Lays and Legends (Second Series)

Yet not despair. I see far off a splendour;
Here from my hell I see a heaven on high
For those brave men whom earth could never render
Cowards as foul and beasts as base as I!

Hell is not hell lit by such consolation,
Heaven were not heaven that lacked a thought like this —
That, though my soul may never see salvation,
God yet saves all these other souls of His!

The waves of death come faster, faster, faster;
Christ, ere I perish, hear my heart's last word —
It was not I denied my Lord and Master;
The flesh denied Thee, not the spirit, Lord.

And God be praised that other men are wearing
The white, white flower I trampled as I trod;
That all fail not, that all are not despairing,
That all are not as I, I thank Thee, God!

AT THE PRISON GATE

And underneath us are the everlasting arms

Once by a foreign prison gate,
Deep in the gloom of frowning stone,
I saw a woman, desolate,
Sitting alone;
Immeasurable pain enwound
Infinite anguish lapped her round,
As the sea laps some sunken shore
Where flowers will blossom never more.

Despair sat shrined in her dry eyes —
Her heart, I thought, in blood must weep
For hopes that never more can rise
From their death-sleep;
And round her hovered phantoms gray —
Ghosts of delight dead many a day;
And all the thorns of life seemed wed
In one sharp crown about her head.

And all the poor world's aching heart
Beat there, I thought, and could not break.
Oh! to be strong to bear the smart —
The vast heart-ache!
Then through my soul a clear light shone;
What I would do, my Lord has done;
He bore the whole world's crown of thorn —
For her sake, too, that crown was worn!

THE DEVIL'S DUE

A priest tells how, in his youth, a church was built by the free labour of love – as was men's wont in those days; and how the stone and wood were paid for by one who had grown rich on usury and the pillage of the poor – and of what chanced thereafter.

Arsenius, priest of God, I tell,
For warning in your younger ears,
Humbly and plainly what befel
That year – gone by a many years —
When Veraignes church was built. Ah! then
Brave churches grew 'neath hands of men:
We see not now their like again.

We built it on the green hill-side
That leans its bosom o'er the town,
So that its presence, sanctified,
Might ever on our lives look down.
We built; and those who built not, they
Brought us their blessing day by day,
And lingered to rejoice and pray.

For years the masons toiled, for years
The craftsmen wrought till they had made
A church we scarce could see for tears —
Its fairness made our love afraid.
Its clear-cut cream-white tracery
Stood out against the deep bright sky
Like good deeds 'gainst eternity.

In the deep roof each separate beam
Had its own garland – ivy, vine, —
Giving to man the carver's dream,
In sight of men a certain sign —
And all day long the workers plied.
"The church shall finished be," we cried,
"And consecrate by Easter-tide."

Our church! It was so fair, so dear,
So fit a church to praise God in!
It had such show of carven gear,
Such chiselled work, without, within!
Such marble for the steps and floor,
Such window-jewels and such store
Of gold and gems the altar bore!

Each stone by loving hands was hewn,
By loving hands each beam was sawn;
The hammers made a merry tune
In winter dusk and summer dawn.