CELIA THAXTER.
Her home is by the sea, and she gives us some vivid glimpses of ocean scenes. Occasionally a joyous phrase is delicately presented, but the prevailing tone of her verse, on whatever subject, is in the minor. Perhaps “Beethoven” shows most imagination and insight, as well as felicity of expression.
Beethoven.
If God speaks anywhere, in any voice,
To us his creatures, surely here and now
We hear him, while the great chords seem to bow
Our heads, and all the symphony’s breathless noise
Breaks over us, with challenge to our souls!
Beethoven’s music! From the mountain peaks
The strong, divine, compelling thunder rolls;
And “Come up higher, come!” the words it speaks,
“Out of your darkened valleys of despair;
Behold, I lift you upon mighty wings
Into Hope’s living, reconciling air!
Breathe, and forget your life’s perpetual stings—
Dream, folded on the breast of Patience sweet,
Some pulse of pitying love for you may beat!”
Faith.
Fain would I hold my lamp of life aloft
Like yonder tower built high above the reef;
Steadfast, though tempests rave or winds blow soft,
Clear, though the sky dissolve in tears of grief.
For darkness passes; storms shall not abide,
A little patience and the fog is past.
After the sorrow of the ebbing tide
The singing flood returns in joy at last.
The night is long and pain weighs heavily;
But God will hold His world above despair.
Look to the east, where up the lucid sky
The morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair!
The Sandpiper.
Across the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit—
One little sandpiper and I.
Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky,
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white light-houses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach—
One little sandpiper and I.
I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery;
He has no thought of any wrong,
He scans me with a fearless eye.
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.
Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky;
For are we not God’s children both,
Thou, little sandpiper and I?
