begins to weep;
’Tis night indeed, chilly and drear,
And all but me asleep!
To Aurelio Saffi
To God and man be simply true;
Do as thou hast been wont to do;
Bring out thy treasures, old and new—
Mean all the same when said to you.
I love thee: thou art calm and strong;
Firm in the right, mild to the wrong;
Thy heart, in every raging throng,
A chamber shut for prayer and song.
Defeat thou know’st not, canst not know,
Although thy aims so lofty go
They need as long to root and grow
As infant hills to reach the snow.
Press on and prosper, holy friend!
I, weak and ignorant, would lend
A voice, thee, strong and wise, to send
Prospering onward without end.
A. M. D.
Methinks I see thee, lying straight and low,
Silent and darkling, in thy earthy bed,
The mighty strength in which I trusted, fled,
The long arms lying careless of kiss or blow;
On thy tall form I see the night-robe flow
Down from the pale, composed face—thy head
Crowned with its own dark curls: though thou wast dead,
They dressed thee as for sleep, and left thee so!
My heart, with cares and questionings oppressed,
Not oft since thou didst leave us turns to thee;
But wait, my brother, till I too am dead,
And thou shalt find that heart more true, more free,
More ready in thy love to take its rest,
Than when we lay together in one bed.
A Memorial of Africa
Upon a rock I sat—a mountain-side,
Far, far forsaken of the old sea’s lip;
A rock where ancient waters’ rise and dip,
Recoil and plunge, eddy, and oscillant tide,
Had worn and worn, while races lived and died,
Involved channels. Where the sea-weed’s drip
Followed the ebb, now crumbling lichens sip
Sparse dews of heaven that down with sunset slide.
I sat long-gazing southward. A dry flow
Of withering wind sucked up my drooping strength,
Itself weak from the desert’s burning length.
Behind me piled, away and up did go
Great sweeps of savage mountains—up, away,
Where snow gleams ever, panthers roam, they say.
This infant world has taken long to make,
Nor hast Thou done with it, but mak’st it yet,
And wilt be working on when death has set
A new mound in some churchyard for my sake.
On flow the centuries without a break;
Uprise the mountains, ages without let;
The lichens suck; the hard rock’s breast they fret;
Years more than past, the young earth yet will take.
But in the dumbness of the rolling time,
No veil of silence shall encompass me—
Thou wilt not once forget and let me be;
Rather wouldst thou some old chaotic prime
Invade, and, moved by tenderness sublime,
Unfold a world, that I, thy child, might see.
A Gift
My gift would find thee fast asleep,
And arise a dream in thee;
A violet sky o’er the roll and sweep
Of a purple and pallid sea;
And a crescent moon from my sky should creep
In the golden dream to thee.
Thou shouldst lay thee down, and sadly list
To the wail of our cold birth-time;
And build thee a temple, glory-kissed,
In the heart of the sunny clime;
Its columns should rise in a music-mist,
And its roofs in a spirit-rhyme.
Its pillars the solemn hills should bind
’Neath arches of starry deeps;
Its floor the earth all veined and lined;
Its organ the ocean-sweeps;
And, swung in the hands of the grey-robed wind,
Its censers the blossom-heaps.
And ’tis almost done; for in this my rhyme,
Thanks to thy mirror-soul,
Thou wilt see the mountains, and hear the chime
Of the waters after the roll;
And the stars of my sky thy sky will climb,
And with heaven roof in the whole.
The Man of Songs
“Thou wanderest in the land of dreams,
O man of many songs!
To thee what is, but looks and seems;
No realm to thee belongs!”
“Seest thou those mountains, faint and far,
O spirit caged and tame?”
“Blue clouds like distant hills they are,
And like is not the same.”
“Nay, nay; I know each mountain well,
Each cliff, and peak, and dome!
In that cloudland, in one high dell,
Nesteth my little home.”
Better Things
Better to smell the violet
Than sip the glowing wine;
Better to hearken to a brook
Than watch a diamond shine.
Better to have a loving friend
Than ten admiring foes;
Better a daisy’s earthy root
Than a gorgeous, dying rose.
Better to love in loneliness
Than bask in love all day;
Better the fountain in the heart
Than the fountain by the way.
Better be fed by mother’s hand
Than eat alone at will;
Better to trust in God, than say,
My goods my storehouse fill.
Better to be a little wise
Than in knowledge to abound;
Better to teach a child than toil
To fill perfection’s round.
Better to sit at some man’s feet
Than thrill a listening state;
Better suspect that thou art proud
Than be sure that thou art great.
Better to walk the realm unseen
Than watch the hour’s event;
Better the “Well done, faithful slave!”
Than the air with shoutings rent.
Better to have a quiet grief
Than many turbulent joys;
Better to miss thy manhood’s aim
Than sacrifice the boy’s.
Better a death when work is done
Than earth’s most favoured birth;
Better a child in God’s great house
Than the king of all the earth.
The Journey
Hark, the rain is on my roof!
Every murmur, through the dark,
Stings me with a dull reproof
Like a half-extinguished spark.
Me! ah me! how came I here,
Wide awake and wide alone!
Caught within a net of fear,
All my dreams undreamed and gone!
I will rise; I will go forth.
Better dare the hideous night,
Better face the freezing north
Than be still, where is no light!
Black wind rushing round me now,
Sown with arrowy points of rain!
Gone are there and then and now—
I am here, and so is pain!
Dead in dreams the gloomy street!
I will out on open roads.
Eager grow my aimless feet—
Onward, onward something goads!
I will take the mountain path,
Beard the storm within its den;
Know the worst of this dim wrath
Harassing the souls of men.
Chasm ’neath chasm! rock piled on rock!
Roots, and crumbling earth, and stones!
Hark, the torrent’s thundering shock!
Hark, the swaying pine tree’s groans!
Ah! I faint, I fall, I die,
Sink to nothingness away!—
Lo, a streak upon the sky!
Lo, the
