The Coming of the Princess, and Other Poems Part 8

Oh bells of Easter morn, oh solemn sounding bells, Which fill the hollow cells Of the blue April air with a most sweet refrain, Ye fill my heart with pain.

For when, as from a thousand holy altar-fires, A thousand resonant spires Sent up the offering--the glad thanksgiving strain-- "The Lord is risen again!"

He went from us who shall return no more, no more!

I say the sad words o'er, And they are mixed and blent with your triumphant psalm, Like bitterness and balm,

We stood with him beside the black and silent river, Cold, cold and soundless ever; But there our feet were stayed--unloosed our clasping fond, And he has pa.s.sed beyond.

And still that solemn hymn, like smoke of sacrifice, Clomb the blue April skies, And on our anguish placed its sacramental chrism, "Behold, the Lord is risen!"

Oh, bells of Easter morn! your mighty voices reach A deeper depth than speech; We heard, "Because He liveth _they_ shall live with Him;"

This was our Easter hymn.

And while the slow vibrations swell, and sink, and cease, They bring divinest peace, For we commit our best beloved to the dust, In sure and certain trust.

IN THE SIERRA NEVADA

I lift my spirit to your cloudy thrones, And feel it broaden to your vast expanse, Oh! mountains, so immeasurably old, Crowned with bald rocks and everlasting cold, That melts not underneath the sun's fierce glance, Peak above peak, fixed, dazzling, ice and stones.

Down your steep sides quick torrents leap and roar, And disappear, in gloomy gorges sunk, Fringed with black pines on dizzy verges high-- Poised, trembling to the thunder and the cry Of the lost waters, through each giant trunk, And farthest twig and ta.s.sel evermore.

Behold far down the mountain herdsman's ranche, The rough road winding past his lonely door, And in his ears, by day and night, the sound Of mad waves plunging down the gulfs profound, The tempest's gathering cry, the dull deep roar.

And the long thunder of the avalanche!

Night broods along the vallies while your peaks Are pink and purple with the rays of morn, And filmy tints that swim the depths of s.p.a.ce, To reach, and kiss you first upon the face, Before the world awakes, and day is born, To flush with colder gleam your rugged cheeks.

And last, and longest lingering, the light Is on your mighty foreheads, when, the sun Sets in the sea, and makes a palace fair For his repose, of crystal wave and air,-- Ye seem to stoop, and smile to look upon The fallen monarch from your silent height.

Vallies are green about your rocky feet, And sweet with clambering vines, and waving corn, And breath of flowers, and gold of ripening fruit; Cities send up their smoke, and man and brute Beneath your wide embrazure have been born And died for ages, yet Ye hold your seat.

I lift my spirit up to you, and seem To feel your vastness penetrate my soul; And faintly see, far-off, and looming broad And dread, the grandeur of the world of G.o.d, And thrill to be a part of the great whole, Which towers above me, a stupendous dream.

SUMMER RAIN

O rain, Summer Rain! forever, Out of the crystal spheres, And cool from my brain the fever, And wash from my eyes the tears

Stir gently the blossoming clover, In the hollows dewy and deep,-- Somewhere they are blossoming over The spot where I shall sleep.

Asleep from this wearisome aching, With my arms crossed under my head, I shall hear without awaking, The rain that blesses the dead.

And the ocean of man's existence,-- The surges of toil and care, Shall break and die in the distance, But never reach me there.

And yet--I fancy it often-- I should stir in my shrouded sleep, And struggle to rise in my coffin, If he came there to weep.

Among the dead--or the angels-- Though ever so faint and dim, I should know that voice in a thousand, And stretch my hands to him.

But the trouble of life and living, And the burden of daily care, And the endless sin, and forgiving, Are greater than I can bear.

So rain, Summer Rain, and cover The meadows dewy and deep, And freshen the blossoming clover, And sing me to dreamless sleep.

A BABY'S DEATH

A little white soul went up to G.o.d, Out of the mire of the city street; It grew like a flower in the highway broad, Close to the trample of heedless feet.

It fell like a snow-flake over night, Into the ways by vile ones trod; It sparkled--dissolved in the morning light, And the little white soul went up to G.o.d.

Dainty, flower-soft, waxen thing, Its clear eyes opened on this bad earth, And the little shuddering soul took wing, By the gate of death, from the gate of birth.

Not for those innocent lips and eyes, The words and the ways of sin and strife; The pure flower opened in paradise, Fast by the banks of the river of life.

Yea, little victors, who never fought; And crowned, though ye never ran the race, His blood your innocent lives hath bought, And ye stand before Him and see His face!

For this, oh Father! we give Thee thanks, By the little graves, and the tear-wet sod, They stand before Thee in s.h.i.+ning ranks, And the little white souls are safe with G.o.d!

CHRISTMAS

The birth day of the Christ child dawneth slow Out of the opal east in rosy flame, As if a luminous picture in its frame-- A great cathedral window, toward the sun Lifted a form divine, which still below Stretched hands of benediction;--while the air Swayed the bright aureole of the flowing hair Which lit our upturned faces;--even so Look on us from the heavens, divinest One And let us hear through the slow moving years.

Long centuries of wrongs, and crimes, and tears,-- The echo of the angel's song again, Peace and good will, good will and peace to men, A little s.p.a.ce make silence,--that our ears, Filled with the din of toil and moil and pain May catch the jubilant rapture of the skies,-- The glories of the choirs of paradise.

The hills still tremble when the thunders cease Of the loud diapason,--and again Through the rapt stillness steals the hymn of peace; Melodious and sweet its far refrain Dying in distance, as the shadows die Of white wings vanished up the morning sky, As farther still--and thinner--more remote-- A film of sound, the aerial voices float-- Peace and good will, good will and peace to men!

MY GARDEN

Only the commonest flowers Grow in my garden small, Like b.u.t.tercups, and bouncing-bets, And hollyhocks by the wall, And sunflowers nodding their stately heads, Like grenadiers so tall.

But the purple pansy grows beneath-- The sweetest flower of all--

And tiny feathery filmy ferns You scarce can see at all, Fleck the shady side of the stones, So dainty, fine and small

Only the commonest flowers Grow in this garden of mine, The larkspur flaunting her sky-blue cap, And the twinkling celandine Shakes her jewels of freckled gold, And drinks her honey-wine, Making a cup of her lucent stem, So slender and so fine.