“O Lord, how canst Thou say Thou lovest me?Me whom thou settest in a barren land,Hungry and thirsty on the burning sand,Hungry and thirsty where no waters beNor shadows of date-bearing tree:–O Lord, how canst Thou say Thou lovest me?” “I came from Edom by as parched a track,As rough a track beneath My bleeding […]

I am pale with sick desire,For my heart is far awayFrom this world’s fitful fireAnd this world’s waning day;In a dream it overleapsA world of tedious illsTo where the sunshine sleepsOn the everlasting hills.–Say the Saints: There Angels ease usGlorified and white.They say: We rest in Jesus,Where is not day or night. My soul saith: […]

Give me the lowest place: not that I dareAsk for that lowest place, but Thou hast diedThat I might live and shareThy glory by Thy side. Give me the lowest place: or if for meThat lowest place too high, make one more lowWhere I may sit and seeMy God and love Thee so.

Am I a stone and not a sheepThat I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Cross,To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,And yet not weep? Not so those women lovedWho with exceeding grief lamented Thee;Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;Not so the thief was moved; Not so the Sun and MoonWhich hid their […]

As eager home-bound traveller to the goal,Or steadfast seeker on an unsearched main,Or martyr panting for an aureole,My fellow-pilgrims pass me, and attainThat hidden mansion of perpetual peace,Where keen desire and hope dwell free from pain:That gate stands open of perennial ease;I view the glory till I partly long,Yet lack the fire of love which […]

We meet in joy, though we part in sorrow;We part to-night, but we meet to-morrow.Be it flood or blood the path that’s trod,All the same it leads home to God:Be it furnace-fire voluminous,One like God’s Son will walk with us. What are these that glow from afar,These that lean over the golden bar,Strong as the […]

I would have gone; God bade me stay:I would have worked; God bade me rest.He broke my will from day to day,He read my yearnings unexpressed,And said them nay. Now I would stay; God bids me go:Now I would rest; God bids me work.He breaks my heart tossed to and fro,My soul is wrung with […]

I love and love not: Lord, it breaks my heartTo love and not to love.Thou veiled within Thy glory, gone apartInto Thy shrine, which is above,Dost Thou not love me, Lord, or careFor this mine ill?–I love thee here or there,I will accept thy broken heart, lie still. Lord, it was well with me in […]

If I might only love my God and die!But now He bids me love Him and live on,Now when the bloom of all my life is gone,The pleasant half of life has quite gone by.My tree of hope is lopped that spread so high,And I forget how summer glowed and shone,While autumn grips me with […]

Thou who didst hang upon a barren tree,My God, for me;Though I till now be barren, now at length,Lord, give me strengthTo bring forth fruit to Thee. Thou who didst bear for me the crown of thorn,Spitting and scorn;Though I till now have put forth thorns, yet nowStrengthen me ThouThat better fruit be borne. Thou […]

Where are the songs I used to know,Where are the notes I used to sing?I have forgotten everythingI used to know so long ago;Summer has followed after Spring;Now Autumn is so shrunk and sere,I scarcely think a sadder thingCan be the Winter of my year. Yet Robin sings through Winter’s rest,When bushes put their berries […]

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tomeHas many sonnets: so here now shall beOne sonnet more, a love sonnet, from meTo her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,To my first Love, my Mother, on whose kneeI learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;Whose service is my special dignity,And she my loadstar while I […]

Beatrice, immortalized by “altissimo poeta … cotantoamante;” Laura, celebrated by a great though an inferior bard,–havealike paid the exceptional penalty of exceptional honor,and have come down to us resplendent with charms, but (atleast, to my apprehension) scant of attractiveness. These heroines of world-wide fame were preceded by a bevyof unnamed ladies “donne innominate” sung by […]

“Should one of us remember,And one of us forget,I wish I knew what each will do–But who can tell as yet?” “Should one of us remember,And one of us forget,I promise you what I will do–And I’m content to wait for you,And not be sure as yet.”

I dreamed and did not seek: to-day I seekWho can no longer dream;But now am all behindhand, waxen weak,And dazed amid so many things that gleamYet are not what they seem. I dreamed and did not work: to-day I workKept wide awake by careAnd loss, and perils dimly guessed to lurk;I work and reap not, […]

There are sleeping dreams and waking dreams;What seems is not always as it seems. I looked out of my window in the sweet new morning,And there I saw three barges of manifold adorningWent sailing toward the East:The first had sails like fire,The next like glittering wire,But sackcloth were the sails of the least;And all the […]

The mystery of Life, the mysteryOf Death, I seeDarkly as in a glass;Their shadows pass,And talk with me. As the flush of a Morning Sky,As a Morning Sky colorless–Each yields its measure of lightTo a wet world or a dry;Each fares through day to nightWith equal pace,And then each oneIs done. As the Sun with […]

To come back from the sweet South, to the NorthWhere I was born, bred, look to die;Come back to do my day’s work in its day,Play out my play–Amen, amen, say I. To see no more the country half my own,Nor hear the half familiar speech,Amen, I say; I turn to that bleak NorthWhence I […]

PERSONIFICATIONS. Boys. Girls. January. February. March. April. July. May. August. June. October. September. December. November. Robin Redbreasts; Lambs and Sheep;Nightingale and Nestlings. Various Flowers, Fruits, etc. Scene : A Cottage with its Grounds. [A room in a large comfortable cottage; a fire burning on the hearth; a table on which the breakfast things have been […]

A boat amid the ripples, drifting, rocking,Two idle people, without pause or aim;While in the ominous west there gathers darknessFlushed with flame. A haycock in a hayfield backing, lapping,Two drowsy people pillowed round about;While in the ominous west across the darknessFlame leaps out. Better a wrecked life than a life so aimless,Better a wrecked life […]