His brow was heavenward turned, His face was fair
He dreamed of me
On that still sea —
The stars He made were gleaming through His hair.
And lo! a moan moved o'er the mighty deep;
The sky grew dark:
The little bark
Felt all the waves awaking from their sleep.
The winds wailed wild, and wilder billows beat;
The bark was tossed:
Shall all be lost?
But Mary's Son slept on, serene and sweet.
The tempest raged in all its mighty wrath,
The winds howled on,
All hope seemed gone,
And darker waves surged round the bark's lone path.
The sleeper woke! He gazed upon the deep;
He whispered: "Peace!
Winds — wild waves, cease!
Be still!" The tempest fled — the ocean fell asleep.
And ah! when human hearts by storms are tossed,
When life's lone bark
Drifts through the dark
And 'mid the wildest waves where all seems lost,
He now, as then, with words of power and peace,
Murmurs: "Stormy deep,
Be still — still — and sleep!"
And lo! a great calm comes — the tempest's perils cease.
A "Thought-Flower"
Silently — shadowly — some lives go,
And the sound of their voices is all unheard;
Or, if heard at all, 'tis as faint as the flow
Of beautiful waves which no storm hath stirred.
Deep lives these
As the pearl-strewn seas.
Softly and noiselessly some feet tread
Lone ways on earth, without leaving a mark;
They move 'mid the living, they pass to the dead,
As still as the gleam of a star thro' the dark.
Sweet lives those
In their strange repose.