It lies around us like a cloud,
The world we do not see;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring us there to be.
Its gentle breezes fan our cheeks
Amid our worldly cares;
Its gentle voices whisper love,
And mingle with our prayers.
Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
Sweet helping hands are stirred,...
Children, do you ever,
In walks by land or sea,
Meet a little maiden
Long time lost to me!
She is gay and gladsome,
Has a laughing face,
And a heart as sunny;
And her name is Grace.
Naught she knows of sorrow,
Naught of doubt or blight;
Heaven is just above her—
All her thoughts are white....
Sweet little maid with winsome eyes
That laugh all day through the tangled hair;
Gazing with baby looks so wise
Over the arm of the oaken chair,
Dearer than you is none to me,
Dearer than you there can be none;
Since in your laughing face I see
Eyes that tell of another one.
Here where the firelight...
It lies around us like a cloud,—
A world we do not see;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring us there to be.
Its gentle breezes fan our cheek;
Amid our worldly cares
Its gentle voices whisper love,
And mingle with our prayers.
Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
Sweet helping hands are stirred,...
If I might see another Spring
I'd not plant summer flowers and wait:
I'd have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
My white or azure violet,
Leaf-nested primrose; anything
To blow at once not late.
If I might see...
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
...
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
...
I will accept thy will to do and be,
Thy hatred and intolerance of sin,
Thy will at least to love, that burns within
And thirsteth after Me:
So will I render fruitful, blessing still,
The germs and small beginnings in thy heart,
Because thy will cleaves to the better part.—
...
There's blood between us, love, my love,
There's father's blood, there's brother's blood;
And blood's a bar I cannot pass:
I choose the stairs that mount above,
Stair after golden skyward stair,
To city and to sea of glass.
My lily feet are soiled with mud,
With scarlet mud which tells a tale...
Deprived of other Banquet,
I entertained Myself —
At first — a scant nutrition —
An insufficient Loaf —
But grown by slender addings
To so esteemed a size
'Tis sumptuous enough for me —
And almost to suffice
A Robin's famine able —
Red Pilgrim, He and I —...
