• Then to the wilderness I fled.There among Alpine snows And pastoral huts I hid my head, And sought and found repose. • It was not yet the appointed hour. Sad, patient, and resign'd, I watch'd the crocus fade and flower, I felt the sun and wind.

“ The day I lived in was not mine,
Man gets no second day.
In dreams I saw the future shine-
But ah ! I could not stay!
“ Action I had not. followers, fame;
I pass'd obscure, alone.
The after-world forgets my name,
Nor do I wish it known.
" Composed to bear, I lived and died,
And knew my life was vain,
With fate I murmur not, nor chide.
At Sèvres by the Seine

· Down came the storm! In ruins fell
The worn-out world we knew.
-It pass'd, that elemental swell!
Ayain appear'd the blue ;
"The sun shone in the new-wash'd sky,
And what from heaven saw he?
Blocks of the past, like icebergs high,
Float on a rolling sea !

Upon them plies the race of man
All it before endeavor'd ;

Ye live,' I cried, ' ye work and plan, And know not ye are sever'd !

*Poor fragments of a broken world Whereon men pitch their tent! Why were ye too to death not hurld When your world's day was spent ? * · That glow of central fire is done Which with its

sing flame Knit all your parts, and kept you one-But ye, ye are the same!

The past, its mask of union on, Had ceased to live and thrive. The past, its mask of union gone, Say, is it more alive? *** Your creeds are dead, your rites are

dead, Your social order too! Where tarries he, the Power who said : See, I make all things new ? "The millions suffer still, and grieve, And what can helpers heal With old-world cures men half believe For woes they wholly feel ?

* And yet men have such need of joy ! But joy whose grounds are true; And joy that should all hearts employ As when the past was new.

'Ah, not the emotion of that past, Its

common hope, were vain ! Some new such hope must dawn at last, Or man must toss in pain.

** (If Paris that brief flight allow)
My humble tomb explore !
It bears : Eternity, be thou
My refuge! and no more.
“But thou, whom fellowship of mood
Did make from haunts of strife
Come to my mountain-solitude,
And learn my frustrate life ;
“ () thou, who, ere thy flying span
Was past of cheerful youth,
Didst find the solitary man
And love his cheerless truth-

Despair not thou as I despaird,
Nor be cold gloom thy prison !
Forward the gracious hours have fared,
And see! the sun is risen !
“ He breaks the winter of the past;
A green, new earth appears.
Millions, whose life in ice lay fast,
Have thoughts, and smiles, and tears.
“What though there still need effort,

strife?
Though much be still unwon ?
Yet warm it mounts, the hour of life!
Death's frozen hour is done!

MY SISTER'S SLEEPX SHE fell asleep on Christmas Eve :

At length the long-ungranted shade Of weary eyelids overweigh'd The pain nought else might yet relieve. Our mother, who had leaned all day

Over the bed from chime to chine,

Then raised herself for the first time, And as she sat her down, did pray. Her little work-table was spread

With work to finish. For the glare

Made by her candle, she had care To work some distance from the bed.

Without, there was a cold moon up,

Of winter radiance sheer and thin;

The hollow halo it was in Was like an icy crystal cup. Through the small room, with subtle

sound Of flame, by vents the fireshine drove

And reddened. In its dim alcove The mirror shed a clearness round. I had been sitting up some nights, And my tired mind felt weak and

blank ; Like a sharp strengthening wine it

drank The stillness and the broken lights.

Because we were in Christmas Is Though it would still be long till mr Just then in the room over us

There was a pushing back of chair

As some who had sat unawares So late, now heard the hour, and it's With anxious softly-stepping haste Our mother went where Margaret kr Fearing the sounds o'erhead-skiva

they Have broken her long watched-fur ress She stooped an instant, calm, s.

turned ;
But suddenly turned back again :

And all her features seemed in piin With woe, and her eyes gazed ai!

yearned. For my part. I but hid my face, And held my breath, and spoke

word : There was none spoken; but I beari The silence for a little space. Our mother bowed herself and wept: And both my arms feil, and I san. God knows I knew that she k

dead." And there, all white, my sister slept. Then kneeling, upon Christmas mert

A little after twelve o'clock We said, ere the first quarter strol "Christ's blessing on the newly two

Twelve struck. That sound, by dwin

dling year's Heard in each hour, crept off; and

then The ruled silence spread again, Like water that a pebble stirs.

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL

Our mother rose from where she sat:

Her needles, as she laid them down,

Met lightly, and her silken gown Settled: no other noise than that.

The blessed damozel leaned out

From the gold bar of Heaven: Her eyes were deeper than the depth

Of waters stilled at even:
She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were sete

99

“Glory unto the Newly Born!"

So, as said angels, she did say ;

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,

No wrought flowers did adors,

a

(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's

song, Strove not her accents there, Fain to be harkened? When those bells

Possessed the mid-day air,
Strove not her steps to reach my side

Down all the echoing stair ?)

“I wish that he were come to me,

For he will come," she said. “ Have I not prayed in Heaven ?--on

earth, Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd ? Are not two prayers a perfect strength ?

And shall I feel afraid ?

But a white rose of Mary's gift,

For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back

Was yellow like ripe corn.
Herseemed she scarce had been a day

One of God's choristers;
The wonder was not yet quite gone

From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day

Had counted as ten years. (To one, it is ten years of years.

Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o'er me—her hair

Feli all about my face.
Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.

The whole year sets apace.)
It was the rampart of God's house

That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth

The which is Space begun :
So high, that looking downward thence

She scarce could see the sun.
It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath the tides of day and night

With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth

Spins like a fretful midge
Around her, lovers, newly met

Mid deathless love's acclaims, Spoke evermore among themselves

Their heart-remembered names ; And the souls mounting up to God

Went by her like thin flames.
And still she bowed herself and stooped

Out of the circling charm ;
Until her bosom must have made

The bar she leaned on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep

Along her bended arm. From the fixed place of Heaven she saw

Time like a pulse shake fierce Through all the worlds. Her gaze still

strove Within the gulf to pierce Its path ; and now she spoke as when

The stars sang in their spheres. The sun was gone now; the curled moon

Was like a little feather Fluttering far down the gulf; and now

She spoke through the still weather. Her voice was like the voice the stars

Had when they sang together.

“ When round his head the aureole

clings,
And he is clothed in white,
I'll take his hand and go with him

To the deep wells of light;
As unto a stream we will step down,

And bathe there in God's sight. “We two will stand beside that shrine,

Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirred continually

With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt

Each like a little cloud.

“We two will lie i' the shadow of

That living mystic tree Within whose secret growth the Dove

Is sometimes felt to be, While every leaf that His plumes touch

Saith His Name audibly. “And I myself will teach to him,

I myself, lying so, The songs I sing bere ; which his voice

Shall pause in, hushed and slow, And find some knowledge at each pause,

Or some new thing to know." (Alas! Vetwo, wetwo, thou say'st !

Yea, one wast thou with me
That once of old. But shall God list

To endless unity
The soul whose likeness with thy soul

Was but its love for thee?) “We two," she said, “will seek the

groves Where the lady Mary is, With her five handmaidens, whose

names Are five sweet symphonies, Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,

Margaret and Rosalys.