Most dear pause in a mellow lay!
Thou art inwoven with every air.
With thee the wildest tempests play,
And snatches of thee everywhere
Make little heavens throughout a day.
Darkness and solitude shine, for me.
For life’s fair outward part are rife
The silver noises; let them be.
It is the very soul of life
Listens for thee, listens for thee.
O pause between the sobs of cares!
O thought within all thought that is;
Trance between laughters unawares!
Thou art the form of melodies,
And thou the ecstasy of prayers.
MEDITATION
Rorate Cœli desuper, et nubes pluant Justum.
Aperiatur Terra, et germinet Salvatorem.
No sudden thing of glory and fear
Was the Lord’s coming; but the dear
Slow Nature’s days followed each other
To form the Saviour from his Mother
—One of the children of the year.
The earth, the rain, received the trust,
—The sun and dews, to frame the Just.
He drew his daily life from these,
According to his own decrees
Who makes man from the fertile dust.
Sweet summer and the winter wild,
These brought him forth, the Undefiled.
The happy Springs renewed again
His daily bread, the growing grain,
The food and raiment of the Child.
TO THE BELOVED DEAD—A LAMENT
Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers
Play on a window-pane.
The time is there, the form of music lingers;
But O thou sweetest strain,
Where is thy soul? Thou liest i’ the wind and rain.