Love Unkind
OUT upon the bleak hillside, the bleak hillside, he lay—
Her lips were red, and red the stream that slipped his life away.
Ah, crimson, crimson were her lips, but his were turning gray.
The troubled sky seemed bending low, bending low to hide
The foam-white face so wild upturned from off the bleak hillside—
White as the beaten foam her face, and she was wond’rous eyed.
The soft, south-wind came creeping up, creeping stealthily
To breathe upon his clay-cold face—but all too cold was he,
Too cold for you to warm, south-wind, since cold at heart was she!
Sweet morning peeped above the hill, above the hill to find
The shattered, useless, godlike thing the night had left behind—
Wept the sweet morn her crystal tears that love should prove unkind!
Christmas in Heaven
HOW hushed they were in Heaven that night,
How lightly all the angels went,
How dumb the singing spheres beneath
Their many-candled tent!
How silent all the drifting throng
Of earth-freed spirits, strangely torn
By dim and half-remembered pain
And joy but newly born!
The Glory in the Highest flamed
With awful, unremembered ray—
But quiet as the falling dew
Was He who went away.
So swift He went, His passing left
A low, bright door in Heaven ajar—
With God it was a covenant,
To man it seemed a star.