Kitobni o'qish: «A Few More Verses», sahifa 2

SO LONG AGO

 
THEY stood upon the vessel’s deck
To catch our farewell look and beck.
Two girlish figures, fair and frail,
Hovering against a great white sail
Like spirit shapes in dazzling air, —
I seem to see them standing there,
Always together, always so, – ,
’Twas long ago, oh, long ago!
 
 
The east was bright with yellow noon,
The flying vessel vanished soon.
Flashes of jubilant white spray
Beckoned and pointed her the way.
A lessening speck she outward sped;
Sadly we turned, but still we said,,
“They will come back again, we know,” —
’Twas long ago, so long ago!
 
 
Those faces sweet, those happy eyes,
Looked nevermore on Western skies;
Where the hot sunbeams weave their net
O’er cedar-crowned, sad Olivet,
They who had shared their lives shared death,
Tasting at once the first strange breath
Of those quick airs for souls that flow
So long ago, so long ago!
 
 
In vain we picture to our eyes
The convent gray, the still, blue skies,
The mountain with its bordering wood; —
Still do they stand as then they stood,
Hovering like spirits fair and frail
Against the dazzle of the sail;
The red lips part, the faces glow,
As long ago, so long ago!
 

A BIRTHDAY

 
WHAT shall I do to keep your day,
My darling, dead for many a year?
I could not, if I would, forget
It is your day; and yet, and yet —
It is so hard to find a way
To keep it, now you are not here.
 
 
I cannot add the lightest thing
To the full sum of happiness
Which now is yours; nor dare I try
To frame a wish for you, since I
Am blind to know, as weak to bring,
All impotent to aid or bless.
 
 
And yet it is your day, and so,
Unlike all other days, one bead
Of gold in the long rosary
Of dull beads little worth to me.
And I must keep it bright, and show
That what is yours is dear indeed.
 
 
How shall I keep it here alone? —
With prayers in which your name is set;
With smiles, not tears; and sun, not rain;
With memories sweeter far than pain,
With tender backward glances thrown,
And far on-lookings, clearer yet.
 
 
The gift I would have given to you,
And which you cannot need or take,
Shall still be given; and it shall be
A secret between you and me, —
A sweet thought, every birthday new,
That it is given for your sake.
 
 
And so your day, yours safely still,
Shall come and go with ebbing time, —
The day of all the year most sweet, —
Until the years so slow, so fleet,
Shall bring me, as in time they will,
To where all days are yours and mine.
 

DERELICT

 
ABANDONED wrecks they plunge and drift,
The sport of sea and wind,
The tempest drives, the billows lift,
The aimless sails they flap and shift
With impulse vague and blind,
As tossing on from wave to wave
They seek – and shun – the yawning grave.
 
 
The decks once trodden by busy feet
Man nevermore shall tread;
The cargoes brave of wine or wheat,
Now soaked with salt and drenched with sleet,
And mixed and scatterèd,
No merchant shall appraise or buy
Or store in vat or granary.
 
 
The wet ropes pull the creaking sails,
As though by hands drawn tight.
Echoes the hold with ghostly wails,
While daylight wanes, and twilight pales,
And drops the heavy night,
And vast and silent fish swim by,
And scan the wreck with cruel eye.
 
 
Ha! lights ahead! A ship is near!
The dumb wreck makes no sign;
No lantern shows, returns no cheer,
But straight and full, without a veer,
Sped by the urging brine
She goes – a crash! her errand done,
The deadly, lonely thing drives on.
 
 
Oh, hopeless lives, distorted, crushed,
Which, like the lonely wreck,
Lashed by the waves and tempest-tossed,
With rudder gone and cargo lost,
Torn ribs and leaking deck,
Plunge on through sunshine and eclipse,
A menace to the happier ships.
 
 
All oceans know them, and all lands.
Speechless they drift us by;
To questioning voices, friendly hands,
Warnings or counsels or commands,
Still making no reply.
God send them help if help may be,
Or sink them harmless in his sea.
 

