Along the Shore | Page 2

quelling Him.
LIFE'S PRIESTESS.
All to herself a woman never sings?A happy song. Oh no! but it is so?As when the thrush has closed down his wings?Within the wood, and hears his hidden woe?From his own bill fill aisles of leaves, and go?About the wood and come to him again.
LOVE NOW.
The sanctity that is about the dead?To make us love them more than late, when here,?Is not it well to find the living dear?With sanctity like this, ere they have fled?
The tender thoughts we nurture for a loss?Of mother, friend, or child, oh! it were wise?To spend this glory on the earnest eyes,?The longing heart, that feel life's present cross.
Give also mercy to the living here?Whose keen-strung souls will quiver at your touch;?The utmost reverence is not too much?For eyes that weep, although the lips may sneer.
ONE AND ONE.
The thanking heart can only silence keep;?The breaking heart can only die alone:?Our happy love above abysses deep?Of unguessed power hovers, and is gone!
Come, take my hand, O friend I take for life!?You cannot reach my soul through touch or gaze;?Be our full lips with infinite meanings rife:?The longed-for words, which of us ever says?
THE VIOLIN.
Touch gently, friend, and slow, the violin, So sweet and low, That my dreaming senses may be beckoned so?Into a rest as deep as the long past "years ago!"?So softly, then, begin;
And ever gently touch the violin,?Until an impulse grows of a sudden, like wind?On the brow of the earth,?And the voice of your violin shows its wide-swung girth?With a crash of the strings and a medley of rage and mirth; And my rested senses spring?Like juice from a broken rind,?And the joys that your melodies bring?I know worth a life-time to win,?As you waken to love and this hour your violin!
GERTRUDE.?[In Memory: 1877.]
What shall I say, my friend, my own heart healing,?When for my love you cannot answer me??This earth would quake, alas! might I but see?You smile, death's rigorous law repealing!?Pale lips, your mystery so well concealing,?May not the eloquent, varied minstrelsy?Of my inspired ardor potent be?To touch your chords to music's uttered feeling??Friend, here you cherished flowers: send me now?One ghostly bloom to prove that you are blessed.?No? If denial such as brands my brow?Be in your heavenly regions, too, confessed,?Oh may it prove the truth that your still eyes?Foresee the end of all futurities!
UNITY IN SPACE.
Take me away into a storm of snow?So white and soft, I feel no deathly chill,?But listen to the murmuring overflow?Of clouds that fall in many a frosty rill!
Take me away into the sunset's glow,?That holds a summer in a glorious bloom;?Or take me to the shadowed woods that grow?On the sky's mountains, in the evening gloom!
Give me an entrance to the limpid lake?When moonbeams shine across its purity!?A life there is, within the life we take?So commonly, for which 't were well to die.
THE SHELL AND THE WORLD.
The world was like a shell to me,--?Its voice with distant song was low;?But now its mysteries I know:?I hear the turmoil of the sea.
The whirling, soft, and tender sound?That meant I knew not what of lore,--?I dream its mystery now no more:?Its reckless meaning I have found.
O shell! I held thee to my ears?When I was young, and smiled with pride?To stand aglow at marvel's side!?O world, thy voice is wild with tears!
THE CLOCK-TOWER BELL.
Say not, sad bell, another hour hath come,?Bare for the record of a world of crime;?Toll, rather, friend, the end of hideous Time,?Wherein we bloom, live, die, yet have no home!
Bell, laurels would we o'er thy pulsing twine,?And sing thee songs of triumph with glad tears,?If to the warring of our haggard years?Thy clang should herald peace along the line!
OURS TO ENDURE.
We speak of the world that passes away,--?The world of men who lived years ago,?And could not feel that their hearts' quick glow?Would fade to such ashen lore to-day.
We hear of death that is not our woe,?And see the shadow of funerals creeping?Over the sweet fresh roads by the reaping;?But do we weep till our loved ones go?
When one is lost who is greater than we,?And loved us so well that death should reprieve?Of all hearts this one to us; when we must leave?His grave,--the past will break like the sea!
BROKEN WAVES.
The sun is lying on the garden-wall,?The full red rose is sweetening all the air,?The day is happier than a dream most fair;?The evening weaves afar a wide-spread pall,?And lo! sun, day, and rose, no longer there!
I have a lover now my life is young,?I have a love to keep this many a day;?My heart will hold it when my life is gray,?My love will last although my heart be wrung.?My life, my heart, my love shall fade away!
O lover loved, the day has only gone!?In death or life, our love can only go;?Never forgotten