Mind'st thou not (when June's heavy breath Warmed the long days in Nazareth,) That eve thou didst go forth to give Thy flowers some drink that they might live One faint night more amid the sands? Far off the trees were as pale wands Against the fervid sky: the sea Sighed further off eternally As human sorrow sighs in sleep. Then suddenly the awe grew deep, As of a day to which all days Were footsteps in God's secret ways: Until a folding sense, like prayer, Which is, as God is, everywhere, Gathered about thee; and a voice Spake to thee without any noise, Being of the silence:-"Hail," it said, "Thou that art highly favourèd; The Lord is with thee here and now; Blessed among all women thou." Ah! knew'st thou of the end, when first Didst thou discern confusedly That holier sacrament, when He, The bitter cup about to quaff, Should break the bread and eat thereof?— Or came not yet the knowledge, even Or still was God's high secret kept? Nay, but I think the whisper crept Like growth through childhood. Work and play, And all through girlhood, something still'd When thou hast trimmed thy lamp at night O solemn shadow of the end Mind'st thou not (when the twilight gone Left darkness in the house of John,) Between the naked window-bars That spacious vigil of the stars?— For thou, a watcher even as they, Wouldst rise from where throughout the day Wouldst lift through cloud-waste unexplor'd Those eyes which said, "How long, O Lord?” He said, from life and death gone home. But oh! what human tongue can speak Endured at length unto the end? Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope, THE SEA-LIMITS. [Zuerst gedruckt u. d. T. "From the Cliffs: Noon" in "The Germ" 1850.] CONSIDER the sea's listless chime: Time's self it is, made audible, The murmur of the earth's own shell. Is the sea's end: our sight may pass No quiet, which is death's,—it hath Listen alone beside the sea, Listen alone among the woods; Shall have one sound alike to thee: Hark where the murmurs of thronged men Surge and sink back and surge again,- Gather a shell from the strown beach SISTER HELEN. ["The Dusseldorf Artists' Annual, English Edition", 1853. "May have been written in 1851 or early in 1852." Memoir pg. 166.] "WHY did you melt your waxen man, Sister Helen? To-day is the third since you began." "The time was long, yet the time ran, Little brother.” (0 Mother, Mary Mother, Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!) “But if you have done your work aright, Sister Helen, You'll let me play, for you said I might." "Be very still in your play to-night, Little brother." (0 Mother, Mary Mother, Third night, to-night, between Hell and Heaven!) "You said it must melt ere vesper-bell, Sister Helen; If now it be molten, all is well." Little brother." (0 Mother, Mary Mother, O what is this, between Hell and Heaven?) "Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day, How like dead folk he has dropped away!" (0 Mother, Mary Mother, What of the dead, between Hell and Heaven?) "See, see, the sunken pile of wood, Sister Helen, Shines through the thinned wax red as blood!" "Nay now, when looked you yet on blood, Little brother?" (0 Mother, Mary Mother, How pale she is, between Hell and Heaven!) |