H. H

 
WHAT was she most like? Was she like the wind,
Fresh always, and untired; intent to find
New fields to penetrate, new heights to gain;
Scattering all mists with sudden, radiant wing;
Stirring the languid pulses; quickening
The apathetic mood, the weary brain?
 
 
Or was she like the sun, whose gift of cheer
Endureth for all seasons of the year,
Alike in winter’s cold or summer’s heat?
Or like the sea, which brings its gifts from far,
And still, wherever want and straitness are,
Lays down a sudden largess at their feet?
 
 
Or was she like a wood, where light and shade,
And sound and silence, mingle unafraid;
Where mosses cluster, and, in coverts dark,
Shy blossoms court the brief and wandering air,
Mysteriously sweet; and here and there
A firefly flashes like a sudden spark?
 
 
Or like a wilful brook, which laughs and leaps
All unexpectedly, and never keeps
The course predicted, as it seaward flows?
Or like a stream-fed river, brimming high?
Or like a fruit, where those who love descry
A pungent charm no other flavor knows?
 
 
I cannot find her type. In her were blent
Each varied and each fortunate element
Which souls combine, with something all her own,
Sadness and mirthfulness, a chorded strain,
The tender heart, the keen and searching brain,
The social zest, the power to live alone.
 
 
Comrade of comrades, giving man the slip
To seek in Nature truest comradeship;
Tenacity and impulse ruled her fate,
This grasping firmly what that flashed to feel, —
The velvet scabbard and the sword of steel,
The gift to strongly love, to frankly hate!
 
 
Patience as strong as was her hopefulness;
A joy in living which grew never less
As years went on and age drew gravely nigh;
Vision which pierced the veiling mists of pain,
And saw beyond the mortal shadows plain
The eternal day-dawn broadening in the sky.
 
 
The love of Doing, and the scorn of Done;
The playful fancy, which, like glinting sun,
No chill could daunt, no loneliness could smother.
Upon her ardent pulse Death’s chillness lies;
Closed the brave lips, the merry, questioning eyes.
She was herself! – there is not such another.
 

FREEDOM

 
I WOULD be free! For freedom is all fair,
And her strong smile is like the smile of God.
Her voice rings out like trumpet on the air,
And men rise up and follow; though the road
Be all unknown and hard to understand,
They tread it gladly, holding Freedom’s hand.
 
 
I would be free! The little spark of Heaven
Let in my soul when life was breathed in me
Is like a flame, this way and that way driven
By ever wavering winds, which ceaselessly
Kindle and blow till all my soul is hot.
And would consume if liberty were not.
 
 
I would be free! But what is freedom, then?
For widely various are the shapes she wears
In different ages and to different men;
And many titles, many forms she bears, —
Riot and revolution, sword and flame,
All called in turn by Freedom’s honored name.
 
 
I would be free! Not free to burn and spoil,
To trample down the weak and smite the strong,
To seize the larger share of wine and oil,
And rob the sun my daylight to prolong,
And rob the night of sleep while others wake, —
Feast on their famine, basely free to take.
 
 
I would be free! Free in a dearer way,
Free to become all that I may or can;
To be my best and utmost self each day,
Not held or bound by any chain of man,
By dull convention, or by foolish sneer,
Or love’s mistaken clasp of feeble fear.
 
 
Free to be kind and true and faithful; free
To do the happy thing that makes life good,
To grow as grows the goodly forest-tree;
By none gainsaid, by none misunderstood,
To taste life’s freshness with a child’s delight,
And find new joy in every day and night.
 
 
I would be free! Ah! so may all be free.
Then shall the world grow sweet at core and sound.
And, moved in blest and ordered circuit, see
The bright millennial sun rise fair and round,
Heaven’s day begin, and Christ, whose service is
Freedom all perfect, rule the world as his.
 

THE VISION AND THE SUMMONS

 
THE trance of golden afternoon
Lay on the Judæan skies;
The trance of vision, like a swoon,
Sealed the Apostle’s eyes.
Upon the roof he sat and saw
Angelic hands let down and draw
Again the mighty vessel full
Of beasts and birds innumerable.
 
