They shall endure for eyes like thine, but not For thine own eyes; for human hearts like thine, But not for thine own heart, all dust and dead.

II

Face it, O Spirit, then look up once more,
Brave conqueror of dull mortality!

Look up and be a part of all thou seest.
Ocean and earth and miracle of sky,

All that thou seest, thou art, and without thee
Were nothing. Thou, a god, dost recreate
The whole; breathing thy soul in all, till all
Is one wide world made perfect at thy touch.
And know that thou, who darest a world create,
Art one with the Almighty, son to sire -
Of His eternity a quenchless spark.

AS DOTH THE BIRD"

As doth the bird, on outstretched pinions, dare
The dread abysm's viewless air,

Take thou, my soul, thy fearless flight

Into the void and dark of death's eternal night.

VISIONS

I

CAST into the pit
Of lonely sorrow,
The suffering soul,
Looking aloft,

Sees with amaze
In the daytime sky

The shine of stars.

II

Came to him once

In the seething town
A form of beauty,
Innocent brow,
And soul of youth;
Deep, sweet eyes,
An angel's gaze,
And rose-leaf lips

That murmured low:

"I, lost, forgotten,

Long left, long dead,
I am thy sin."

III

With full-toned beat
Of the happy heart,
In a day of peace,
In an hour of joy,
Once in my life

And only once,

Of a sudden, I saw,

The end of all!

· Death!

WITH A CROSS OF IMMORTELLES

WHEN Christ cried: "It is done!"
The face of a small red flower,
Looking up to the suffering One,

Turned pale with love and pain,
And never shone red again.

In memory of that hour

THE PASSING OF CHRIST

Which holds the secret of bliss;

And the darker secret of sorrow That shall come to each, to-morrow; Sweet friend, I send you this.

THE PASSING OF CHRIST

I

O MAN of light and lore!

Do you mean that in our day
The Christ hath past away;
That nothing now is divine
In the fierce rays that shine
Through every cranny and thought;
That Christ as he once was taught
Shall be the Christ no more?

That the Hope and Savior of men
Shall be seen no more again;

That, miracles being done,

Gone is the Holy One?

And thus, you hold, this Christ

For the past alone sufficed;

From the throne of the hearts of the world

The Son of God shall be hurled,

And henceforth must be sought

New prophets and kings of thought;
That the tenderest, truest word

The heart of sorrow hath heard
Shall sound no more upon earth;

That he who hath made of birth

A dread and sacred rite;

Who hath brought to the eyes of death
A vision of heavenly light,

Shall fade with our failing faith;

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He who saw in children's eyes
Eternal paradise;

Who made the poor man's lowly
Labor a service holy,

And sweat of work more sweet

Than incense at God's feet;

Who turned the God of Fear
To a father, bending near;

Who looked through shame and sin
At the sanctity within;

Whose memory, since he died,

The earth hath sanctified

Hath been the stay and the hold
Of millions of lives untold,
And the world on its upward path
Hath led from crime and wrath;
You say that this Christ hath past
And we cannot hold him fast?

II

Ah, no! If the Christ you mean
Shall pass from this time, this scene,

These hearts, these lives of ours,

'Tis but as the summer flowers

Pass, but return again,

To gladden a world of men.

In each age, in each waiting heart,
Leaps into life anew;

Tho' he pass, he shall not depart.

Behold him now where he comes!
Not the Christ of our subtile creeds,
But the lord of our hearts, of our homes,

THE PASSING OF CHRIST

Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs;
The brother of want and blame,

The lover of women and men,
With a love that puts to shame
All passions of mortal ken; -
Yet of all of woman born
His is the scorn of scorn;
Before whose face do fly
Lies, and the love of a lie;
Who from the temple of God
And the sacred place of laws
Drives forth, with smiting rod,
The herds of ravening maws.

'Tis he, as none other can,
Makes free the spirit of man,
And speaks, in darkest night,
One word of awful light

That strikes through the dreadful pain

Of life, a reason sane

That word divine which brought

The universe from naught.

Ah, no, thou life of the heart,

Never shalt thou depart!

Not till the leaven of God

Shall lighten each human clod;

Not till the world shall climb

To thy hight serene, sublime,

Shall the Christ who enters our door

Pass to return no more.

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