home than Paradise;
And, having lost, is roused thereby to fill
A deeper need than could be filled by all
The lost ten times restored; and so he loves
The snowdrop more than the magnolia;
Spring-hope is more to him than summer-joy;
Dark towns than Eden-groves with rivers four.
After an Old Legend
The monk was praying in his cell,
With bowed head praying sore;
He had been praying on his knees
For two long hours and more.
As of themselves, all suddenly,
His eyelids opened wide;
Before him on the ground he saw
A man’s feet close beside;
And almost to the feet came down
A garment wove throughout;
Such garment he had never seen
In countries round about!
His eyes he lifted tremblingly
Until a hand they spied:
A chisel-scar on it he saw,
And a deep, torn scar beside.
His eyes they leaped up to the face,
His heart gave one wild bound,
Then stood as if its work were done—
The Master he had found!
With sudden clang the convent bell
Told him the poor did wait
His hand to give the daily bread
Doled at the convent-gate.
Then Love rose in him passionate,
And with Duty wrestled strong;
And the bell kept calling all the time
With merciless iron tongue.
The Master stood and looked at him
He rose up with a sigh:
“He will be gone when I come back
I go to him by and by!”
He chid his heart, he fed the poor
All at the convent-gate;
Then with slow-dragging feet went back
To his cell so desolate:
His heart bereaved by duty done,
He had sore need of prayer!
Oh, sad he lifted the latch!—and, lo,
The Master standing there!
He said, “My poor had not to stand
Wearily at thy gate:
For him who feeds the shepherd’s sheep
The shepherd will stand and wait.”
Yet, Lord—for thou would’st have us judge,
And I will humbly dare—
If he had stayed, I do not think
Thou wouldst have left him there.
Thy voice in far-off time I hear,
With sweet defending, say:
“The poor ye always have with you,
Me ye have not alway!”
Thou wouldst have said: “Go feed my poor,
The deed thou shalt not rue;
Wherever ye do my father’s will
I always am with you.”
The Tree’s Prayer
Alas, ’tis cold and dark!
The wind all night hath sung a wintry tune!
Hail from black clouds that swallowed up the moon
Beat, beat against my bark.
Oh! why delays the spring?
Not yet the sap moves in my frozen veins;
Through all my stiffened roots creep numbing pains,
That I can hardly cling.
The sun shone yester-morn;
I felt the glow down every fibre float,
And thought I heard a thrush’s piping note
Of dim dream-gladness born.
Then, on the salt gale driven,
The streaming cloud hissed through my outstretched arms,
Tossed me about in slanting snowy swarms,
And blotted out the heaven.
All night I brood and choose
Among past joys. Oh, for the breath of June!
The feathery light-flakes quavering from the moon
The slow baptizing dews!
Oh, the joy-frantic birds!—
They are the tongues of us, mute, longing trees!
Aha, the billowy odours! and the bees
That browse like scattered herds!
The comfort-whispering showers
That thrill with gratefulness my youngest shoot!
The children playing round my deep-sunk root,
Green-caved from burning hours!
See, see the heartless dawn,
With naked, chilly arms latticed across!
Another weary day of moaning loss
On the thin-shadowed lawn!
But icy winter’s past;
Yea, climbing suns persuade the relenting wind:
I will endure with steadfast, patient mind;
My leaves will come at last!
A Story of the Sea-Shore
Let your tears flow; let your sad sighs have scope;
Only take heed they fan, they water Hope.
I sought the long clear twilights of my home,
Far in the pale-blue skies and slaty seas,
What time the sunset dies not utterly,
But withered to a ghost-like stealthy gleam,
Round the horizon creeps the short-lived night,
And changes into sunrise in a swoon.
I found my home in homeliness unchanged:
The love that made it home, unchangeable,
Received me as a child, and all was well.
My ancient summer-heaven, borne on the hills,
Once more embraced me; and once more the vale,
So often sighed for in the far-off nights,
Rose on my bodily vision, and, behold,
In nothing had the fancy mocked the fact!
The hasting streams went garrulous as of old;
The resting flowers in silence uttered more;
The blue hills rose and dwelt alone in heaven;
Householding Nature from her treasures brought
Things old and new, the same yet not the same,
For all was holier, lovelier than before;
And best of all, once more I paced the fields
With him whose love had made me long for God
So good a father that, needs-must, I sought
A better still, Father of him and me.
Once on a day, my cousin Frank and I
Sat swiftly borne behind the dear white mare
That oft had carried me in bygone days
Along the lonely paths of moorland hills;
But now we sought the coast, where deep waves foam
’Gainst rocks that lift their dark fronts to the north.
And with us went a girl, on whose kind face
I had not looked for many a youthful year,
But the old friendship straightway blossomed new.
The heavens were sunny, and the earth was green;
The large harebells in families stood along
The grassy borders, of a tender blue
Transparent as the sky, haunted with wings
Of many butterflies, as blue as they.
And as we talked and talked without restraint,
Brought near by memories of days that were,
And therefore are for ever; by the joy
Of motion through a warm and shining air;
By the glad sense of freedom and like thoughts;
And by the bond of friendship with the dead,
She told the tale which here I tell again.
I had returned to childish olden time,
And asked her if she knew a castle worn,
Whose masonry, razed utterly above,
Yet faced the sea-cliff up, and met the waves:—
’Twas one of my child-marvels; for, each year,
We turned our backs upon the ripening corn,
And sought some village on the Moray shore;
And nigh this ruin, was that I loved the best.
For oh the riches of that little port!—
Down almost to the beach, where a high wall
Enclosed them, came the gardens of a lord,
Free to the visitor with foot restrained—
His shady walks, his ancient trees of state;
His river—that would not be