 
Three times the heavenly vision fell,
Three times the Lord’s voice spoke;
When Peter, loath to break the spell,
Roused from his trance, and woke,
To hear a common sound and rude,
Which jarred and shook his solitude, —
A knocking at the doorway near,
Where stood the two from Cæsarea.
 
 
And should he heed, or should he stay?
Scarce had the vision fled, —
Perchance it might return that day,
Perchance more words be said
By the Lord’s voice? – he rises slow;
Again the knocking; he must go;
Nor guessed, while going down the stair,
That ’twas the Lord who called him there.
 
 
Had he sat still upon the roof,
Wooing the vision long,
The Gentile world had missed the truth,
And Heaven one “sweet new song.”
Souls might have perished in blind pain,
And the Lord Christ have died in vain
For them. He knew not what it meant,
But Peter rose and Peter went.
 
 
Oh, souls which sit in upper air,
Longing for heavenly sight,
Glimpses of truth all fleeting-fair,
Set in unearthly light, —
Is there no knocking heard below,
For which you should arise and go,
Leaving the vision, and again
Bearing its message unto men?
 
 
Sordid the world were vision not,
But fruitless were your stay;
So, having seen the sight, and got
The message, haste away.
Though pure and bright thy higher air,
And hot the street and dull the stair,
Still get thee down, for who shall know
But ’tis the Lord who knocks below?
 

FORECAST

 
ALWAYS when the roses bloom most brightly,
Some sad heart is sure to presage blight;
Always when the breeze is kindliest blowing
There are eyes that look out for a gale;
Always when the bosom’s lord sits lightly
Comes some croaking proverb to affright,
And in sweetest music grieving blindly
Sits the shadow of a sorrow pale.
 
 
Though to-day says not a word to sadden,
Still to-morrow’s menace fills my ear.
Less intent on this than that I hie me,
Fearful, eager, all the worst to know,
Missing that which might the moment gladden,
For the prescience of a far-off fear,
Which again and yet again flits by me,
Clouding all the sunshine as I go.
 
 
There is manna for the day’s supplying,
There are daily dews and daily balms,
Yet I shrink and shudder to remember
All the desert drought I yet may see.
Past the green oasis fare I, sighing,
Caring not to rest beneath the palms.
All my May is darkened by December,
All my laughter by the tears to be.
 
 
Must my life go on thus to its closing?
Lord, hold fast this restless heart of mine;
Put thy arm about me when I shiver,
Make me feel thy presence all the way.
Hope and fear, and travail and reposing,
All by thee are cared for, all are thine,
Quick to help, sufficient to deliver,
Near in sun and shade, in night and day.
 

EARLY TAKEN

 
SHE seemed so young, so young to die!
Life, like a dawning, rosy day,
Stretched from her fair young feet away,
And beams from the just-risen sun
Beckoned and wooed and urged her on.
She met the light with happy eyes,
Fresh with the dews of Paradise,
And held her sweet hands out to grasp
The joys that crowded to her clasp,
Each a surprise, and all so dear:
How could we guess that night was near?
 
 
She seemed so young, so young to die!
When the old go, we sadly say,
’Tis Nature’s own appointed way;
The ripe grain gathered in must be,
The ripe fruit from the laden tree,
The sear leaf quit the bare, brown bough;
Summer is done, ’tis autumn now,
God’s harvest-time; the sheaves among,
His angels raise the reaping-song,
And though we grieve, we would not stay
The shining sickles on their way.
 
 
She seemed so young, so young to die!
We question wearily and vain
What never answer shall make plain:
“Can it be this the good Lord meant
Which frustrates his benign intent?
Why was she planted like a flower
In mortal sun and mortal shower,
And left to grow, and taught to bloom,
To gather beauty and perfume;
Why were we set to train and tend
If only for this bootless end?”
 
 
She seemed so young, so young to die!
But age and youth, – what do they mean
Measured by the eternal scheme
Of God, and sifted out and laid
In his unerring scales and weighed?
How may we test their sense or worth, —
These poor glib phrases, born of earth,
False accents of a long exile, —
Or know the angels do not smile,
Holding out truth’s immortal gauge,
To hear us prate of youth and age?
 
