SONGS

Music to passion; and

Weeping to sorrow;

Love to the heart that longs;

Moon to the sea;

Heaven to the earthborn soul,

And thou to me.

THE UNRETURNING

I

SILENT, silent are the unreturning!

What tho' word may reach to them, and yearning,
Never through the stillness of the night,

Never in the daytime or the dark

Comes the long-lost voice, or smile of light;

Lifts no hand from sea or sunken bark.

Silent, silent are the unreturning!

II

Silent, silent are the unreturning!

Silent they? or are we undiscerning?

Child, my child! is this thy answering voice
Murmuring far down the mountain lone?

Evening's smile, that whispers: "Heart, rejoice!"
Mother mine! is this thy very own?

Nay! nay! Silent are the unreturning;
Silent, silent are the unreturning!

TWO YEARS

O, THAT was the year the last of those before thee;
All my world till then but dark before the dawn.

235

If then I had died, O, never had I known thee,
Never had beheld thee; I who won, who own thee;
Who chose thee, who sing thee, crown thee, and adore

thee;

O, death it were indeed to die before that dawn!

This was the year when first I did behold thee,

Thou who on my darkness dawned with lyric light. This the golden hour when first thy lover found thee, Followed and beguiled thee, and with his singing bound thee;

When all the world with music rang to drown thee and enfold thee

Thou who turned the darkness to song, and love, and

light!

IN PALESTINE

AND OTHER POEMS

IN PALESTINE

AND OTHER POEMS

PART I

IN PALESTINE

AАн, no! that sacred land

Where fell the wearied feet of the lone Christ

Robs not the soul of faith. I shall set down
The thought was in my heart. If that hath lost
Aught of its child-belief, 't was long ago,
Not there in Palestine; and if 't were lost,
He were a coward who should fear to lose
A blind, hereditary, thoughtless faith-
Comfort of fearful minds, a straw to catch at
On the deep-gulfed and tempest-driven sea.

Full well I know how shallow spirits lack The essence, flinging from them but the form. I have seen souls lead barren lives and curst, Bereft of light, and all the grace of life, Because for them the inner truth was lost In the frail symbol — hated, shattered, spurned.

But faith that lives forever is not bound To any outward semblance, any scheme Fine-wrought of human wonder, or self-love, Or the base fear of never-ending pain. True faith doth face the blackness of despair,