Like a cool hand upon a fevered brow
Came that dear song; all fear had vanished now,
Steady my pulse, sunk in oblivion's arms
Forgetful as a child of past alarms.
Ye who have doubts—who is it has them not?
Ye who have fears, and troubled anxious thought,
When the storm lulls, will, if ye list aright,
Hear a bird singing in your darkest night.
Nescio at Felix.
One night, with some unquietness and dread,
And fear of boding ill within my soul,
I fell to sleep; before me, like a scroll,
Lay bare the coming years. In them I read,
Clear writ as in a book or chart, the vast
Futurity, with all its joy and grief,
Success and failure, love, hate, unbelief
And faith, and that blind parting at the last;
Whereat my soul recoiled, nor could it bear
To muse on so much labor; better far
Not to have been, or else to be perchance
Like a dumb brute, existence without care
Or consciousness; but with the morning star
I woke, and thanked God for my ignorance.
To My Indian Pipe.
Thou, with the black stone stem, what of the past?
Where are the cunning hands that fashioned thee?
Where are the stern brown lips that placidly
Drew comfort from thee 'neath the towering mast
Of some old pine; or, patient to the last,
Toiled over thee? Perchance thou wert a god
Worshipped and feared by those whose light feet trod
The dim green aisles of that cathedral vast:
But now thine incense rises, and I see
The still north land, and hear the otter dive,
The rapids calling, and the great trout leap;
And smoking here it seemeth like to me
As if some dead hands touched the hands alive,
In token of the fellowship we keep.
Advenit Amor.
Silence again, sweetheart, the shadows grow,
I watch the white stars climb into the sky,
Hear the dull rapids' softened lullaby
In smothered thunder, brooding sweet and low;
Catch in the east the pallid silver glow
Of a new moon, that floating pure and clear
In perfect promise of the fuller sphere,
Dips this dim world in glory, mounting slow.
Not always had the heavens such a charm;
Last year the rapids were not half so sweet,
The wind had not such rythmic melody,
Till, Love, love came, and fanned the cold 'heart warm,
Attuned to music chords still incomplete,
And set the whole night whispering of thee.
A Song of Life.
It came through the fields of air,
It came through the silent night,
Borne low on a sigh of a western breeze,
Like the far-off voice of tumultuous seas,
In a tempest's waning might.