A Channel Passage and Other Poems | Page 6

see,
Though thine own may see them shine
Night and
day, perchance, on thine.
Sun and moon that lighten earth
Seem not
fit to bless thy birth:
Scarce the very stars we know
Here seem
bright enough to show
Whence in unimagined skies
Glows the vigil
of such eyes.
Theirs whose heart is as a sea
Swoln with sorrowing
love of thee
Fain would share with thine the sight

Seen alone of
babes aright,
Watched of eyes more sweet than flowers
Sleeping or

awake: but ours
Can but deem or dream or guess
Thee not wholly
motherless.
Might they see or might they know
What nor faith nor
hope may show,
We whose hearts yearn toward thee now
Then
were blest and wise as thou.
Had we half thy knowledge,--had
Love
such wisdom,--grief were glad,
Surely, lit by grace of thee;
Life
were sweet as death may be.
Now the law that lies on men
Bids us
mourn our dead: but then
Heaven and life and earth and death,

Quickened as by God's own breath,
All were turned from sorrow and
strife:
Earth and death were heaven and life.
All too far are then and
now
Sundered: none may be as thou.
Yet this grace is ours--a sign

Of that goodlier grace of thine,
Sweet, and thine alone--to see

Heaven, and heaven's own love, in thee.
Bless them, then, whose eyes
caress
Thee, as only thou canst bless.
Comfort, faith, assurance,
love,
Shine around us, brood above,
Fear grows hope, and hope
grows wise,
Thrilled and lit by children's eyes.
Yet in ours the tears
unshed,
Child, for hope that death leaves dead,
Needs must burn
and tremble; thou
Knowest not, seest not, why nor how,
More than
we know whence or why
Comes on babes that laugh and lie
Half
asleep, in sweet-lipped scorn,
Light of smiles outlightening morn,

Whence enkindled as is earth
By the dawn's less radiant birth
All
the body soft and sweet
Smiles on us from face to feet
When the
rose-red hands would fain

Reach the rose-red feet in vain.
Eyes and
hands that worship thee
Watch and tend, adore and see
All these
heavenly sights, and give
Thanks to see and love and live.
Yet, of
all that hold thee dear,
Sweet, the dearest smiles not here.
Thine
alone is now the grace,
Haply, still to see her face;
Thine, thine only
now the sight
Whence we dream thine own takes light.
Yet, though
faith and hope live blind,
Yet they live in heart and mind
Strong
and keen as truth may be:
Yet, though blind as grief were we
Inly
for a weeping-while,
Sorrow's self before thy smile
Smiles and
softens, knowing that yet,
Far from us though heaven be set,
Love,
bowed down for thee to bless,
Dares not call thee motherless.

_May 1894._
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
+es to pan de soi legô,+
+bômon aidesai dikas;+
+mêde nin+

+kerdos idôn atheô podi lax atisês;+
+poina gar epestai.+
+kyrion
menei telos.+
ÆSCH. _Eum._ 538-544
+para to phôs idein.+
ÆSCH. _Cho._ 972
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
I
Light and night, whose clouds and glories change and mingle and
divide,
Veil the truth whereof they witness, show the truth of things
they hide.
Through the darkness and the splendour of the centuries,
loud or
dumb,
Shines and wanes and shines the spirit, lit with love of life to
come.
Man, the soul made flesh, that knows not death from life, and
fain would know,
Sees the face of time change colour as its tides
recoil and flow. All his hope and fear and faith and doubt, if aught at all
they
be,
Live the life of clouds and sunbeams, born of heaven or earth or
sea.
All are buoyed and blown and brightened by their hour's evasive
breath:
All subside and quail and darken when their hour is done to

death.
Yet, ere faith, a wandering water, froze and curdled into creeds,
Earth, elate as heaven, adored the light that quickens dreams to
deeds.
Invisible: eye hath not seen it, and ear hath not heard as the
spirit hath heard
From the shrine that is lit not of sunlight or starlight
the sound
of a limitless word.
And visible: none that hath eyes to behold what
the spirit must
perish or see
Can choose but behold it and worship: a shrine that if
light were
as darkness would be.
Of cloud and of change is the form of the
fashion that man may
behold of it wrought:
Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where
worship is none
but of thought.
No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of
gladness or
sorrow may climb:
No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that
guards it, and
hears not of time.
As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in
passion of light
and of cloud,
So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with
darkness
and light for a shroud.
And the winds and the clouds and the suns fall
silent, and fade out

of hearing or sight,
And the shrine stands fast and is changed not,
whose likeness was
changed as a cloud in the night.
All the storms of time, and wrath of many winds, may carve no
trace
On the viewless altar, though the veil bear many a name and
face: Many a live God's likeness woven, many