go!
Alternate kiss, her mother must,
Now that, now this big toe!
I turn away from her, and write
For minutes three or four:
A tiny spectre, tall and white,
She’s standing by the door!
Then something comes into my head
That makes me stop and think:
She’s on the table, the quadruped,
And dabbling in my ink!
O Elfie, make no haste to lose
Thy ignorance of offence!
Thou hast the best gift I could choose,
A heavenly confidence.
’Tis time, long-white-gowned Mrs. Ham,
To put you in the ark!
Sleep, Elfie, God-infolded lamb,
Sleep shining through the dark.
The Thank-Offering
My Lily snatches not my gift;
Glad is she to be fed,
But to her mouth she will not lift
The piece of broken bread,
Till on my lips, unerring, swift,
The morsel she has laid.
This is her grace before her food,
This her libation poured;
Even thus his offering, Aaron good
Heaved up to thank the Lord,
When for the people all he stood,
And with a cake adored.
So, Father, every gift of thine
I offer at thy knee;
Else take I not the love divine
With which it comes to me;
Not else the offered grace is mine
Of sharing life with thee.
Yea, all my being I would bring,
Yielding it utterly,
Not yet a full-possessed thing
Till heaved again to thee:
Away, my self! away, and cling
To him that makes thee be!
The Burnt-Offering
Thrice-happy he whose heart, each new-born night,
When old-worn day hath vanished o’er earth’s brim,
And he hath laid him down in chamber dim,
Straightway begins to tremble and grow bright,
And loose faint flashes toward the vaulted height
Of the great peace that overshadoweth him:
Keen lambent flames of hope awake and swim
Throughout his soul, touching each point with light!
The great earth under him an altar is,
Upon whose top a sacrifice he lies,
Burning in love’s response up to the skies
Whose fire descended first and kindled his:
When slow the flickering flames at length expire,
Sleep’s ashes only hide a glowing fire.
To S. F. S.
They say that lonely sorrows do not chance:
More gently, I think, sorrows together go;
A new one joins the funeral gliding slow
With less of jar than when it breaks the dance.
Grief swages grief, and joy doth joy enhance;
Nature is generous to her children so.
And were they quick to spy the flowers that blow,
As quick to feel the sharp-edged stones that lance
The foot that must walk naked in life’s way—
Blest by the roadside lily, free from fear,
Oftener than hurt by dash of flinty spear,
They would walk upright, bold, and earnest-gay;
And when the soft night closed the weary day,
Would sleep like those that far-off music hear.
The Unseen Face
“I do beseech thee, God, show me thy face.”
“Come up to me in Sinai on the morn!
Thou shall behold as much as may be borne.”
And on a rock stood Moses, lone in space.
From Sinai’s top, the vaporous, thunderous place,
God passed in cloud, an earthy garment worn
To hide, and thus reveal. In love, not scorn,
He put him in a clift of the rock’s base,
Covered him with his hand, his eyes to screen—
Passed—lifted it: his back alone appears!
Ah, Moses, had he turned, and hadst thou seen
The pale face crowned with thorns, baptized with tears,
The eyes of the true man, by men belied,
Thou hadst beheld God’s face, and straightway died!
Concerning Jesus
If thou hadst been a sculptor, what a race
Of forms divine had thenceforth filled the land!
Methinks I see thee, glorious workman, stand,
Striking a marble window through blind space—
Thy face’s reflex on the coming face,
As dawns the stone to statue ’neath thy hand—
Body obedient to its soul’s command,
Which is thy thought, informing it with grace!
So had it been. But God, who quickeneth clay,
Nor turneth it to marble—maketh eyes,
Not shadowy hollows, where no sunbeams play—
Would mould his loftiest thought in human guise:
Thou didst appear, walking unknown abroad,
God’s living sculpture, all-informed of God.
If one should say, “Lo, there thy statue! take
Possession, sculptor; now inherit it;
Go forth upon the earth in likeness fit;
As with a trumpet-cry at morning, wake
The sleeping nations; with light’s terror, shake
The slumber from their hearts, that, where they sit,
They leap straight up, aghast, as at a pit
Gaping beneath;” I hear him answer make:
“Alas for me, I cannot nor would dare
Inform what I revered as I did trace!
Who would be fool that he like fool might fare,
With feeble spirit mocking the enorm
Strength on his forehead!” Thou, God’s thought thy form,
Didst live the large significance of thy face.
Men have I seen, and seen with wonderment,
Noble in form, “lift upward and divine,”
In whom I yet must search, as in a mine,
After that soul of theirs, by which they went
Alive upon the earth. And I have bent
Regard on many a woman, who gave sign
God willed her beautiful, when he drew the line
That shaped each float and fold of beauty’s tent:
Her soul, alas, chambered in pygmy space,
Left the fair visage pitiful—inane—
Poor signal only of a coming face
When from the penetrale she filled the fane!—
Possessed of thee was every form of thine,
Thy very hair replete with the divine.
If thou hadst built a temple, how my eye
Had hungering fed thereon, from low-browed crypt
Up to the soaring pinnacles that, tipt
With stars, gave signal when the sun drew nigh!
Dark caverns in and under; vivid sky
Its home and aim! Say, from the glory slipt,
And down into the shadows dropt and dipt,
Or reared from darkness up so holy-high?—
Thou build’st the temple of thy holy ghost
From hid foundation to high-hidden fate—
Foot in the grave, head at the heavenly gate,
From grave and sky filled with a fighting host!
Man is thy temple; man thy work elect;
His glooms and glory thine, great architect!
If thou hadst been a painter, what fresh looks,
What outbursts of pent glories, what new grace
Had shone upon us from the great world’s face!
How had we read, as in eternal books,
The love of God in loneliest shiest nooks!
A lily, in merest lines thy hand did trace,
Had plainly been God’s child of lower race!
And oh how strong the hills, songful the brooks!
To
