I Have fancied, sometimes, the Bethel-bent beam,
That trembled to earth in the patriarch’s dream,
Was a ladder of song in that wilderness rest,
From the pillar of stone to the blue of the blest,
And the angels descending to dwell with us here,
“Old Hundred,” and “Corinth,” and “China,” and “Mear.”
“Let us sing to God’s praise,” the minister...
The Elder folk shook hands at last,
Down seat by seat the signal passed.
To simple ways like ours unused,
Half solemnized and half amused,
With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest
His sense of glad relief expressed.
Outside, the hills lay warm in sun;
The cattle in the meadow-run
Stood half-leg deep; a single bird
The...
GROW old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first I was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”
Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed, “Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall...
I Like a church; I like a cowl;
I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowlèd churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?
Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful...
DOWN deep in the hollow, so damp and so cold,
Where oaks are by ivy o’ergrown,
The gray moss and lichen creep over the mould,
Lying loose on a ponderous stone.
Now within this huge stone, like a king on his throne,
A toad has been sitting more years than is known;
And, strange as it seems, yet he constantly deems
The...
What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower,
Is the day breaking? Comes the wished-for hour?
Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand,
If the bright morning dawns upon the land.
“The stars are clear above me; scarcely one
Has dimmed its rays in reverence to the sun;
But I yet see on the horizon’s verge
Some fair, faint streaks,...
There are some hearts like wells, green-mossed and deep
As ever Summer saw;
And cool their water is,—yea, cool and sweet;—
But you must come to draw.
They hoard not, yet they rest in calm content,
And not unsought will give;
They can be quiet with their wealth unspent,
So self-contained they live.
And...
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or...
I Slept and dreamed that life was Beauty:
I woke and found that life was Duty:
Was then thy dream a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A noonday light and truth to thee.
The Flesh
“sweet, thou art pale.”
“More pale to see,
Christ hung upon the cruel tree
And bore his Father’s wrath for me.”
“Sweet, thou art sad.”
“Beneath a rod
More heavy Christ for my sake trod
The wine-press of the wrath of God.”
“Sweet, thou art weary.”...
