I. 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 aghastAcross its ebbing tide. O’er marshy pools it faints and flows,All deaf and dumb and blind;O’er moor and […]

Lord Jesus,Oh, ease usOf Self that oppresses,Annoys and distressesBody and brainWith dull pain!Thou never,Since ever,Save one moment only,Wast left, or wast lonely:We are alone,And make moan. Far parted,Dull-hearted,We wander, sleep-walking,Mere shadows, dim-stalking:Orphans we roam,Far from home. Oh new man,Sole human,God’s son, and our brother,Give each to the other–No one left outIn cold doubt! High Father,Oh […]

“Come, children, put away your toys;Roll up that kite’s long line;The day is done for girls and boys–Look, it is almost nine!Come, weary foot, and sleepy head,Get up, and come along to bed.” The children, loath, must yet obey;Up the long stair they creep;Lie down, and something sing or sayUntil they fall asleep,To steal through […]

Thou who mad’st the mighty clockOf the great world go;Mad’st its pendulum swing and rock,Ceaseless to and fro;Thou whose will doth push and drawEvery orb in heaven,Help me move by higher lawIn my spirit graven. Like a planet let me swing–With intention strong;In my orbit rushing singJubilant along;Help me answer in my courseTo my seasons […]

Were thou and I the white pinionsOn some eager, heaven-born dove,Swift would we mount to the old dominions,To our rest of old, my love! Were thou and I trembling strandsIn music’s enchanted line,We would wait and wait for magic handsTo untwist the magic twine. Were we two sky-tints, thou and I,Thou the golden, I the […]

I. A gentle wind, of western birthOn some far summer sea,Wakes daisies in the wintry earth,Wakes hopes in wintry me. The sun is low; the paths are wet,And dance with frolic hail;The trees–their spring-time is not yet–Swing sighing in the gale. Young gleams of sunshine peep and play;Clouds shoulder in between;I scarce believe one coming […]

I. The flush of green that dyed the dayHath vanished in the moon;Flower-scents float stronger out, and playAn unborn, coming tune. One southern eve like this, the dewHad cooled and left the ground;The moon hung half-way from the blue,No disc, but conglobed round; Light-leaved acacias, by the door,Bathed in the balmy air,Clusters of blossomed moonlight […]

I. The sky has turned its heart away,The earth its sorrow found;The daisies turn from childhood’s play,And creep into the ground. The earth is black and cold and hard;Thin films of dry white ice,Across the rugged wheel-tracks barred,The children’s feet entice. Dark flows the stream, as if it mournedThe winter in the land;With idle icicles […]

I. Back shining from the pane, the fireSeems outside in the snow:So love set free from love’s desireLights grief of long ago. The dark is thinned with snow-sheen fine,The earth bedecked with moon;Out on the worlds we surely shineMore radiant than in June! In the white garden lies a heapAs brown as deep-dug mould:A hundred […]

I. O night, send up the harvest moonTo walk about the fields,And make of midnight magic noonOn lonely tarns and wealds. In golden ranks, with golden crowns,All in the yellow land,Old solemn kings in rustling gowns,The shocks moon-charmed stand. Sky-mirror she, afloat in space,Beholds our coming morn:Her heavenly joy hath such a grace,It ripens earthly […]

Her mother, Elfie older grown,One evening, for adieu,Said, “You’ll not mind being left alone,For God takes care of you!” In child-way her heart’s eye did seeThe correlation’s node:“Yes,” she said, “God takes care o’ me,An’ I take care o’ God.” The child and woman were the same,She changed not, only grew;‘Twixt God and her no […]

My little boy, with smooth, fair cheeks,And dreamy, large, brown eyes,Not often, little wisehead, speaks,But hearing, weighs and tries. “God is not only in the sky,”His sister said one day–Not older much, but she would cryLike Wisdom in the way– “He’s in this room.” His dreamy, clear,Large eyes look round for God:In vain they search, […]

My wife contrived a fleecy thingHer husband to infold,For ’tis the pride of woman stillTo cover from the cold:My daughter made it a new textFor a sermon very old. The child came trotting to her side,Ready with bootless aid:“Lily make veckit for papa,”The tiny woman said:Her mother gave the means and ways,And a knot upon […]

‘Tis a poor drizzly morning, dark and sad.The cloud has fallen, and filled with fold on foldThe chimneyed city; and the smoke is caught,And spreads diluted in the cloud, and sinks,A black precipitate, on miry streets.And faces gray glide through the darkened fog. Slave engines utter again their ugly growl,And soon the iron bands and […]

Trust my father, saith the eldest-born;I did trust him ere the earth began;Not to know him is to be forlorn;Not to love him is–not to be man. He that knows him loves him altogether;With my father I am so contentThat through all this dreary human weatherI am working, waiting, confident. He is with me; I […]

DEDICATION. To all who fainWould keep the grain,And cast the husk away–That it may feedThe living seed,And serve it with decay–I offer this dim storyWhose clouds crack into glory. THE DISCIPLE. I. The times are changed, and gone the dayWhen the high heavenly land,Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,And men could understand. The dead yet […]

A child was born in sin and shame,Wronged by his very birth,Without a home, without a name,One over in the earth. No wifely triumph he inspired,Allayed no husband’s fear;Intruder bare, whom none desired,He had a welcome drear. Heaven’s beggar, all but turned adriftFor knocking at earth’s gate,His mother, like an evil gift,Shunned him with sickly […]

The thousand streets of London grayRepel all country sights;But bar not winds upon their way,Nor quench the scent of new-mown hayIn depth of summer nights. And here and there an open spot,Still bare to light and dark,With grass receives the wanderer hot;There trees are growing, houses not–They call the place a park. Soft creatures, with […]

When things are holding wonted paceIn wonted paths, without a traceOr hint of neighbouring wonder,Sometimes, from other realms, a tone,A scent, a vision, swift, alone,Breaks common life asunder. Howe’er it comes, whate’er its door,It makes you ponder something more–Unseen with seen things linking:To neighbours met one festive night,Was given a quaint and lovely sight,That set […]

Of whispering trees the tongues to hear,And sermons of the silent stone;To read in brooks the print so clearOf motion, shadowy light, and tone–That man hath neither eye nor earWho careth not for human moan. Yea, he who draws, in shrinking haste,From sin that passeth helpless by;The weak antennae of whose tasteFrom touch of alien […]