is impossible henceforth
For her to stoop to ill.
Her to herself his words restore,
The radiance to the day;
A horror to herself no more,
Not yet a cast-away!
Her hands and kisses, ointment, tears,
Her gathered wiping hair,
Her love, her shame, her hopes, her fears,
Mingle in worship rare.
Thou, Mary, too, thy hair didst spread
To wipe the anointed feet;
Nor didst thou only bless his head
With precious spikenard sweet.
But none say thou thy tears didst pour
To wash his parched feet first;
Of tears thou couldst not have such store
As from this woman burst!
If not in love she first be read,
Her queen of sorrow greet;
Mary, do thou anoint his head,
And let her crown his feet.
Simon, her kisses will not soil;
Her tears are pure as rain;
The hair for him she did uncoil
Had been baptized in pain.
Lo, God hath pardoned her so much,
Love all her being stirs!
His love to his poor child is such
That it hath wakened hers!
But oh, rejoice, ye sisters pure,
Who scarce can know her case—
There is no sin but has its cure,
Its all-consuming grace!
He did not leave her soul in hell,
’Mong shards the silver dove;
But raised her pure that she might tell
Her sisters how to love!
She gave him all your best love can!
Despised, rejected, sad—
Sure, never yet had mighty man
Such homage as he had!
Jesus, by whose forgiveness sweet,
Her love grew so intense,
Earth’s sinners all come round thy feet:
Lord, make no difference!
A Song in a Dream
I dreamed of a song, I heard it sung;
In the ear that sleeps not its music rung.
And the tones were upheld by harmonies deep,
Where the spirit floated; yea, soared, on their sweep
With each wild unearthly word and tone,
Upward, it knew not whither bound,
In a calm delirium of mystic sound—
Up, where the Genius of Thought alone
Loveth in silence to drink his fill
Of dews that from unknown clouds distil.
A woman’s voice the deep echoes awoke,
In the caverns and solitudes of my soul;
But such a voice had never broke
Through the sea of sounds that about us roll,
Choking the ear in the daylight strife.
There was sorrow and triumph, and death and life
In each chord-note of that prophet-song,
Blended in one harmonious throng:
Such a chant, ere my voice has fled from death,
Be it mine to mould of the parting breath.
Songs of the Days and Nights
Songs of the Summer Days
A glory on the chamber wall!
A glory in the brain!
Triumphant floods of glory fall
On heath, and wold, and plain.
Earth lieth still in hopeless bliss;
She has, and seeks no more;
Forgets that days come after this,
Forgets the days before.
Each ripple waves a flickering fire
Of gladness, as it runs;
They laugh and flash, and leap and spire,
And toss ten thousand suns.
But hark! low, in the world within,
One sad aeolian tone:
“Ah! shall we ever, ever win
A summer of our own?”
A morn of winds and swaying trees—
Earth’s jubilance rushing out!
The birds are fighting with the breeze;
The waters heave about.
White clouds are swept across the sky,
Their shadows o’er the graves;
Purpling the green, they float and fly
Athwart the sunny waves.
The long grass—an earth-rooted sea—
Mimics the watery strife.
To boat or horse? Wild motion we
Shall find harmonious life.
But whither? Roll and sweep and bend
Suffice for Nature’s part;
But motion to an endless end
Is needful for our heart.
The morn awakes like brooding dove,
With outspread wings of gray;
Her feathery clouds close in above,
And roof a sober day.
No motion in the deeps of air!
No trembling in the leaves!
A still contentment everywhere,
That neither laughs nor grieves!
A film of sheeted silver gray
Shuts in the ocean’s hue;
White-winged feluccas cleave their way
In paths of gorgeous blue.
Dream on, dream on, O dreamy day,
Thy very clouds are dreams!
Yon child is dreaming far away—
He is not where he seems.
The lark is up, his faith is strong,
He mounts the morning air;
Lone voice of all the creature throng,
He sings the morning prayer.
Slow clouds from north and south appear,
Black-based, with shining slope;
In sullen forms their might they rear,
And climb the vaulted cope.
A lightning flash, a thunder boom!—
Nor sun nor clouds are there;
A single, all-pervading gloom
Hangs in the heavy air.
A weeping, wasting afternoon
Weighs down the aspiring corn;
Amber and red, the sunset soon
Leads back to golden morn.
Songs of the Summer Nights
The dreary wind of night is out,
Homeless and wandering slow;
O’er pale seas moaning like a doubt,
It breathes, but will not blow.
It sighs from out the helpless past,
Where doleful things abide;
Gray ghosts of dead thought sail aghast
Across its ebbing tide.
O’er marshy pools it faints and flows,
All deaf and dumb and blind;
O’er moor and mountain aimless goes—
The listless woesome wind!
Nay, nay!—breathe on, sweet wind of night!
The sigh is all in me;
Flow, fan, and blow, with gentle might,
Until I wake and see.
The west is broken into bars
Of orange, gold, and gray;
Gone is the sun, fast come the stars,
And night infolds the day.
My boat glides with the gliding stream,
Following adown its breast
One flowing mirrored amber gleam,
The death-smile of the west.
The river moves; the sky is still,
No ceaseless quest it knows:
Thy bosom swells, thy fair eyes fill
At sight of its repose.
The ripples run; all patient sit
The stars above the night.
In shade and gleam the waters flit:
The heavens are changeless bright!
Alone I lie, buried amid
The long luxurious grass;
The bats flit round me, born and hid
In twilight’s wavering mass.
The fir-top floats, an airy isle,
High o’er the mossy ground;
Harmonious silence breathes the while
In scent instead of sound.
The flaming rose glooms swarthy red;
The borage gleams more blue;
Dim-starred with white, a flowery bed
Glimmers the rich dusk through.
Hid in the summer grass I lie,
Lost in the great blue cave;
My body gazes at the sky,
And measures out its grave.
