POEMS OF THOUGHT.

UNDER THE SHADOW.

My sorrowing friend, arise and go

About thy house with patient care; The hand that bows thy head so low Will bear the ills thou canst not bear.

Arise, and all thy tasks fulfill,

And as thy day thy strength shall be ; Were there no power beyond the ill,

The ill could not have come to thee.

Though cloud and storm encompass thee,
Be not afflicted nor afraid;

Thou knowest the shadow could not be
Were there no sun beyond the shade.

For thy beloved, dead and gone,

Let sweet, not bitter, tears be shed;

Nor "open thy dark saying on

The harp," as though thy faith were dead.

Couldst thou even have them reappear

In bodies plain to mortal sense,

How were the miracle more clear

To bring them than to take them hence?

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UNDER THE SHADOW.

Then let thy soul cry in thee thus

No more, nor let thine eyes thus weep; Nothing can be withdrawn from us

That we have any need to keep.

Arise, and seek some height to gain
From life's dark lesson day by day,
Nor just rehearse its peace and pain -
A wearied actor at the play.

Nor grieve that will so much transcends
Thy feeble powers, but in content
Do what thou canst, and leave the ends
And issues with the Omnipotent.

Dust as thou art, and born to woe,
Seeing darkly, and as through a glass,
He made thee thus to be, for lo!

He made the grass, and flower of grass.

The tempest's cry, the thunder's moan,
The waste of waters, wild and dim,
The still small voice thou hear'st alone -
All, all alike interpret Him.

Arise, my friend, and go about

Thy darkened house with cheerful feet;

Yield not one jot to fear nor doubt,
But, baffled, broken, still repeat:

""Tis mine to work, and not to win ;

The soul must wait to have her wings;

Even time is but a landmark in

The great eternity of things.

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"Is it so much that thou below,

O heart, shouldst fail of thy desire,
When death, as we believe and know,
Is but a call to come up higher?"

GOD IS LOVE.

AH, there are mighty things under the sun,
Great deeds have been acted, great words have

been said,

Not just uplifting some fortunate one,

But lifting up all men the more by a head.

Aye, the more by the head, and the shoulders too!
Ten thousand may sin, and a thousand may fall,
And it may have been me, and it yet may be you,
But the angel in one proves the angel in all.

And whatever is mighty, whatever is high,
Lifting men, lifting woman their natures above,
And close to the kinship they hold to the sky
Why, this I affirm, that its essence is Love.

The poorest, the meanest has right to his share

For the life of his heart, for the strength of his

hand,

'Tis the sinew of work, 'tis the spirit of prayer ·

And here, and God help me, I take up my

No pain but it hushes to peace in its arms,

stand.

No pale cheek it cannot with kisses make bright,

GOD IS LOVE.

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Its wonder of splendors has made the world's storms To snine as with rainbows, since first there was

light.

Go, bring me whatever the poets have praised,
The mantles of queens, the red roses of May,
I'll match them, I care not how grandly emblazed,
With the love of the beggar who sits by the way.

When I think of the gifts that have honored Love's shrine

Heart, hope, soul, and body, all mortal can give — For the sake of a passion superbly divine,

I am glad, nay, and more, I am proud that I live!

Fair women have made them espousals with death, And through the white flames as through lilies have

trod,

And men have with cloven tongues preached for their faith,

And held up their hands, stiff with thumb-screws, to God.

I have seen a great people its vantage defer
To the love that had moved it as love only can,
A whole nation stooping with conscience astir
To a chattel with crop ears, and calling it man.

Compared, O my beautiful Country, to thee,

In this tenderest touch of the manacled hand, The tops of the pyramids sink to the sea,

And the thrones of the earth slide together like sand.

Immortal with beauty and vital with youth,

Thou standest, O Love, as thou always hast stood From the wastes of the ages, proclaiming this truth, All peoples and nations are made of one blood.

Ennobled by scoffing and honored by shame,

The chiefest of great ones, the crown and the head, Attested by miracles done in thy name

For the blind, for the lame, for the sick and the dead.

Because He in all things was tempted like me,

Through the sweet human hope, by the cross that He bore,

For the love which so much to the Marys could be, Christ Jesus the man, not the God, I adore.

LIFE'S MYSTERIES.

ROUND and round the wheel doth run,
And now doth rise, and now doth fall ;

How many lives we live in one,

And how much less than one, in all!

How strange, how wonderful! it seems

A player playing in a play,

A dreamer dreaming that he dreams!

But when the mind through devious glooms
Drifts onward to the dark amain,