Another palace-door a pearl
Swung open widely to my gaze,
And like the waves that gently curl
Upon the sunlit water’s face,
There came in waves of harmony
A thousand voices in this place,
All promises of things to be,
And of His daily help of grace.
As the orchestral melody
By variations is enhanced,
So did his words: “Come unto me,”
Lead jubilant; I stood entranced,—
“Come unto me, I’ll give you rest,
My yoke is easy, burden light,”—
Ah, here I found all that my quest
Had sought in weariness and night.
Another pearl did ope the gate
To throne-rooms of the Sovereign’s pow’r,
Where not a shadow of dark Fate
Had part in any dial’s hour;
But truth and righteousness and love
Did govern life and destiny,
The Sovereign’s will, supreme above
The ways of man, did all decree.
And in this hour of awful gloom,
When faith is wrecked, and hope is low,
The glory from this Palace-room
Makes all the mountain-peaks aglow;
And shadows flee from vale and plain,
And struggling armies see a gleam,
Commensurate with grief and pain,—
The truth of what seemed but a dream.
My rosary has many beads,
I need an endless life to learn,
To what exalted things each leads,
For which my soul doth truly yearn,—
And when the innermost I gain,
There hangs a cross which lights the way
To Palace-portals where I fain
Would be this moment, and for aye.
VICTOR HUGO
It was on a midsummer night,
Now long ago,
In the far-off land of Norway,
I sat in an open window,
And dreamed.
The valley and hills and distant mountains
Were all like a dream
In the soft light and wonderful calm
Of the night.
The odor of cherry-blossoms and birch,
And the mingled perfume from meadows and hills and vale
Wrought with a fairy-potion,
Dreams and thrills of the soul.
The lazy smoke of the Saint John’s fire
Like pillars rose from the wooded heights
To the sky cerulian,
Where the evening star shone bright,
Like an eye that twinkles with tears of joy;
It shimmered above a cataract,
Whose music rose and fell
Where the river leaped over the rocks to the fjord.