The may sun sheds an amber light
On new-leaved woods and lawns between;
But she who, with a smile more bright,
Welcomed and watched the springing green,
Is in her grave,
Low in her grave.
The fair white blossoms of the wood
In groups beside the pathway stand;
But one, the gentle and the good,
Who...
I lift this sumach-bough with crimson flare,
And, touched with subtle pangs of dreamy pain,
Through the dark wood a torch I seem to bear
In Autumn’s funeral train.
When wintry days are dark and drear
And all the forest ways grow still,
When gray snow-laden clouds appear
Along the bleak horizon hill,
When cattle all are snugly penned
And sheep go huddling close together,
When steady streams of smoke ascend
From farm-house chimneys,—in such weather
Give me old Carolina’s own,...
A Beam of light, from the infinite depths of the midnight sky,
Painted with infinite love a star in a convict’s eye;
When, lo! the ghosts of his sins were afraid and fled with a curse,
And the soul of the man walked free in the fields of the universe!
When wintry days are dark and drear
And all the forest ways grow still,
When gray snow-laden clouds appear
Along the bleak horizon hill,
When cattle all are snugly penned
And sheep go huddling close together,
When steady streams of smoke ascend
From farm-house chimneys,—in such weather
Give me old Carolina’s own,...
The Night has a thousand eyes,
The day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When its love is done.
From “The Light of the Harem”
ALAS! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain has tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied;
That stood the storm when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
Like ships that have gone down at sea,
When heaven was all tranquillity!
A...
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,—
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,—one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on:
I loved to choose and see my path, but now...
From “Paradise Lost,” Book III.
HAIL, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachèd light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear’st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
...
From “Paradise Lost,” Book VII.
“LET there be light,” God said; and forthwith Light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from her native east
To journey through the aery gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the Sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle
Sojourned the while. God saw the light...
