THE GATE.
The light of love o'er her features played,
The silver streaks through her bright hair strayed.
Her noble mien and her gentle hand
Proclaimed her daughter of no mean land.
Voice and action attested her birth,
Better than mere gilt baubles of earth.
Winter had folded its shroud and fled;
The daisies peeped from their grassy bed.
The dark mounds rose from their circling green;
Young plants smiled back to the bright'ning sheen.
No wealth of splendor, yet choice as gold
Those gifts from hands of the loved of old.
Hands which will clasp my hand nevermore
Till feet stand firm on the tideless shore.
Careless young Playful had oped the gate;
Hastening footsteps, that could not wait,
Had sped where playtime and boyhood meet;
The gate, forgot, swung ope from the street,
From the highway where the cattle roam,
And Arabs find their kindliest home.
The gate might swing till the twilight hours;
Meantime, alack for the tender flowers!
II.
She, of the high-bred, Christian school,
Soul-lit and sunned of the golden rule.
Questioned she whether! halted she long!
Qualms of propriety right no wrong.
Yield form and fashion their fitting place;
Yet, cramp not the soul in meaner space.
Hence to marauders, and riskings of fate,
She quietly closed—then latched the gate.
Trumpet bequests of the miser-mind,
Who spreads abroad when he cannot bind.
Boast ye those deeds which blazon the name,
Lofty as adamant heights of Fame.
Dawning of glory! the world's great heart
Throbs not its truest response to art.
Nor skill, nor fame, nor glamour of gold;
Only Love's chain doth the world enfold.
And those who will soar on angel wings,
Are the generous even in smaller things.
Generous when shadows darken fate,
To close 'gainst evil a neighbor's gate.
THE HIDING PLACE.[Note]
The low, sweet voice of a summer's sea
Floats far along the pebbly strand; Whilst melodies, from greening grove,
Resound o'er all the pleasant land. The streamlet, freed from icy band,
Sings gaily on its seaward way; All nature, in responsive mood,
Doth chime in Springtide roundelay.
What notes discordant dare to mar
Those tender cadenzas of song? Can those shrill tones be tones of wrath
On softest zephyrs borne along? Yea! over Ocean's peaceful hum
A woman's wrathful voice soars high; And through the green-arched forest aisles
Rings out young childhood's plaintive cry.
Who cometh, arrayed in priestly guise,
Full-charged with embassy divine, Of noble mien, of princely port,
Of lofty brow and look benign? The mother stays the uplifted hand;—
The culprit turned, and quickly ran And refuge sought, and shelter found
Beneath cloak of the holy man.
Calm, clear and firm the warning fell
"Forgive! if thou wouldst be forgiven; Whose heart doth harbor angry thoughts
Can ne'er as penitent be shriven. Forgive thy son! this once forgive!
His surety I shall gladly be; Or, if justice claimeth punishment,
Then—visit his crimes on me."
In centre of a glittering throng
The reverend Father stately stands; And, in the name of the Triune God,
He upraiseth his sacred hands. Whilst, leader in that vast array,
Whose torches brighten wave and shore, Is he whose faults were answered for;
The saved of many years before.
So we, in our rebel sin-nature,
Pine under the chastening rod; And fly with our burden of evil
From wrath of a just-dealing God, To hide in Christ's sheltering raiment
Of righteousness, inwove with peace; To find, in a sinless substitute,
The sin-fettered soul's release.
So we, when our Great High Priest shall come,
Begirt of power, enrobed of state, And the peoples of ten thousand isles
With eager joy His advent wait, Shall hail, with a heartsong of rapture,
His step on our sin-furrowed strand; Shall march, with the grand triumphal throng,
In the glow of a God-lit land.