A Hidden Life and Other Poems Part 31

The bird on the leafy tree, The bird in the cloudy sky, The fish in the wavy sea, The stag on the mountain high, The albatross asleep On the waves of the rocking deep, The bee on its light wing, borne Over the bending corn,-- What is the thought in the breast Of the little bird at rest?

What is the thought in the songs Which the lark in the sky prolongs?

What mean the dolphin's rays, Winding his watery ways?

What is the thought of the stag, Stately on yonder crag?

What doth the albatross think, Dreaming upon the brink Of the mountain billow, and then Dreaming down in its glen?

What is the thought of the bee Fleeting so silently, Flitting from part to part, Speedily, gently roving, Like the love of a thoughtful heart, Ever at rest, and moving?

What is the life of their thought?

Doth praise their souls employ?

I think it can be nought But the trembling movement to and fro Of a bright, life-giving joy.

And the G.o.d of cloudless days, Who souls and hearts doth know, Taketh their joy for praise, And biddeth its fountains flow.

And if, in thy life on earth, In the chamber, or by the hearth, Mid the crowded city's tide, Or high on the lone hill-side, Thou canst cause a thought of peace, Or an aching thought to cease, Or a gleam of joy to burst On a soul in gladness nurst; Spare not thy hand, my child; Though the gladdened should never know The well-spring amid the wild Whence the waters of blessing flow.

Find thy reward in the thing Which thou hast been blest to do; Let the joy of others cause joy to spring Up in thy bosom too.

And if the love of a grateful heart As a rich reward be given, Lift thou the love of a grateful heart To the G.o.d of Love in Heaven.

HOPE DEFERRED.

Summer is come again. The sun is bright, And the soft wind is breathing. We will joy; And seeing in each other's eyes the light Of the same joy, smile hopeful. Our employ Shall, like the birds', be airy castles, things Built by gay hopes, and fond imaginings, Peopling the land within us. We will tell Of the green hills, and of the silent sea, And of all summer things that calmly dwell, A waiting Paradise for you and me.

And if our thoughts should wander upon sorrow, Yet hope will wait upon the far-off morrow.

Look on those leaves. It was not Summer's mouth That breathed that hue upon them. And look there-- On that thin tree. See, through its branches bare, How low the sun is in the mid-day South!

This day is but a gleam of gladness, flown Back from the past to tell us what is gone.

For the dead leaves are falling; and our heart, Which, with the world, is ever changing so, Gives back, in echoes sad and low, The rustling sigh wherewith dead leaves depart: A sound, not murmuring, but faint and wild; A sorrow for the Past that hath no child,-- No sweet-voiced child with the bright name of Hope.

We are like you, poor leaves! but have more scope For sorrow; for our summers pa.s.s away With a slow, year-long, overshadowing decay.

Yea, Spring's first blossom disappears, Slain by the shadow of the coming years.

Come round me, my beloved. We will hold All of us compa.s.sed thus: a winter day Is drawing nigh us. We are growing old; And, if we be not as a ring enchanted, About each other's heart, to keep us gay, The young, who claim that joy which haunted Our visions once, will push us far away Into the desolate regions, dim and grey, Where the sea hath no moaning, and the cloud No rain of tears, but apathy doth shroud All being and all time. But, if we keep Together thus, the tide of youth will sweep Round us with thousand joyous waves, As round some palmy island of the deep; And our youth hover round us like the breath Of one that sleeps, and sleepeth not to death.

Thus onward, hand in hand, to parted graves, The sundered doors into one palace home, Through age's thickets, faltering, we will go, If He who leads us, wills it so, Believing in our youth, and in the Past; Within us, tending to the last Love's radiant lamp, which burns in cave or dome; And, like the lamps that ages long have glowed In blessed graves, when once the weary load Of tomb-built years is heaved up and cast, For youth and immortality, away, Will flash abroad in open day, Clear as a star in heaven's blue-vaulted night; s.h.i.+ning, till then, through every wrinkled fold, With the Transfiguration's conquering might; That Youth our faces wondering shall behold, And shall be glad, not fearing to be old.

