Songs of the Silent World, and Other Poems Part 11

She brought a Nation on its knees for shame, She brought a world into a black slave's heart.

Where are our lighter laurels? O my friends!

Brothers and sisters of the busy pen, Five million freemen crown her birthday feast, Before whose feet our little leaf we lay.

Arise and call her blessed, fainting souls!

For whom she sang the strains of holy hope.

Within the gentle twilight of her days, Like angels, bid her own hymns visit her.

Her life no ivy-tangled door, but wide And welcome to His solemn feet, who need Not knock for entrance, nor one ever ask "Who cometh there?" so still and sure the step, So well we know G.o.d doth "abide in her."

Oh, wait to make her blessed, happy world!-- To which she looketh onward, ardently.

Lie in fair distance far, ye streets of gold, Where up and down light-hearted spirits walk, And wonder that they stayed so long away.

Be patient for her coming, for our sakes, Who will love Heaven better, keeping her.

This only ask we:--When from prayer to praise She moves, and when from peace to joy; be hers To know she hath the life eternal, since Her own heart's dearest wish did meet her there.

A TRIBUTE.

Blinded I groped--you gave me sight.

Perplexed I turned--you sent me light.

You speak unto a thousand ears: I pay you tribute in hid tears.

I pay you homage in the hopes That rise to scale life's scathed slopes.

I give you grat.i.tude in this: That, midway on the precipice You never trod and never saw, Where air you never drank, strikes raw And wan upon the wasted breath, And gulfs you never pa.s.sed, gape death, And crags you gained some sunlit way Frown threatening over me to-day,-- That here with bruised hand I cling, Because I heard you yonder sing With those who conquer. If through joy, Then deeper be our shame who toy And loiter in the scourging rain, And did not pa.s.s by strength of pain.

Laggard below, I reach to bless You who are King of happiness; You are the victor, you the brave, Who could not stoop to be _her_ slave.

Downward to me, rebuking, fling My privilege of suffering.

I take and listen. Teach me. See!

Nearer than you, I ought to be; Nearer the height man never trod, Nearer the veiled face of G.o.d.

I ought, and am not. Comrade! be Unconscious captain unto me.

Unknowing, beckon and command: I answer you with unseen hand.

You read in vain these lines between, And smiling, wonder whom I mean.

TO O. W. H.

AUGUST 29, 1879.

I had no song so wise and sweet, As birthday songs, dear friend, should be.

Silent, among a hundred guests, I only prayed for thee.

Such wishes held the speaking lip, Such mood of blessing took me, there, That music, like a bird to heaven, Flew, and was lost in prayer.

WHOSE SHALL THE WELCOME BE?

H. W. L.

The wave goes down, the wind goes down, The gray tide glitters on the sea, The moon seems praying in the sky.

Gates of the New Jerusalem (A perfect pearl each gate of them) Wide as all heaven swing on high; Whose shall the welcome be?

The wave went down, the wind went down, The tide of life turned out to sea; Patience of pain and grace of deed, The glories of the heart and brain, Treasure that shall not come again; The human singing that we need, Set to a heavenly key.

The wave goes down, the wind goes down, All tides at last turn to the sea.

We learn to take the thing we have.

Thou who hast taught us strength in grief, As moon to shadow, high and chief, s.h.i.+ne out, white soul, beyond the grave, And light our loss of thee!

EXEAT.

To the hope that he has taught, To the beauty he has wrought, To the comfort he has been; To the dream that poets tell, To the land where Gabriel Can not lose Evangeline;-- Hus.h.!.+ let him go.

GEORGE ELIOT.[1]

At evening once, the lowly men who loved Our Master were found desolate, and grieved For Him whose eyes had been the glory of Their lives. He, silent, followed them, and joined Himself unto their sorrow; with the voice Of love that liveth past the end, and yearns Like empty arms across the sepulchre, Did comfort them. They heard, and knew Him not.

At eventide, O Lord, one trod for us The solitary way of a great Soul; Whereof the peril, pain, and debt, alone He knows, who marked the road.

We watched, and held Her in our arms of prayer. We wept, and said: Our sister hath a heavy hurt. We bow, And cry: The crown is buried with the Queen.

At twilight, as she, groping, sought for rest, What solemn footfall echoed down the dark?

What tenderness that would not let her go?

And patience that Love only knoweth, paced Silent, beside her, to the last, faint step?

What scarred Hand gently caught her as she sank?

Thou being with her, though she knew Thee not.

[1] The last book which she read was Thomas a Kempis's _Imitation of Christ_.

HER JURY.

A lily rooted in a sacred soil, Arrayed with those who neither spin nor toil; Dinah, the preacher, through the purple air, Forever in her gentle evening prayer Shall plead for Her--what ear too deaf to hear?-- "As if she spoke to some one very near."

And he of storied Florence, whose great heart Broke for its human error; wrapped apart, And scorching in the swift, prophetic flame Of pa.s.sion for late holiness; and shame Than untried glory grander, gladder, higher-- Deathless, for Her, he "testifies by fire."

A statue fair and firm on s.h.i.+ning feet, Womanhood's woman, Dorothea, sweet As strength, and strong as tenderness, to make A "struggle with the dark" for white light's sake, Immortal stands, unanswered speaks. Shall they, Of Her great hand the moulded, breathing clay, Her fit, select, and proud survivors be?

Possess the life eternal, and not _She_?