 
She seemed so young, so young to die!
So needed here by every one,
Nor there; for heaven has need of none.
And yet, how can we tell or say?
Heaven is so far, so far away!
How do we know its blissful store
Is full and needeth nothing more?
It may be that some tiny space
Lacked just that little angel face,
Or the full sunshine missed one ray
Until our darling found the way.
 

SOME LOVER’S DEAR THOUGHT

 
I OUGHT to be kinder always,
For the light of his kindly eyes;
I ought to be wiser always,
Because he is so just and wise;
And gentler in all my bearing,
And braver in all my daring,
For the patience that in him lies.
 
 
I must be as true as the Heaven
While he is as true as the day,
Nor balance the gift with the given,
For he giveth to me alway.
And I must be firm and steady;
For my Love, he is that already,
And I follow him as I may.
 
 
O dear little golden fetter,
You bind me to difficult things;
But my soul while it strives grows better,
And I feel the stirring of wings
As I stumble, doubting and dreading,
Up the path of his stronger treading,
Intent on his beckonings.
 

ASHES

 
I SAW the gardener bring and strew
Gray ashes where blush roses grew.
The fair, still roses bent them low,
Their pink cheeks dimpled all with dew,
And seemed to view with pitying air
The dim gray atoms lying there.
Ah, bonny rose, all fragrances,
And life and hope and quick desires,
What can you need or gain from these
Poor ghosts of long-forgotten fires?
The rose-tree leans, the rose-tree sighs,
And wafts this answer subtly wise:
“All death, all life are mixed and blent,
Out of dead lives fresh life is sent,
Sorrow to these is growth for me,
And who shall question God’s decree?”
 
 
Ah, dreary life, whose gladsome spark
No longer leaps in song and fire,
But lies in ashes gray and stark,
Defeated hopes and dead desire,
Useless and dull and all bereft, —
Take courage, this one thing is left:
Some happier life may use thee so,
Some flower bloom fairer on its tree,
Some sweet or tender thing may grow
To stronger life because of thee;
Content to play a humble part,
Give of the ashes of thy heart,
And haply God, whose dear decrees
Taketh from those to give to these,
Who draws the snow-drop from the snows
May from those ashes feed a rose.
 

ONE LESSER JOY

 
WHAT is the dearest happiness of heaven?
Ah, who shall say!
So many wonders, and so wondrous fair,
Await the soul who, just arrivèd there
In trance of safety, sheltered and forgiven,
Opens glad eyes to front the eternal day:
 
 
Relief from earth’s corroding discontent,
Relief from pain,
The satisfaction of perplexing fears,
Full compensation for the long, hard years,
Full understanding of the Lord’s intent,
The things that were so puzzling made quite plain;
 
 
And all astonished joy as, to the spot,
From further skies,
Crowd our belovèd with white wingèd feet,
And voices than the chiming harps more sweet,
Faces whose fairness we had half forgot,
And outstretched hands, and welcome in their eyes; —
 
 
Heart cannot image forth the endless store
We may but guess;
But this one lesser joy I hold my own:
All shall be known in heaven; at last be known
The best and worst of me; the less, the more,
My own shall know – and shall not love me less.
 
 
Oh, haunting shadowy dread which underlies
All loving here!
We inly shiver as we whisper low,
“Oh, if they knew – if they could only know,
Could see our naked souls without disguise —
How they would shrink from us and pale with fear!”
 
 
The bitter thoughts we hold in leash within
But do not kill;
The petty anger and the mean desire,
The jealousy which burns, – a smouldering fire, —
The slimy trail of half-unnoted sin,
The sordid wish which daunts the nobler will.
 
 
We fight each day with foes we dare not name.
We fight, we fail!
Noiseless the conflict and unseen of men;
We rise, are beaten down, and rise again,
And all the time we smile, we move, the same,
And even to dearest eyes draw close the veil.
 
 
But in the blessed heaven these wars are past;
Disguise is o’er!
With new anointed vision, face to face,
We shall see all, and clasped in close embrace
Shall watch the haunting shadow flee at last,
And know as we are known, and fear no more.
 