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.

The weary Old Year is dead at last; His corpse 'mid the ruins of Time is cast, Where the mouldering wrecks of lost Thought lie, And the rich-hued blossoms of Pa.s.sion die To a withering gra.s.s that droops o'er his grave, The shadowy t.i.tan's refuge cave.

Strange lights from pale moony Memory lie On the weedy columns beneath its eye; And strange is the sound of the ghostlike breeze, In the lingering leaves on the skeleton trees; And strange is the sound of the falling shower, When the clouds of dead pain o'er the spirit lower; Unheard in the home he inhabiteth, The land where all lost things are gathered by Death.

Alone I reclined in the closing year; Voice, nor breathing, nor step was near; And I said in the weariness of my breast: Weary Old Year, thou art going to rest; O weary Old Year, I would I might be One hour alone in thy dying with thee!

Would thou wert a spirit, whose low lament Might mix with the sighs from my spirit sent; For I am weary of man and life; Weary of restless unchanging strife; Weary of change that is ever changing; Weary of thought that is ever ranging, Ever falling in efforts vain, Fluttering, upspringing from earth again, Struggling once more through the darkness to wing That hangs o'er the birthplace of everything, And choked yet again in the vapour's breast, Sinking once more to a helpless rest.

I am weary of tears that scarce are dry, Ere their founts are filled as the cloud goes by; Weary of feelings where each in the throng Mocks at the rest as they crowd along; Where Pride over all, like a G.o.d on high, Sits enshrined in his self-complacency; Where Selfishness crawls, the snake-demon of ill, The least suspected where busiest still; Where all things evil and painful entwine, And all in their hate and their sorrow are mine: O weary Old Year, I would I might be One hour by thy dying, to weep with thee!

Peace, the soul's slumber, was round me shed; The sleep where thought lives, but its pain is dead; And my musings led me, a spirit-band, Through the wide realms of their native land; Till I stood by the couch of the mighty dying, A lonely sh.o.r.e in the midnight lying.

He lay as if he had laid him to sleep, And the stars above him their watch did keep; And the mournful wind with the dreamy sigh, The homeless wanderer of the sky, Was the only attendant whose gentle breath Soothed him yet on the couch of death; And the dying waves of the heedless sea Fell at his feet most listlessly.

But he lay in peace, with his solemn eye Looking far through the mists of futurity.

A smile gleamed over the death-dew that lay On his withered cheek as life ebbed away.

A darkness lay on his forehead vast; But the light of expectancy o'er it was cast,-- A light that shone from the coming day, Travelling unseen to the East away.

In his cloudy robes that lay shadowing wide, I stretched myself motionless by his side; And his eyes with their calm, unimpa.s.sioned power, Soothing my heart like an evening shower, Led in a spectral, far-billowing train, The hours of the Past through my spirit again.

There were fears of evil whose stony eyes Froze joy in its gus.h.i.+ng melodies.

Some floated afar on thy tranquil wave, And the heart looked up from its search for a grave; While others as guests to the bosom came, And left its wild children more sorrow, less shame; For the death-look parts from their chilling brow, And they bless the heads that before them bow; And floating away in the far-off gloom.

Thankfulness follows them to their tomb.

There were Hopes that found not a place to rest Their foot 'mid the rush of all-ocean's breast; And home to the sickening heart flew back, But changed into sorrows upon their track; And through the moan of the darkening sea Bearing no leaf from the olive-tree.

There were joys that looked forth with their maiden eyes, And smiled, and were gone, with a sad surprise; And the Love of the Earthly, whose beauteous form Beckoned me on through suns.h.i.+ne and storm; But when the bounding heart sprang high, Meeting her smile with a speechless sigh, The arms sunk home with a painful start, Clasping a vacancy to the heart.

And the voice of the dying I seem to hear But whether his breathing is in mine ear, Or the sounds of the breaking billows roll The lingering accents upon my soul, I know not; but thus they seem to bear Reproof to my soul for its faint despair:-- Blame not life, it is scarce begun; Blame not mankind, thyself art one.

