Thou comest to the year,
And bringest all things beautiful and sweet;
Thy lovely miracles themselves repeat
In the green glory of the grass,
And peeping flowers that stay our lingering feet
With their soft eyes, blue like the sky and clear;
Thou bringest not, alas,
Our lily, our May-blossom, O New Year!
Thou bringest all things fair,
And bright, and gentle, but thou bring'st not her:
The May-birds warble, and May breezes stir
In the sweet-scented lilac boughs;
But our one May—our gentlest minister
Of gladness, with the beauty of her hair.
Her place in our still house
Is empty,—and the world is bleak and bare.
TWO WINDOWS.
I.
One looks into the sun lawn, and the steep
Curved slopes of hills, set sharp against the sky,
With tufted woods encinctured, waving high
O'er vales below, where broken shadows sleep.
Here, looking forth before the first faint cry
Of mother-bird, fluttering a drowsy wing
Above her brood, awakes the full-voiced choir,
Ere yet the morning tips the hills with fire,
And turns the drapery of the east to gold,
My wondering eyes the opening heavens behold,
Where far within deep calleth unto deep,
And the whole world stands hushed and worshipping.
Even thus,—I muse,—shall heaven's gates unfold,
When earth beholds the coming of her King.
II.
This opens on the sunset, and the sea
From its high casement: never twice the same
Grand picture rises in its sea-girt frame
Islets of pearl, and rocks of porphyry
And cliffs of jasper, touched with sunset flame,
And island-trees—that look like Eden's—grow
Palm-like and slender, in gradations fine,
That fade and die along the horizon line,
And the wide heavens become—above—below—
A luminous sea without a boundary
Nay wistful heart,—at day-dawn, or at noon—
Or midnight watch—the Bridegroom cometh soon;
By yonder shining path—or pearly gate;
The word is sure,—thou therefore, watch and wait.
THE MEETING OF SPIRITS.
From out the dark of death, before the gates
Flung wide, that open into paradise—
More radiant than the white gates of the morn—
A human soul, new-born,
Stood with glad wonder in its luminous eyes,
For all the glory of that blessed place
Flowed thence, and made a halo round the face—
gentle, and strong with the rapt faith that waits
And faints not: sweet with hallowing pain
The face was, as a sunset after rain,
with a grave tender brightness. Now it turned
From the white splendours where God's glory burned,
And the long ranks of quiring cherubim—
Each with wing-shaded eyelids, near the throne,
Who sang—and ceased not—the adoring hymn
Of Holy, Holy! And the cloud of smoke
Went up from the waved censers, with the prayers
Of saints, that wafted outward blessing-freighted broke
Around him standing at the gate alone.
All down the radiant slope of golden stairs,
By which he climbed so late from earth to heaven,
It rolled impalpable—a fragrant cloud;
And still, turned from the Alleluias loud,
Beyond the portal-guarding angels seven,
He listened earthward, for a voice—a sound
Out of the dark that spread beneath profound.