CLOSE AT HAND

“Did you not know Me, my child?” the lips and eyes that were all love seemed to say to her. “You have thought the thoughts that I inspired, you have spoken my words, you set forth to fight on my side in the battle against evil; and yet you forget me, and have often gone near to deny me, while I was standing by your side and giving you the strength to speak and think. Look at me now, and see if I am not better than the images that have hid me from you.” —A Doubting Heart.

 
THE day is long, and the day is hard;
We are tired of the march and of keeping guard,
Tired of the sense of a fight to be won,
Of days to live through and of work to be done,
Tired of ourselves and of being alone.
 
 
And all the while, did we only see,
We walk in the Lord’s own company;
We fight, but ’tis he who nerves our arm,
He turns the arrows which else might harm,
And out of the storm he brings a calm.
 
 
The work which we count so hard to do,
He makes it easy, for he works too;
The days that are long to live are his,
A bit of his bright eternities,
And close to our need his helping is.
 
 
O eyes that were holden and blinded quite,
And caught no glimpse of the guiding light!
O deaf, deaf ears which did not hear
The heavenly garment trailing near!
O faithless heart, which dared to fear!
 

ONLY A DREAM

 
I DREAMED we sat within a shaded place,
Where mournful waters fell, and no sun shone;
And suddenly, a smile upon his face,
There came to us a winged, mysterious one,
And said, with pitying eyes: “O mourning souls, arise!
 
 
“Take up your travelling staves, your sandals lace,
And journey to the Northland and the snow,
Where wild and leaping Borealis trace
Fantastic, glistening dances to and fro;
Where suns at midnight beam, to fright the sleeper’s dream.
 
 
“There, in the icy, solitary waste,
God’s goodness grants this boon, – that thou shalt see,
And hold communion for a little space
With that dear child so lately gone from thee.
Arise, and haste away; God may not let her stay.”
 
 
So we arose, and quickly we went forth;
How could we slight such all undreamed-of boon?
And when we reached the ultimate far North —
All in a hush of frozen afternoon,
Lit by a dim sun-ray, liker to night than day —
 
 
There, o’er the white bare feld we saw her come,
Our little maid, in the dear guise we knew,
With the same look she used to wear at home,
The same sweet eyes of deepest, dark-fringed blue;
Her steps they made no sound upon the icy ground.
 
 
She kissed us gently, and she stood and smiled,
While close we clasped and questioned her, and strove
To win some hint or answer from the child
That should appease the hunger of our love,
Something to soothe the pain when she must go again.
 
 
And was she happy, happier than of old?
Did heaven fulfil its promises of bliss?
And had she seen our other dead, and told
The story of that loving faithfulness
Which held them dearly yet and never would forget?
 
 
To all these questions she made no replies:
She only smiled a softly wistful smile,
And looked with gentle eyes into our eyes,
And kissed us back; and in a little while
She said, “Now I must go; my Lady told me so.”
 
 
Then jealously we cried: “What is the name
Of this thy ‘Lady’? Is she good to thee?
Has she above all other angels claim
To thine obedience, dear; or can it be
The Mother of our Lord?” She answered not a word!
 
 
But sighed, and laid her finger on her lips,
And kissed us all, and straightway from our sight,
As twilight wanes and melts in night’s eclipse,
She vanished, and we looked to left and right,
And wildly called her name, but, oh! no answer came.
 
 
And with the anguished call the vision broke,
The equal sky of summer shone o’erhead;
The earliest birds were singing as I woke. —
All was a dream, except that she was dead,
And that familiar pain I tasted once again.
 
 
Thank God, it was a dream! How could we bear
To see her stand with wistful eyes down bent,
In the old likeness that she used to wear,
And know her sad and only half-content,
And shy and puzzled even, as if not used to heaven?
 
 
Better, far better, not to know or see!
O Lord, whose faithfulness all ages prove,
We trust the darling of our hearts to thee,
Asking no explanations of thy love;
Keep thou her safe alway, and give her back some day.