And change is holy, oh! blame it never; Thy soul shall live by its changing ever; Not the bubbling change of a stagnant pool, But the change of a river, flowing and full; Where all that is n.o.ble and good will grow Mightier still as the full tides flow; Till it joins the hidden, the boundless sea, Rolling through depths of Eternity.

Blame not thy thought that it cannot reach That which the Infinite must teach; Bless thy G.o.d that the Word came nigh To guide thee home to thy native sky, Where all things are homely and glorious too, And the children are wondering, and glad, and true.

And he pointed away to an Eastern star, That gleamed through his robes o'er the ocean afar; And I knew that a star had looked o'er the rim Of my world that lay all dreary and dim; And was slowly dissolving the darkness deep Which, like evil nurse, had soothed me to sleep; And rising higher, and s.h.i.+ning clearer, Would draw the day-spring ever nearer, Till the suns.h.i.+ne of G.o.d burst full on the morn, And every hill and valley would start With the joy of light and new grat.i.tude born To Him who had led me home to His heart; And all things that lived in my world within With the gladness of tears to His feet come in; And the false Self be banished with fiends to dwell In the gloomiest haunts of his native h.e.l.l; And Pride, that ruled like a G.o.d above, Be trod 'neath the feet of triumphant Love.

And again he pointed across the sea, And another vision arose in me: And I knew I walked an ocean of fear, Yet of safety too, for the Master was near; And every wave of sorrow or dread, O'er which strong faith should upraise my head, Would show from the height of its troubled crest Still nearer and nearer the Land of Rest.

And when the storm-spray on the wind should arise, And with tears unbidden should blind mine eyes, And hide from my vision the Home of Love, I knew I must look to the star above, And the mists of Pa.s.sion would quickly flee, And the storm would faint to serenity.

And again it seemed as if words found scope, The sorrowing words of a farewell Hope: "I will meet thee again in that deathless land, Whenever thy foot shall imprint the strand; And the loveliest things that have here been mine, Shall there in eternal beauty s.h.i.+ne; For there I shall live and never die, Part of a glorious Eternity; For the death of Time is _To be forgot,_ And I go where oblivion entereth not."

He was dead. He had gone to the rest of his race, With a sad smile frozen upon his face.

Deadness clouded his eyes. And his death-bell rung, And my sorrowing thoughts his low requiem sung; And with trembling steps his worn body cast In the wide charnel-house of the dreary Past.

Thus met the n.o.ble Old Year his end: Rest him in peace, for he was my friend.

As my thoughts returned from their wandering, A voice in my spirit was lingering; And its sounds were like Spring's first breeze's hum, When the oak-leaves fall, and the young leaves come:

Time dieth ever, is ever born: On the footsteps of night so treadeth the morn; Shadow and brightness, death and birth, Chasing each other o'er the round earth.

But the spirit of Time from his tomb is springing, The dust of decay from his pinions flinging; Ever renewing his glorious youth, Scattering around him the dew of Truth.

Oh, let it raise in the desert heart Fountains and flowers that shall never depart!

This spirit will fill us with thought sublime; For the _End of G.o.d_ is the spirit of Time.

A SONG IN A DREAM.

I dreamed of a song, I heard it sung; In the ear that sleeps not its music rung.

And the tones were upheld by harmonies deep, Where the spirit floated; yea, soared, on their sweep With each wild unearthly word and tone, Upward, it knew not whither bound, In a calm delirium of mystic sound-- Up, where the Genius of Thought alone Loveth in silence to drink his fill Of dews that from unknown clouds distil.

A woman's voice the deep echoes awoke, In the caverns and solitudes of my soul; But such a voice had never broke Through the sea of sounds that about us roll, Choking the ear in the daylight strife.

There was sorrow and triumph, and death and life In each chord-note of that prophet-song, Blended in one harmonious throng: Such a chant, ere my voice has fled from death, Be it mine to mould of the parting breath.

A THANKSGIVING.