Where the lake's frore Sahara of nevertracked white, When the crack shoots across it, complains to the night With a long, lonely moan, that leagues northward is lost, As the ice shrinks away from the tread of the frost; Where the lumberers sit by the log-fires that throw Their own threatening shadows far round o'er the snow, When the wolf howls aloof, and the wavering glare Flashes out from the blackness the eyes of the bear, When the wood's huge recesses, halflighted, supply A canvas where Fancy her mad brush may try, Blotting in giant Horrors that venture not down Through the right-angled streets of the brisk, whitewashed town, But skulk in the depths of the measureless wood Mid the Dark's creeping whispers that curdle the blood, When the eye, glanced in dread o'er the shoulder, may dream, Ere it shrinks to the camp-fire's companioning gleam, That it saw the fierce ghost of the Red Man crouch back To the shroud of the tree-trunk's invincible black; There the old shapes crowd thick round the pine-shadowed camp, Which shun the keen gleam of the scholarly lamp, And the seed of the legend finds true Norland ground, While the border-tale's told and the canteen flits round. A CONTRAST THY love thou sentest oft to me, And still as oft I thrust it back; Thy messengers I could not see Now every day thy love I meet, As o'er the earth it wanders wide, With weary step and bleeding feet, Still knocking at the heart of pride And offering grace, though still denied. EXTREME UNCTION Go! leave me, Priest; my soul would be Alone with the consoler, Death; Far sadder eyes than thine will see This crumbling clay yield up its breath; These shrivelled hands have deeper stains Than holy oil can cleanse away, Hands that have plucked the world's coarse gains As erst they plucked the flowers of May. Call, if thou canst, to these gray eyes Some faith from youth's traditions wrung; This fruitless husk which dustward dries Paused, waiting my supreme commands. But look! whose shadows block the door? And there, with eyes that goad me yet, Yes, I who now, with angry tears, Am exiled back to brutish clod, Have borne unquenched for fourscore years A spark of the eternal God; And to what end? How yield I back The trust for such high uses given? Heaven's light hath but revealed a track Whereby to crawl away from heaven. Men think it is an awful sight To see a soul just set adrift On that drear voyage from whose night A helpless infant newly born, Mine held them once; I flung away But clutch the keys of darkness yet; Into God's harvest; I, that might With them have chosen, here below Grope shuddering at the gates of night. O glorious Youth, that once wast mine ! O high Ideal! all in vain Ye enter at this ruined shrine Whence worship ne'er shall rise again; The bat and owl inhabit here, The snake nests in the altar-stone, The sacred vessels moulder near, The image of the God is gone. With diet spare and raiment thin Through earnest prayer and watchings long He sought to know 'tween right and wrong, At last he builded a perfect faith, saith; To himself be fitted the doorway's size, Meted the light to the need of his eyes, And knew, by a sure and inward sign, That the work of his fingers was divine. Then Ambrose said, "All those shall die The eternal death who believe not as I;" And some were boiled, some burned in fire, Some sawn in twain, that his heart's desire, For the good of men's souls might be satisfied By the drawing of all to the righteous side. One day, as Ambrose was seeking the truth 'T were pity he should not believe as he ought. So he set himself by the young man's side, And the state of his soul with questions tried; But the heart of the stranger was hardened indeed, Nor received the stamp of the one true creed; And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to find Such features the porch of so narrow a mind. "As each beholds in cloud and fire The shape that answers his own desire, So each," said the youth, "in the Law shall find The figure and fashion of his mind; And to each in his mercy hath God allowed His several pillar of fire and cloud." The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal Cried he, "a dividual essence in Truth? Now there bubbled beside them where they stood A fountain of waters sweet and good; near Saying, "Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here!" Six vases of crystal then he took, "As into these vessels the water I pour, O thou, who wouldst unity make through strife, Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life?" When Ambrose looked up, he stood alone, The youth and the stream and the vases were gone; But he knew, by a sense of humbled grace, He had talked with an angel face to face, And felt his heart change inwardly, As he fell on his knees beneath the tree. ABOVE AND BELOW I DWELLERS in the valley-land, Who in deep twilight grope and cower, Till the slow mountain's dial-hand Shorten to noon's triumphal hour, While ye sit idle, do ye think The Lord's great work sits idle too? That light dare not o'erleap the brink Of morn, because 't is dark with you? Though yet your valleys skulk in night, Lone watcher on the mountain-height, Know also when the day is nigh, Thou hast thine office; we have ours; And when He giveth work to do, To pierce the shield of error through. But not the less do thou aspire Light's earlier messages to preach; Keep back no syllable of fire, Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. Yet God deems not thine aeried sight More worthy than our twilight dim; For meek Obedience, too, is Light, And following that is finding Him. THE CAPTIVE IT was past the hour of trysting, From its toiling at the mill. Then the great moon on a sudden Ominous, and red as blood, Startling as a new creation, Dread closed vast and vague about her, From the blighting of the sea. Yet he came not, and the stillness Looking on her through the gloom, Suddenly the silence wavered Like a light mist in the wind, "Once my love, my love forever, Flesh or spirit, still the same, If I failed at time of trysting, Deem thou not my faith to blame; I, alas, was made a captive, As from Holy Land I came. "On a green spot in the desert, Gleaming like an emerald star, Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, Yearning for its mate afar, Droops above a silver runnel, Slender as a scimitar, "There thou 'lt find the humble postern To the castle of my foe; If thy love burn clear and faithful, Slept again the aspen silence, Like a cloud-shade flitting eastward, Wandered she o'er sea and land; And her footsteps in the desert Fell like cool rain on the sand. Soon, beneath the palm-tree's shadow, There she saw no surly warder Fairest seemed he of God's seraphs, Then she heard a voice come onward Forward leaped she o'er the threshold, Fell from her the spirit's languor, THE BIRCH-TREE RIPPLING through thy branches goes the sunshine, Among thy leaves that palpitate forever; Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had pris oned, The soul once of some tremulous inland river, Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah! dumb, dumb forever! While all the forest, witched with slumberous moonshine, |