I know what beauty is, for ThouHast set the world within my heart;Its glory from me will not part;I never loved it more than now. I know the Sabbath afternoon:The light lies sleeping on the graves;Against the sky the poplar waves;The river plays a Sabbath tune. Ah, know I not the spring’s snow-bell?The summer woods […]

A quiet heart, submissive, meek,Father do thou bestow;Which more than granted will not seekTo have, or give, or know. Each green hill then will hold its giftForth to my joying eyes;The mountains blue will then upliftMy spirit to the skies. The falling water then will soundAs if for me alone;Nay, will not blessing more aboundThat […]

Behind my father’s house there liesA little grassy brae,Whose face my childhood’s busy feetRan often up in play,Whence on the chimneys I looked downIn wonderment alway. Around the house, where’er I turned,Great hills closed up the view;The town ‘midst their converging rootsWas clasped by rivers two;From one hill to another sprangThe sky’s great arch of […]

I heard, in darkness, on my bed,The beating of my heartTo servant feet and regnant headA common life impart,By the liquid cords, in every threadUnbroken as they start. Night, with its power to silence day,Filled up my lonely room;All motion quenching, save what layBeyond its passing doom,Where in his shed the workman gayWent on despite […]

Aye as it listeth blows the listless wind,Filling great sails, and bending lordly masts,Or making billows in the green corn fields,And hunting lazy clouds across the blue:Now, like a vapour o’er the sunny sea,It blows the vessel from the harbour’s mouth,Out ‘mid the broken crests of seaward waves,And hovering of long-pinioned ocean birds,As if the […]

Alas! ’tis cold and dark;The wind all night has sung a wintry tune;Hail from black clouds that swallowed up the moonHas beat against my bark. Oh! when will it be spring?The sap moves not within my withered veins;Through all my frozen roots creep numbing pains,That they can hardly cling. The sun shone out last morn;I […]

INTRODUCTION. I sought the long clear twilights of the North,When, from its nest of trees, my father’s houseSees the Aurora deepen into dawnFar northward in the East, o’er the hill-top;And fronts the splendours of the northern West,Where sunset dies into that ghostly gleamThat round the horizon creepeth all the nightBack to the jubilance of gracious […]

The monk was praying in his cell,And he did pray full sore;He had been praying on his kneesFor two long hours and more. And in the midst, and suddenly,He felt his eyes ope wide;And he lifted not his head, but sawA man’s feet him beside. And almost to his feet there reachedA garment strangely knit;Some […]

A recollection and attempted completion of a prose fragment read in childhood. “Know’st thou that sound upon the window pane?”Said the youth quietly, as outstretched he lay,Where for an hour outstretched he had lain,Pillowed upon her knees. To him did sayThe thoughtful maiden: “It is but the rainThat hath been gathering in the West all […]

And as they lay and looked into the room,It wavered, changed, dissolved beneath the sun,Which mingled both the mornings in their eyes,Till the true conquered, and the unreal passed.No walls, but woods bathed in a level sun;No ceiling, but the vestal sky of morn;No bed, but flowers floating ‘mid floating leavesOn water which grew audible […]

Ah me! in ages far away,The good, the heavenly land,Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,And men could understand. The dead yet find it, who, when here,Did love it more than this;They enter in, are filled with cheer,And pain expires in bliss. Oh, fairly shines the blessed land!Ah, God! I weep and pray–The heart thou holdest […]

Heavily lay the warm sunlightUpon the green blades shining bright,An outspread grassy sea:She through the burnished yellow flowersWent walking in the golden hoursThat slept upon the lea. The bee went past her with a hum;The merry gnats did go and comeIn complicated dance;Like a blue angel, to and fro,The splendid dragon-fly did go,Shot like a […]

My heart is full of inarticulate pain,And beats laboriously. Ungenial looksInvade my sanctuary. Men of gain,Wise in success, well-read in feeble books,Do not come near me now, your air is drear;‘Tis winter and low skies when ye appear. Beloved, who love beauty and love truth!Come round me; for too near ye cannot come;Make me an […]

Of old, with goodwill from the skies,The holy angels came;They walked the earth with human eyes,And passed away in flame. But now the angels are withdrawn,Because the flowers can speak;With Christ, we see the dayspring dawnIn every snowdrop meek. God sends them forth; to God they tend;Not less with love they burn,That to the earth […]

Sad-hearted, be at peace: the snowdrop liesUnder the cold, sad earth-clods and the snow;But spring is floating up the southern skies,And the pale snowdrop silent waits below. O loved if known! in dull December’s dayOne scarce believes there is a month of June;But up the stairs of April and of MayThe dear sun climbeth to […]

O do not leave me, mother, till I sleep;Be near me until I forget; sit there.And the child having prayed lest she should weep,Sleeps in the strength of prayer. O do not leave me, lover, brother, friends,Till I am dead, and resting in my place.And the girl, having prayed, in silence bendsDown to the earth’s […]

Inscribed to S.F.S. They say that lonely sorrows do not chance.I think it true, and that the cause I know:A sorrow glideth in a funeral showEasier than if it broke into a dance.But I think too, that joy doth joy enhanceAs often as an added grief brings low;And if keen-eyed to see the flowers that […]

Is there a man on earth, who, every night,When the day hath exhausted each strong limb,Lays him upon his bed in chamber dim,And his heart straightway trembling with delight,Begins to burn up towards the vaulted heightOf the great peace that overshadows him?Like flakes of fire his thoughts within him swim,Till all his soul is radiant, […]

I have an elfish maiden child;She is not two years old;Through windy locks her eyes gleam wild,With glances shy and bold. Like little imps, her tiny handsDart out and push and take;Chide her–a trembling thing she stands,And like two leaves they shake. But to her mind a minute goneIs like a year ago;So when you […]

My little child receives my gift,A simple piece of bread;But to her mouth she doth not liftThe love in bread conveyed,Till on my lips, unerring, swift,The morsel first is laid. This is her grace before her food,This her libation poured;Uplift, like offering Aaron goodHeaved up unto the Lord;More riches in the thanks than couldA thousand […]