For yet no moon had risen:
Its only voice a vast dumb moan,
Of utterless anguish speaking,
It lay unhopefully alone,
And lived but in an aimless seeking.
So was my soul; but when 't was full
Of unrest to o'erloading,
A voice of something beautiful
Whispered a dim foreboding,
And yet so soft, so sweet, so low,
It had not more of joy than woe;
And, as the sea doth oft lie still,
Making its waters meet,
As if by an unconscious will,
For the moon's silver feet,
So lay my soul within mine eyes
When thou, its guardian moon, didst rise.
And now, howe'er its waves above
May toss and seem uneaseful,
One strong, eternal law of Love,
With guidance sure and peaceful,
As calm and natural as breath,
Moves its great deeps through life and
death.
THICK-RUSHING, like an ocean vast
The notes crowd heavily and fast
Of bisons the far prairie shaking,
As surfs, one plunging while the last
Draws seaward from its foamy breaking.
Or in low murmurs they began,
Rising and rising momently,
A fitful breeze, until they ran
As o'er a harp Æolian
Up to a sudden ecstasy.
And then, like minute-drops of rain
Ringing in water silverly,
They lingering dropped and dropped
again,
Till it was almost like a pain
To listen when the next would be.
A LILY thou wast when I saw thee first,
A lily-bud not opened quite,
That hourly grew more pure and
white,