In Divers Tones | Page 6

bars, and falls,
Shivering, on the floor and
walls!
How yon patch of freezing sky
Echoes back their bell-ringings!

Down in the gray city, nigh
Severn, every steeple swings.
All the

busy streets are bright.
Many folk are out to-night.
--What's that, Brother? Did you speak?--
Christ save them that talk in
sleep!
Smile they howsoever meek,
Somewhat in their hearts they
keep.
We, good souls, what shifts we make
To keep talking whilst
awake!
Christ be praised, that fetched me in
Early, yet a youngling, while

All unlearned in life and sin,
Love and travail, grief and guile!
For
your world of two-score years,
Cuthbert, all you have is tears.
Dreaming, still he hears the bells
As he heard them years ago,
Ere
he sought our quiet cells
Iron-mouthed and wrenched with woe,

Out of what dread storms who knows--
Faithfulest of friends and
foes!
Faithful was he, aye, I ween,
Pitiful, and kind, and wise;
But in
mindful moods I've seen
Flame enough in those sunk eyes!
Praised
be Christ, whose timely Hand
Plucked from out the fire this brand!
Now in dreams he's many miles
Hence, he's back in Ireland.
Ah,
how tenderly he smiles,
Stretching a caressing hand!
Backward
now his memory glides
To old happy Christmas-tides.
Now once more a loving wife
Holds him; now he sees his boys,

Smiles at all their playful strife,
All their childish mirth and noise;

Softly now she strokes his hair.--
Ah, their world is very fair!
--Waking, all your loss shall be
Unforgotten evermore!
Sleep alone
holds these for thee.
Sleep then, Brother!--To restore
All your
heaven that has died
Heaven and Hell may be too wide!
Sleep, and dream, and be awhile
Happy, Cuthbert, once again!

Soon you'll wake, and cease to smile,
And your heart will sink with
pain.

You will hear the merry town,--
And a weight will press you

down.
Hungry-hearted, you will see
Only the thin shadows fall
From yon
bleak-topped poplar-tree,--
Icy fingers on the wall.
You will watch
them come and go,
Telling o'er your count of woe.
--Nay, now, hear me, how I prate!
I, a foolish monk, and old,

Maundering o'er a life and fate
To me unknown, by you untold!
Yet
I know you're like to weep
Soon, so, Brother, this night sleep.
IMPULSE.
A hollow on the verge of May.
Thick strewn with drift of leaves.
Beneath
The densest drift a thrusting sheath
Of sharp green striving
toward the day!
I mused--"So dull Obstruction sets
A bar to even
violets,
When these would go their nobler way!"
My feet again, some days gone by.
The self-same spot sought idly.
There,
Obstruction foiled, the adoring air
Caressed a blossom
woven of sky
And dew, whose misty petals blue,
With bliss of
being thrilled athrough,
Dilated like a timorous eye.
Reck well this rede, my soul! The good
The blossom craved was near,
tho' hid.
Fret not that thou must doubt, but rid
Thy sky-path of
obstructions strewed
By winds of folly. Then, do thou
The
Godward impulse room allow
To reach its perfect air and food!
THE ISLES--AN ODE.
I.
Faithful reports of them have reached me oft!
Many their embassage
to mortal court,
By golden pomp, and breathless-heard consort
Of music soft--
By fragrances accredited, and dreams.
Many their
speeding herald, whose light feet
Make pause at wayside brooks, and

fords of streams,
Leaving transfigured by an effluence fleet
Those wayfarers they meet.
II.
No wind from out the solemn wells of night
But hath its burden of
strange messages,
Tormenting for interpreter; nor less
The wizard light
That steals from noon-stilled waters, woven in shade,

Beckons somewhither, with cool fingers slim.
No dawn but hath
some subtle word conveyed
In rose ineffable at sunrise rim,
Or charactery dim.
III.
One moment throbs the hearing, yearns the sight.
But tho' not far, yet
strangely hid--the way,
And our sense slow; nor long for us delay
The guides their flight!
The breath goes by; the word, the light, elude;

And we stay wondering. But there comes an hour
Of fitness perfect
and unfettered mood,
When splits her husk the finer sense with
power,
And--yon their palm-trees tower!
IV.
Here Homer came, and Milton came, tho' blind.
Omar's deep doubts
still found them nigh and nigher,
And learned them fashioned to the
heart's desire.
The supreme mind
Of Shakspere took their sovereignty, and smiled.

Those passionate Israelitish lips that poured
The Song of Songs
attained them; and the wild
Child-heart of Shelley, here from strife
restored,

Remembers not life's sword.
A SERENADE.
Love hath given the day for longing,
And for joy the night.
Dearest,
to thy distant chamber
Wings my soul its flight.
Though unfathomed seas divide us,
And the lingering year,
'Tis the
hour when absence parts not,--
Memory hath no tear.
O'er the charmed and silent river
Drifts my lonely boat;
From the
haunted shores and islands
Tender murmurs float,
Tender breaths of glade and forest,
Breezes of perfume;--
Surely,
surely thou canst hear me
In thy quiet room!
Unto shore, and sky, and silence,
Low I pour my song.
All the spell,
the summer sweetness,--
These to thee belong.
Thou art love, the trance and rapture
Of the midnight clear!
Sweet,
tho' world on world withhold thee,
I can clasp thee here.
OFF PELORUS.
Crimson swims the sunset over far Pelorus;
Burning crimson tops its
frowning crest of pine.
Purple sleeps the shore and floats the wave
before us,
Eachwhere from the oar-stroke eddying warm like wine.
Soundless