Song-Surf

The murmurous multitude within the wall
Already had forgot His pain —
To-morrow would forget the cross – and all!

They knew not Rome, before its sign,
Bending her brow bound with the nations' threne,
Would sweep all lands from Nile to Rhine
In servitude unto the Nazarene.

Nor knew that millions would forsake
Ancestral shrines great with the glow of time,
And lifting up its token shake
Aeons with thrill of love or battle's crime.

With empty arms aloft it stood:
Ah, Scribe and Pharisee, ye builded well!
The cross emblotted with His blood
Mounts, highest Hope of men, against earth's hell!

UNBURTHENED

Not grief nor the sunny wine
Of gladness steeps my spirit as I gaze
Over these meads that lie engarmented
In stubble robes of winter-weary brown.
For, as those solitary trees afar
Have reached unbudding boughs to the dim day
And melted on the infinite calm of space,
So have I reached, and am no more distraught
With the quivering pangs of memory's yesterday.
But the boon of blue skies deeper than despair,
Of rest that rises as a tide of sleep,
Of care borne on the plumes of swan-swift clouds
Away to the sullen shades of the low west,
Have lulled my soul with soft infinitude —
And lent it faith's illimitable Peace.

SONG

Her voice is vibrant beauty dipt
In dreams of infinite sorrow and delight.
Thro' an awaiting soul 'tis slipt
And lo, words spring that breathe immortal.

TO HER WHO SHALL COME

1

Out of the night of lovelessness I call
Thee, as, in a chill chamber where no rays
Of unbelievable light and freedom fall,
Might cry one manacled! And tho' the ways
Thou'lt come I cannot see; tho' my heart's sore
With emptiness when morning's silent grays
Wake me to long aloneness; yet I know
Thou hast been with me, who like dawn wilt go
Beside me, when I have found thee, evermore!

2

So in the garden of my heart each day
I plant thee a flower. Now the pansy, peace,
And now the lily, faith – or now a spray
Of the climbing ivy, hope. And they ne'er cease
Around the still unblossoming rose of love
To bend in fragrant tribute to her sway.
Then – for thy shelter from life's sultrier suns,
The oak of strength I set o'er joy that runs
With brooklet glee from winds that grieve above.

3

But where now art thou? Watching with love's eye
The eve-star wander? Listening through dim trees
Some thrilled muezzin of the forest cry
From his leafy minaret? Or by the sea's
Blue brim, while the spectral moon half o'er it hangs
Like the faery isle of Avalon, do these
My yearnings speak to thee of days thy feet
Have never trod? – Sweet, sweet, oh, more than sweet,
My own, must be our meeting's mystic pangs.

4

And will be soon! For last night near to-day,
Dreaming, God called me thro' the space-built sphere
Of heaven and said, "Come, waiting one, and lay
Thine ear unto my Heart – there thou shalt hear
The secrets of this world where evils war."
Such things I heard as must rend mortal clay
To tell, and trembled – till God, pitying,
Said, "Listen" … Oh, my love, I heard thee sing
Out of thy window to the morning star!

STORM-TWILIGHT

Tossing, swirling, swept by the wind,
Beaten abaft by the rain,
The swallows high in the sodden sky
Circle oft and again.