freedom to mine in song!
Haunt thou the tomb, and deny the morrow;
I will go watch in the dawning long!
For I shall see them, and know their faces—
Tenderer, sweeter, and shining more;
Clasp the old self in the new embraces;
Gaze through their eyes’ wide open door.
Loved ones, I come to you: see my sadness;
I am ashamed—but you pardon wrong!
Smile the old smile, and my soul’s new gladness
Straight will arise in sorrow and song!
To My Aging Friends
It is no winter night comes down
Upon our hearts, dear friends of old;
But a May evening, softly brown,
Whose wind is rather cold.
We are not, like yon sad-eyed West,
Phantoms that brood o’er Time’s dust-hoard,
We are like yon Moon—in mourning drest,
But gazing on her lord.
Come nearer to the hearth, sweet friends,
Draw nigher, closer, hand and chair;
Ours is a love that never ends,
For God is dearest there!
We will not talk about the past,
We will not ponder ancient pain;
Those are but deep foundations cast
For peaks of soaring gain!
We, waiting Dead, will warm our bones
At our poor smouldering earthly fire;
And talk of wide-eyed living ones
Who have what we desire.
O Living, ye know what is death—
We, by and by, shall know it too!
Humble, with bated, hoping breath,
We are coming fast to you!
Christmas Song of the Old Children
Well for youth to seek the strong,
Beautiful, and brave!
We, the old, who walk along
Gently to the grave,
Only pay our court to thee,
Child of all Eternity!
We are old who once were young,
And we grow more old;
Songs we are that have been sung,
Tales that have been told;
Yellow leaves, wind-blown to thee,
Childhood of Eternity!
If we come too sudden near,
Lo, Earth’s infant cries,
For our faces wan and drear
Have such withered eyes!
Thou, Heaven’s child, turn’st not away
From the wrinkled ones who pray!
Smile upon us with thy mouth
And thine eyes of grace;
On our cold north breathe thy south.
Thaw the frozen face:
Childhood all from thee doth flow—
Melt to song our age’s snow.
Gray-haired children come in crowds,
Thee, their Hope, to greet:
Is it swaddling clothes or shrouds
Hampering so our feet?
Eldest child, the shadows gloom:
Take the aged children home.
We have had enough of play,
And the wood grows drear;
Many who at break of day
Companied us here—
They have vanished out of sight,
Gone and met the coming light!
Fair is this out-world of thine,
But its nights are cold;
And the sun that makes it fine
Makes us soon so old!
Long its shadows grow and dim—
Father, take us back with him!
Christmas Meditation
He who by a mother’s love
Made the wandering world his own,
Every year comes from above,
Comes the parted to atone,
Binding Earth to the Father’s throne.
Nay, thou comest every day!
No, thou never didst depart!
Never hour hast been away!
Always with us, Lord, thou art,
Binding, binding heart to heart!
The Old Castle
The brother knew well the castle old,
Every closet, each outlook fair,
Every turret and bartizan bold,
Every chamber, garnished or bare.
The brother was out in the heavenly air;
Little ones lost the starry way,
Wandered down the dungeon stair.
The brother missed them, and on the clay
Of the dungeon-floor he found them all.
Up they jumped when they heard him call!
He led the little ones into the day—
Out and up to the sunshine gay,
Up to the father’s own door-sill—
In at the father’s own room door,
There to be merry and work and play,
There to come and go at their will,
Good boys and girls to be lost no more!
Christmas Prayer
Cold my heart, and poor, and low,
Like thy stable in the rock;
Do not let it orphan go,
It is of thy parent stock!
Come thou in, and it will grow
High and wide, a fane divine;
Like the ruby it will glow,
Like the diamond shine!
Song of the Innocents
Merry, merry we well may be,
For Jesus Christ is come down to see:
Long before, at the top of the stair,
He set our angels a waiting there,
Waiting hither and thither to fly,
Tending the children of the sky,
Lest they dash little feet against big stones,
And tumble down and break little bones;
For the path is rough, and we must not roam;
We have learned to walk, and must follow him home!
Christmas Day and Every Day
Star high,
Baby low:
’Twixt the two
Wise men go;
Find the baby,
Grasp the star—
Heirs of all things
Near and far!
Rondel
I follow, tottering, in the funeral train
That bears my body to the welcoming grave.
As those I mourn not, that entomb the brave,
But smile as those that lay aside the vain;
To me it is a thing of poor disdain,
A clod I would not give a sigh to save!
I follow, careless, in the funeral train,
My outworn raiment to the cleansing grave.
I follow to the grave with growing pain—
Then sudden cry: Let Earth take what she gave!
And turn in gladness from the yawning cave—
Glad even for those whose tears yet flow amain:
They also follow, in their funeral train,
Outworn necessities to the welcoming grave!
A Prayer
When I Look Back Upon My Life Nigh Spent
When I look back upon my life nigh spent,
Nigh spent, although the stream as yet flows on,
I more of follies than of sins repent,
Less for offence than Love’s shortcomings moan.
With self, O Father, leave me not alone—
Leave not with the beguiler the beguiled;
Besmirched and ragged, Lord, take back thine own:
A fool I bring thee to be made a child.
Home from the Wars
A tattered soldier, gone the glow and gloss,
With wounds half healed, and sorely trembling knee,
Homeward I come, to claim no victory-cross:
I only faced the foe, and did not flee.
God; Not Gift
Gray clouds my heaven have covered o’er;
My sea ebbs fast, no more to flow;
Ghastly and dry, my desert shore
