But God is sweet.
My mother told me so,
When I knelt at her feet
Long — so long — ago;
She clasped my hands in hers.
Ah! me, that memory stirs
My soul's profoundest deep —
No wonder that I weep.
She clasped my hands and smiled,
Ah! then I was a child —
I knew not harm —
My mother's arm
Was flung around me; and I felt
That when I knelt
To listen to my mother's prayer,
God was with my mother there.
Yea! "God is sweet!"
She told me so;
She never told me wrong;
And through my years of woe
Her whispers soft, and sad, and low,
And sweet as Angel's song,
Have floated like a dream.
And, ah! to-night I seem
A very child in my old, old place,
Beneath my mother's blessed face,
And through each sweet remembered word,
This sweetest undertone is heard:
"My child! my child! our God is sweet,
In Life — in Death — kneel at his feet —
Sweet in gladness, sweet in gloom,
Sweeter still beside the tomb."
Why should I wail? Why ought I weep?
The grave — it is not dark and deep;
Why should I sigh? Why ought I moan?
The grave — it is not still and lone;
Our God is sweet, our grave is sweet,
We lie there sleeping at His feet,
Where the wicked shall from troubling cease,
And weary hearts shall rest in peace!
Lines — 1875
Go down where the wavelets are kissing the shore,
And ask of them why do they sigh?
The poets have asked them a thousand times o'er,
But they're kissing the shore as they kissed it before,
And they're sighing to-day, and they'll sigh evermore.
Ask them what ails them: they will not reply;
But they'll sigh on forever and never tell why!
Why does your poetry sound like a sigh?
The waves will not answer you; neither shall I.
Go stand on the beach of the blue boundless deep,
When the night stars are gleaming on high,
And hear how the billows are moaning in sleep,
On the low lying strand by the surge-beaten steep.
They're moaning forever wherever they sweep.
Ask them what ails them: they never reply;
They moan, and so sadly, but will not tell why
Why does your poetry sound like a sigh?
The waves will not answer you; neither shall I.
Go list to the breeze at the waning of day,
When it passes and murmurs "Good-bye."
The dear little breeze — how it wishes to stay
Where the flowers are in bloom, where the singing birds play;
How it sighs when it flies on its wearisome way.
Ask it what ails it: it will not reply;
Its voice is a sad one, it never told why.
Why does your poetry sound like a sigh?
The breeze will not answer you; neither shall I.
Go watch the wild blasts as they spring from their lair,
When the shout of the storm rends the sky;
They rush o'er the earth and they ride thro' the air
And they blight with their breath all the lovely and fair,
And they groan like the ghosts in the "land of despair".
Ask them what ails them: they never reply;
Their voices are mournful, they will not tell why.
Why does your poetry sound like a sigh?
The blasts will not answer you; neither shall I.
Go stand on the rivulet's lily-fringed side,
Or list where the rivers rush by;
The streamlets which forest trees shadow and hide,
And the rivers that roll in their oceanward tide,
Are moaning forever wherever they glide;
Ask them what ails them: they will not reply.
On — sad voiced — they flow, but they never tell why.
Why does your poetry sound like a sigh?
Earth's streams will not answer you; neither shall I.
Go list to the voices of air, earth and sea,
And the voices that sound in the sky;
Their songs may be joyful to some, but to me
There's a sigh in each chord and a sigh in each key,
And thousands of sighs swell their grand melody.
Ask them what ails them: they will not reply.
They sigh — sigh forever — but never tell why.
Why does your poetry sound like a sigh?
Their lips will not answer you; neither shall I.