The waves forever move;
The hills forever rest:
Yet each the heavens approve,
And Love alike hath blessed
A Martha’s household care,
A Mary’s cloistered prayer.
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Anonymous—nor needs a name
To tell the secret whence the flame,
With light, and warmth, and incense, came
A new creation to proclaim.So was it when, His labor done,
God saw His work, and smiled thereon:
His glory in the picture shone,
But name upon the canvas, none. -
Little masters, hat in hand
Let me in your presence stand,
Till your silence solve for me
This your threefold mystery.Tell me—for I long to know—
How, in darkness there below,
Was your fairy fabric spun,
Spread and fashioned, three in oneDid your gossips gold and blue,
Sky and Sunshine, choose for you,
Ere... -
They cannot wholly pass away,
How far soe’er above;
Nor we, the lingerers, wholly stay
Apart from those we love:
For spirits in eternity,
As shadows in the sun,
Reach backward into Time, as we,
Like lifted clouds, reach on. -
No more the battle or the chase
The phantom tribes pursue,
But each in its accustomed place
The Autumn hails anew:
And still from solemn councils set
On every hill and plain,
The smoke of many a calumet
Ascends to heaven again. -
Godlike beneath his grave divinities,
The last of all their worshippers, he stood.
The shadows of a vanished multitude
Enwound him, and their voices in the breeze
Made murmur, while the meditative trees
Reared of their strong fraternal branches rude
A temple meet for prayer. What blossoms strewed
The path between Life’s morning hours and... -
I
long, long before the Babe could speak,
When he would kiss his mother’s cheek
And to her bosom press,
The brightest angels standing near
Would turn away to hide a tear—
For they are motherless.II
WHERE were ye, Birds, that bless His name,
When wingless to the world He came,
And wordless, though Himself... -
The bubble
why should I stay? Nor seed nor fruit have I.
But, sprung at once to beauty’s perfect round,
Nor loss, nor gain, nor change in me is found,—
A life—complete in death—complete to die.BECALMED
THE BAR is crossed; but Death—the pilot—stands
In seeming doubt before the tranquil deep;
The fathom-line still trembling... -
The autumn seems to cry for thee,
Best lover of the autumn days!
Each scarlet-tipped and wine-red tree,
Each russet branch and branch of gold,
Gleams through its veil of shimmering haze,
And seeks thee as they sought of old:
For all the glory of their dress,
They wear a look of wistfulness.In every wood I see thee stand,...
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Lonely and cold and fierce I keep my way,
Scourge of the lands, companioned by the storm,
Tossing to heaven my frontlet, wild and gray,
Mateless, yet conscious ever of a warm
And brooding presence close to mine all day.What is this alien thing, so near, so far,
Close to my life always, but blending never,—
Hemmed in by walls...