the journeying stars, and repose of the mountains olden,
Joy of the swift-running rivers, and glory of sunsets golden,
Secrets that cannot be told in the heart of the flower are holden.
Surely to see it is peace and the crown of a life-long endeavour;
Surely to pluck it is gladness—but they who have found it can never
Tell of the gladness and peace: they are hid from our vision for ever.
’Twas but a moment ago that a comrade was walking near me:
Turning aside from the pathway he murmured a greeting to cheer me—
Then he was lost in the shade, and I called but he did not hear me.
Why should I dream he is dead, and bewail him with passionate sorrow?
Surely I know there is gladness in finding the lily of Yorrow:
He has discovered it first, and perhaps I shall find it to-morrow.
Tennyson
In Lucem Transitus, October, 1892
From the misty shores of midnight, touched with splendours of the moon,
To the singing tides of heaven, and the light more clear than noon,
Passed a soul that grew to music till it was with God in tune.
Brother of the greatest poets, true to nature, true to art;
Lover of Immortal Love, uplifter of the human heart;
Who shall cheer us with high music, who shall sing, if thou depart?
Silence here—for love is silent, gazing on the lessening sail;
Silence here—for grief is voiceless when the mighty minstrels fail;
Silence here—but far beyond us, many voices crying, Hail!
A Ballad of Claremont Hill
The roar of the city is low,
Muffled by new-fallen snow,
And the sign of the wintry moon is small and round and still.
Will you come with me to-night,
To see a pleasant sight
Away on the river-side, at the edge of Claremont Hill?
“And what shall we see there,
But streets that are new and bare,
And many a desolate place that the city is coming to fill;
And a soldier’s tomb of stone,
And a few trees standing alone—
Will you walk for that through the cold, to the edge of Claremont Hill?”
But there’s more than that for me,
In the place that I fain would see:
There’s a glimpse of the grace that helps us all to bear life’s ill,
A touch of the vital breath
That keeps the world from death,
A flower that never fades, on the edge of Claremont Hill.
For just where the road swings round,
In a narrow strip of ground,
Where a group of forest trees are lingering fondly still,
There’s a grave of the olden time,
When the garden bloomed in its prime,
And the children laughed and sang on the edge of Claremont Hill.
The marble is pure and white,
And even in this dim light,
You may read the simple words that are written there if you will;
You may hear a father tell
Of the child he loved so well,
A hundred years ago, on the edge of Claremont Hill.
The tide of the city has rolled
Across that bower of old,
And blotted out the beds of the rose and the daffodil;
But the little playmate sleeps,
And the shrine of love still keeps
A record of happy days, on the edge of Claremont Hill.
The river is pouring down
To the crowded, careless town,
Where the intricate wheels of trade are grinding on like a mill;
But the clamorous noise and strife
Of the hurrying waves of life
Flow soft by this haven of peace on the edge of Claremont Hill.
And after all, my friend,
When the tale of our years shall end,
Be it long or short, or lowly or great, as God may will,
What better praise could we hear,
Than this of the child so dear:
You have made my life more sweet, on the edge of Claremont Hill?
Four Things
Four things a man must learn to do
If he would make his record true:
To think without confusion clearly;
To love his fellow-men sincerely;
To act from honest motives purely;
To trust in God and Heaven securely.
Rendezvous
I count that friendship little worth
Which has not many things untold,
Great longings that no words can hold,
And passion-secrets waiting birth.
Along the slender wires of speech
Some message from the heart is sent;
But who can tell the whole that’s meant?
Our dearest thoughts are out of reach.
I have not seen thee, though mine eyes
Hold now the image of thy face;
In vain, through form, I strive to trace
The soul I love: that deeper lies.
A thousand accidents control
Our meeting here. Clasp hand in hand,
And swear to meet me in that land
Where friends hold converse soul to soul.
Transformation
Only a little shrivelled seed,
It might be flower, or grass, or weed;
Only a box of earth on the edge
Of a narrow, dusty window-ledge;
Only a few scant summer showers;
Only a few clear shining hours;
That was all. Yet God could make
Out of these, for a sick child’s sake,
A blossom-wonder, fair and sweet
As ever broke at an angel’s feet.
Only a life of barren pain,
Wet with sorrowful tears for rain,
Warmed sometimes by a wandering gleam
Of joy, that seemed but a happy dream;
A life as common and brown and bare
As the box of earth in the window there;
Yet it bore, at last, the precious bloom
Of a perfect soul in that narrow room;
Pure as the snowy leaves that fold
Over the flower’s heart of gold.
To My Lady Graygown: With a Handful of Verses
“Wayside songs and meadow blossoms; nothing perfect, nothing rare;
Every poet’s ordered, garden yields a hundred flowers more fair;
Master-singers know a music richer far beyond compare.
Yet the reaper in the harvest, ’mid the burden and the heat,
Hums a half remembered ballad, finds the easy cadence sweet
Sees the very blue of heaven in the corn-bloom at his feet.”
For the Over-Lord is generous, no straight walls His love confine;
Unto few, for world-wide glory, comes the symphony divine;
Unto all, for simple pleasure, come the thoughts that sing and shine.
So to you, dear heart, I bring them: you, among the busy throng,
Walk beside me, help
