In thy step thy right is seen,
In thy beauty pure and high,
In thy grace of air and mien.
Thine
unworthyvassal I,
Lay my hands thy hands between;
Kneeling at thy feet I cry
Thou art queen!
IN TIME OF DOUBT
`In the shadow of Thy wings, O Lord of Hosts, whom I extol,
I will put my trust for ever,' so the
kingly David sings.
`Thou shalt help me, Thou shalt save me, only
Thou shalt keep me whole,
In the shadow of Thy wings.'
In our ears this voice
triumphant, like a blowing
trumpet, rings,
But our hearts have heard another, as of
funeral bells that toll,
`God of David where to find Thee?' No reply the question brings.
Shadows are there
overhead, but they are of the clouds that roll,
Blotting out the sun from sight, and
overwhelmingearthly things.
Oh, that we might feel Thy presence! Surely we could rest our soul
In the shadow of Thy wings.
THE GARDEN OF SIN
I know the garden-close of sin,
The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers,
I long have roamed the walks and bowers,
Desiring what no man shall win:
A secret place to shelter in,
When soon or late the angry powers
Come down to seek the
wretch who cowers,
Expecting judgment to begin.
The pleasure long has passed away
From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread
My doom will find me where I lie.
I dare not go, I dare not stay.
Without the walks, my hope is dead,
Within them, I myself must die.
URSULA
There is a village in a southern land,
By rounded hills closed in on every hand.
The streets slope steeply to the market-square,
Long lines of white-washed houses, clean and fair,
With roofs
irregular, and steps of stone
Ascending to the front of every one.
The people
swarthy, idle, full of mirth,
Live
mostly by the tillage of the earth.
Upon the northern hill-top, looking down,
Like some sequestered saint upon the town,
Stands the great
convent.
On a summer night,
Ten years ago, the moon with rising light
Made all the
convent towers as clear as day,
While still in deepest shade the village lay.
Both light and shadow with
repose were filled,
The village sounds, the
convent bells were stilled.
No foot in all the streets was now astir,
And in the
convent none kept watch but her
Whom they called Ursula. The
moonlight fell
Brightly around her in the
lonely cell.
Her eyes were dark, and full of unshed woe,
Like mountain tarns which cannot overflow,
Surcharged with rain, and round about the eyes
Deep rings recorded
sleepless nights, and cries
Stifled before their birth. Her brow was pale,
And like a
marbletemple in a vale
Of
cypress trees, shone shadowed by her hair.
So still she was, that had you seen her there,
You might have thought you were beholding death.
Her lips were parted, but if any breath
Came from between them, it were hard to know
By any
movement of her breast of snow.
But when the summer night was now far spent,
She kneeled upon the floor. Her head she leant
Down on the cold stone of the window-seat.
God knows if there were any vital heat
In those pale brows, or if they chilled the stone.
And as she knelt, she made a bitter moan,
With words that issued from a bitter soul, -
`O Mary, Mother, and is this thy goal,
Thy peace which waiteth for the world-worn heart?
Is it for this I live and die apart
From all that once I knew? O Holy God,
Is this the
blessed chastening of Thy rod,
Which only wounds to heal? Is this the cross
That I must carry, counting all for loss
Which once was precious in the world to me?
If Thou be God, blot out my memory,
And let me come, forsaking all, to Thee.
But here, though that old world beholds me not,
Here, though I seek Thee through my
lonely lot,
Here, though I fast, do
penance day by day,
Kneel at Thy feet, and ever watch and pray,
Beloved forms from that
forsaken world
Revisit me. The pale blue smoke is curled
Up from the dwellings of the sons of men.
I see it, and all my heart turns back again
From seeking Thee, to find the forms I love.
`Thou, with Thy saints abiding far above,
What canst Thou know of this, my
earthly pain?
They said to me, Thou shalt be born again,
And learn that
worldly things are nothing worth,
In that new state. O God, is this new birth,
Birth of the spirit dying to the flesh?
Are these the living waters which refresh
The
thirsty spirit, that it
thirst no more?
Still all my life is
thirsting to the core.
Thou canst not satisfy, if this be Thou.
And yet I dream, or I remember how,
Before I came here, while I tarried yet
Among the friends they tell me to forget,
I never seemed to seek Thee, but I found
Thou wert in all the
loveliness around,
And most of all in hearts that loved me well.
`And then I came to seek Thee in this cell,
To crucify my worldliness and pride,
To lay my heart's affections all aside,
As carnal hindrances which held my soul
From hasting unencumbered to her goal.
And all this have I done, or else have striven
To do, obeying the behest of Heaven,
And my
reward is
bitterness. I seem
To
wander always in a
feverish dream
On plains where there is only sun and sand,
No rock or tree in all the weary land,
My
thirst unquenchable, my heart burnt dry.
And still in my parched
throat I
faintly cry,
Deliver me, O Lord: bow down Thine ear!
`He will not answer me. He does not hear.
I am alone within the universe.
Oh for a strength of will to rise and curse
God, and defy Him here to strike me dead!
But my heart fails me, and I bow my head,
And cry to Him for mercy, still in vain.
Oh for some sudden agony of pain,
To make such
insurrection in my soul
That I might burst all
bondage of control,
Be for one moment as the beasts that die,
And pour my life in one blaspheming cry!'
The morning came, and all the
convent towers
Were gilt with glory by the golden hours.
But where was Ursula? The sisters came
With quiet footsteps,
calling her by name,
But there was none that answered. In her cell,
The glad, illuminating
sunshine fell
On form and face, and showed that she was dead.
`May Christ receive her soul!' the sisters said,
And spoke in whispers of her holy life,
And how God's mercy spared her pain and strife,
And gave this quiet death. The face was still,
Like a tired child's, that lies and sleeps its fill.
UNDESIRED REVENGE
Sorrow and sin have worked their will
For years upon your
sovereign face,
And yet it keeps a faded trace
Of its unequalled beauty still,
As ruined sanctuaries hold
A crumbled trace of perfect mould
In shrines which saints no longer fill.
I knew you in your splendid morn,
Oh, how imperiously sweet!
I bowed and
worshipped at your feet,
And you received my love with scorn.
Now I scorn you. It is a change,
When I consider it, how strange
That you, not I, should be forlorn.
Do you suppose I have no pain
To see you play this sorry part,
With faded face and broken heart,
And life lived utterly in vain?
Oh would to God that you once more
Might scorn me as you did of yore,
And I might
worship you again!
POETS
Children of earth are we,
Lovers of land and sea,
Of hill, of brook, of tree,
Of all things fair;
Of all things dark or bright,
Born of the day and night,
Red rose and lily white
And dusky hair.
Yet not alone from earth
Do we
derive our birth.
What were our singing worth
Were this the whole?
Somewhere from heaven afar
Hath dropped a fiery star,
Which makes us what we are,
Which is our soul.
A PRESENTIMENT
It seems a little word to say -
FAREWELL--but may it not, when said,
Be like the kiss we give the dead,
Before they pass the doors for aye?
Who knows if, on some after day,
Your lips shall utter in its stead
A
welcome, and the broken thread
Be joined again, the
selfsame way?
The word is said, I turn to go,
But on the
threshold seem to hear
A sound as of a passing bell,
Tolling
monotonous and slow,
Which strikes
despair upon my ear,