Lit up the towering boles, till nigh and nigher
They gathered round, a ghostly company,
Like beasts who seek to know what men may be.

Then to our hemlock beds, but not to sleep-
For listening to the stealthy steps that creep
About the tent, or falling branch, but most
A noise was like the rustling of a host,
Or like the sea that breaks upon the shore-
It was the pine-tree's murmur. More and more
It took a human sound. These words I felt
Into the skyey darkness float and melt:

:

"Heardst thou these wanderers reasoning of a time When men more near the Eternal One shall climb? How like the new-born child, who cannot tell A mother's arm that wraps it warm and well! Leaves of His rose; drops in His sea that flow,Are they, alas, so blind they may not know Here, in this breathing world of joy and fear, We can no nearer get to God than here."

MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT

THE mountain that the morn doth kiss
Glad greets its shining neighbor;
Lord! heed the homage of our bliss,
The incense of our labor.

Sharp smites the sun like burning rain,
And field and flower languish;
Hear, Lord! the pleading of our pain,
The passion of our anguish.

THE SOUL

Now the long shadows eastward creep,
The golden sun is setting;

Take, Lord! the worship of our sleep,

The praise of our forgetting.

"DAY UNTO DAY UTTERETH SPEECH"

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THE speech that day doth utter, and the night,
Full oft to mortal ears it hath no sound;
Dull are our eyes to read upon the ground
What's written there; and stars are hid by light.
So when the dark doth fall, awhile our sight
Kens the unwonted orbs that circle round,
Then quick in sleep our human sense is bound ·
Speechless for us the starry heavens and bright.
But when the day doth close there is one word
That's writ amid the sunset's golden embers;
And one at morn; by them our hearts are stirred:
Splendor of Dawn, and Evening that remembers;
These are the rhymes of God; thus, line on line,
Our souls are moved to thoughts that are divine.

PART IV

THE SOUL

THREE messengers to me from heaven came
And said: "There is a deathless human soul;
It is not lost, as is the fiery flame

That dies into the undistinguished whole.
Ah, no; it separate is, distinct as God

Nor any more than He can it be killed;
Then fearless give thy body to the clod,
For naught can quench the light that once it filled!"

The second voice came crying in the night
With strange and awful music from above;
None who have heard that voice forget it quite;
BIRTH is it named; the third, O, turn not pale!
'T was DEATH to the undying soul cried, Hail!

"WHEN LOVE DAWNED"

WHEN love dawned on that world which is my mind,
Then did the outer world wherein I went
Suffer a sudden, strange transfigurement;
It was as if new sight were given the blind.
Then where the shore to the wide sea inclined
I watched with new eyes the new sun's ascent;
My heart was stirred within me as I leant
And listened to a voice in every wind.

O purple sea! O joy beyond control!

O land of love and youth! O happy throng! Were ye then real, or did ye only seem? Dear is that morning twilight of the soul,The mystery, the waking voice of song,For now I know it was not all a dream.

LOVE AND DEATH

I

Now who can take from us what we have known We that have looked into each other's eyes? Tho' sudden night should blacken all the skies, The day is ours, and what the day has shown. What we have seen and been, hath not this grown Part of our very selves? We, made love-wise,

FATHER AND CHILD

What power shall slay our living memories, And who shall take from us what is our own? So, when a shade of the last parting fell,

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This thought gave peace, as he deep comfort hath Who, thirsting, drinks cool waters from a well. But soon I felt more near that fatal breath; More near he drew, till I his face could tell, Till then unseen, unknown - I looked on Death.

II

We know not where they tarry who have died;
The gate wherein they entered is made fast;
No living mortal hath seen one who past

Hither, from out that darkness deep and wide.. We lean on Faith; and some less wise have cried: "Behold the butterfly, the seed that's cast!" Vain hopes that fall like flowers before the blast! What man can look on Death unterrified? — Who love can never die! They are a part

Of all that lives beneath the summer sky; With the world's living soul their souls are one; Nor shall they in vast nature be undone And lost in the general life. Each separate heart Shall live, and find its own, and never die.

FATHER AND CHILD

BENEATH the deep and solemn midnight sky,
At this last verge and boundary of time

I stand, and listen to the starry chime

That sounds to the inward ear, and will not die. Now do the thoughts that daily hidden lie

Arise, and live in a celestial clime, —

Unutterable thoughts, most high, sublime,—
Crossed by one dread that frights mortality.

Thus, as I muse, I hear my little child

Sob in its sleep within the cottage near ·

My own dear child! Gone is that mortal doubt! The Power that drew our lives forth from the wild

Our Father is; we shall to Him be dear,

Nor from His universe be blotted out!

"BEYOND THE BRANCHES OF THE PINE"

BEYOND the branches of the pine
The golden sun no more doth shine,

But still the solemn afterglow

Floods the deep heavens with light divine.

The night-wind stirs the corn-field near,
The gray moon turns to silver clear,
And one by one the glimmering stars
In the blue dome of heaven appear.

Now do the mighty hosts of light
Across the darkness take their flight;
They rise above the eastern hill
And silent journey through the night.

And there beneath the starry zone,
In the deep, narrow grave, alone,
Rests all that mortal was of her,
The purest spirit I have known.

AN AUTUMN MEDITATION

As the long day of cloud and storm and sun
Declines into the dark and silent night,
So past the old man's life from human gaze;