To-day the road looks steep and grim,
And shadows fall on every side,
The sun grows strangely blurred and dim—
For in this place our paths divide.
Calvary
The women stood and watched while thick, black night
Enclosed the awful tragedy. Afar
Three crosses stood, against a single bar
Of crimson-glowing, black-encircled light.
No hint of Easter dawn. In all the height
Of that dark heaven, not a single star
To whisper;—Love and Life the victors are.
It seemed to them that wrong had conquered right.
O ye who watch and wait, the night is long.
A curtain of spun fire and woven gloom
Across the mighty tragedy is drawn.
But soon your ears shall hear a triumph song,
And golden light shall touch each sacred tomb,
And voices shout at last—The Dawn! The Dawn!
The Golden Bowl
On seeing a picture of a boy gazing at a golden bowl,
which, among Eastern nations, was a symbol of life.
In a dream he seems to lie
Gazing at the golden bowl,
Where dim visions passing by
Whisper vaguely to his soul.
Restless phantoms come and go
Crowned with cypress or with bays;
Sad or merry, swift or slow,
Tread they through the mystic maze.