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
That Babe was on thy bosom nurs'd?-
Or when He tottered round thy knee
Did thy great sorrow dawn on thee?-
And through His boyhood, year by year
Eating with Him the Passover,

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
Till on some day forecast in Heaven
His feet passed through thy door to press
Upon His Father's business?--

Or still was God's high secret kept?

Nay, but I think the whisper crept

Like growth through childhood. Work and play,
Things common to the course of day,
Awed thee with meanings unfulfill❜d;

And all through girlhood, something still'd
Thy senses like the birth of light,

When thou hast trimmed thy lamp at night
Or washed thy garments in the stream;
To whose white bed had come the dream
That He was thine and thou wast His
Who feeds among the field-lilies.

O solemn shadow of the end
In that wise spirit long contain'd!
O awful end! and those unsaid
Long years when It was Finished!

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
Thou wroughtest raiment for His poor;
And, finding the fixed terms endure
Of day and night which never brought
Sounds of His coming chariot,

Wouldst lift through cloud-waste unexplor'd

Those eyes which said, "How long, O Lord?”
Then that disciple whom He loved,
Well heeding, haply would be moved
To ask thy blessing in His name;
And that one thought in both, the same
Though silent, then would clasp ye round
To weep together,―tears long bound,
Sick tears of patience, dumb and slow.
Yet, "Surely I come quickly,"-so

He said, from life and death gone home.
Amen: even so, Lord Jesus, come!

But oh! what human tongue can speak
That day when Michael came to break
From the tir'd spirit, like a veil,
Its covenant with Gabriel

Endured at length unto the end?
What human thought can apprehend
That mystery of motherhood
When thy Beloved at length renew'd
The sweet communion severèd,-
His left hand underneath thine head
And His right hand embracing thee?-
Lo! He was thine, and this is He!

Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope,
That lets me see her standing up
Where the light of the Throne is bright?
Unto the left, unto the right,
The cherubim, succinct, conjoint,
Float inward to a golden point,
And from between the seraphim
The glory issues for a hymn.
O Mary Mother, be not loth
To listen,-thou whom the stars clothe,
Who seest and mayst not be seen!
Hear us at last, O Mary Queen!
Into our shadow bend thy face,
Bowing thee from the secret place,
O Mary Virgin, full of grace!

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.
Secret continuance sublime

Is the sea's end: our sight may pass
No furlong further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No quiet, which is death's,—it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Grey and not known, along its path.

Listen alone beside the sea,

Listen alone among the woods;
Those voices of twin solitudes

Shall have one sound alike to thee:

Hark where the murmurs of thronged men

Surge and sink back and surge again,-
Still the one voice of wave and tree.

Gather a shell from the strown beach
And listen at its lips: they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech.
And all mankind is thus at heart
Not anything but what thou art:
And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.

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."
"Even so,-nay, peace! you cannot tell,

Little brother." (0 Mother, Mary Mother, O what is this, between Hell and Heaven?)

"Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day,
Sister Helen;

How like dead folk he has dropped away!"
"Nay now, of the dead what can you say,
Little brother?"

(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!)