, room, and open sky,River or brook or lake hard by,Buttercups, daisies, grasses, clover,Bobolinks, meadowlarks—these love I!Bobolink!
And now the white clouds sail along,Azure-domed and idle free!The air is lush with honeyed blooms,Flashing go the summer's looms,List her cheery song:
Room, room, and open sky,River or brook or lake hard by,Buttercups, daisies, grasses, clover,Bobolinks, meadowlarks—these love I!Whiskodink!
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nly a penny, Sir!"A child held to my viewA bunch of "glory-roses," redAs blood, and wet with dew.
(O earnest little face,With living light in eye,Your roses are too fair for earth,And you seem of the sky!)
"My beauties, Sir!" he said,"Only a penny, too!"His face shone in their ruddy glowA Rafael cherub true.
"Yestreen their hoods were closeAbout their faces tight,But ere the sun was up, I sawThat God had come last night.
"O Sir, to see them then!The bush was all aflame!—O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir,That is their holy name.
"Only a penny, Sir!"—Heaven seemed across the way!I took the red, red beauties home—Roses to me for aye!
For aye, that radiant voiceAs if from heaven it came—"O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir,That is their holy name!"
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he lithe wind races and singsOver the grasses and wheat—See the emerald floor as it springsTo the touch of invisible feet!
Ah, later, the fir and the pineShall stoop to its weightier tread,As it tramps the thundering brineTill it shudders and whitens in dread!
Breath of man! a glass of thine ownIs the wind on the land, on the sea—Joy of life at thy touch!—full grown,Destruction and death maybe!
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air spirit of the plaining sea,Thou heard'st Apollo's lyre!—Now folded are thy silver wingsThee sunward bore,A dream and a desire.
Ranging the upper azure deeps,The sunlight on thy wings,How blanched thy purpose as there fellThe lightning's stroke,And darkness on all things!
In agony of rain and hail,And phantom dance of snow,The chastening angels of the airTo mountain bleakConsigned thee far below.
There in the arms of heartless frost,And burdened with thy train,The keen stars watched thy ageful way,Till breast of earthWarmed thee to life again.
And in thy course thou wert God's plow,Thy furrow deep the valleyOf wooded walls and flowers to be,—The circling sunKeeps slow and sure the tally.
Reborn, thou waitedst not far downThe sunless caves to speed—(Thy twin, lade with unfabled spoils,Did build the plain,Or green the expectant mead,
And weave the fabric, forge the plow,Bear inland steam and sail)—Or serv'dst, in mines and nether realmsOf shadowland,The gnomes and genii pale.
O fontal wealth of hasting life,By stressful toil made sweet,Stay now thy journey—here oft comeWild sylvan things,Here tender lovers meet.
By day the traveller spies the pathTo thy o'erbending shade,Drinks deep the brimming, cooling wave,A living draught,And wends his way, remade.
At night the one shy Pleiad dropsHer veil to look withinThy clear, green-haloed deeps, and seesHerself more fairThan all her shining kin.
And, fair with labor's healthy toil,Each face of yon dear homeThou'st set within the pearly blue,Or crocus glow,Of overarching dome.
And when return world-wandering feet,Elate, or slow with sorrow,Thy pencil paints the changing form;And here clasp handsThe yester year and morrow.
O bright reincarnation, thou!Though long thy heart, like fire,Burned to mount upward and awayTo sun and sky,A dream and a desire,
Here, here thy place and service too,—'Tis heaven by thee to sup,To see the great red sun drop down,The stars swim out,—O Nature's loving cup!
And here the crystal spring abides—Yet passes to the sea,There to renew the broken taskOf long ago,Now joyous task and free.
Fair spirit of the bourneless waves,Glad voice in their sad choir,Sweeter 'mid sorrow's dirge to blendThe note of cheer,Than list Apollo's lyre!
The sunbeams kiss the plaining deep,Wreathe with innumerous smilesThe sounding waters as they meet,—While sister spritesWake laughter round the isles.
And ever as the rolling moonThe unanchored sea forth-swings,The poet's ear may catch anewThe gladsome notes,Notes of the crystal springs.
And when he sits this spring beside,Worn with the journey's strife,He cannot help but think of HIMOf Jacob's well,FOUNT of the deathless life.
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ilent, with hands crost meekly on his breast,Long time, with keen and meditative eye,Stood the old painter of Siena byA canvas, whose sign manual him confest.
His head droopt low, his eye ceased from its quest,As tears filled full the fountains long since dry;And from his lips there broke the haunting cry:"May God forgive me—I did not my best!"
"Time in advance behind him hides his wings."—YOUNG.
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s comes amain the glossy flying raven,That with unwavering wing, breast on the view,Cleaves slow the lucid air beneath the blue,And seems scarce other than a figure graven—Ha! now the sweeping pinions flash as levin,And all their silken cordage whistles loud!—Lo, the departing flight, like fleck of cloud,Is swallowed quick by the awaiting heaven!
So lag and tarry, to the youth, the yearsIn their oncoming from the brooding sky,Till bursts at middle life their rushing speedAll breathless with the world of hopes and fears;And, lo, departing, the Eternal EyeWinks them to moments in His endless brede!
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arth's manifold noises breakOverhead, in the calm,In unison full, and wakeThe note of a psalm.
On the sunny hills, in the vales,It falls on my ear;Down the baffling winds it sails,In the night draweth near.
It sounds like great mountains to me,A deep monotone—Like the veiled AEonian sea,That girdles Time's zone.
The sun and the stars and the moonKeep time with this note,The evening and morning and noon,Things near and remote.
The tides ebb and flow to its beat,'Tis the seasons' rhyme,—The harebell and twin-flower sweetIts undertone chime.
The night-moth stirs to the reed,And the beetle booms;The bird and the beast are keyedTo the flower that blooms.
And man to his high service goesAswing to his goal,Like the tides and the stars and the rose,—Tone, overtone, whole!
I hear it by day and by night,In storm and in calm,—A low swelling note from a height,With the roll of a psalm.
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death-like dew was fallingOn the herbs and the grassy ground;The stars to their bournes prest forward,Night cloaked the hills around.
He thought of a night long past,—Of the ladder that reached to heaven,The Face that shone above it,The pillar, his pillows of even.
From out of the sleeve of the darknessWas thrust an arm of strength,—Long he wrestled for mastery,But begged for blessing at length.
White fear fell on him at dawn,As the Nameless spake with him then;"Prevailer and Prince," called He him,"A power with God and with men."
And, alone, the lame wrestler mused:"The Face of God is this place!Ah me—and my life is preserved,Yet God have I seen face to face!"
Life's darkness is background for God,For unsleeping Love's high command,And the shadowy heap of each lifeIs revealed at the touch of His hand.
And the arm of Love doth wrestleAll night by the fords we cross,To shrivel our sinews of selfAnd give His blessing for loss.
Night shows the houses of heaven,O pilgrim for life's journey shod!And from out the sleeve of darknessIs thrust the arm of God.