Legends and Lyrics, Pt 2 | Page 6

face?After that day, which none had seen before;?Not trouble--but a shadow--nothing more.
Years passed away. Then, one dark day of dread?Saw all the sisters kneeling round a bed,?Where Angela lay dying; every breath?Struggling beneath the heavy hand of death.?But suddenly a flush lit up her cheek,?She raised her wan right hand, and strove to speak.?In sorrowing love they listened; not a sound?Or sigh disturbed the utter silence round.?The very tapers' flames were scarcely stirred,?In such hushed awe the sisters knelt and heard.?And through that silence Angela told her life:?Her sin, her flight; the sorrow and the strife,?And the return; and then clear, low and calm,?"Praise God for me, my sisters;" and the psalm?Rang up to heaven, far and clear and wide,?Again and yet again, then sank and died;?While her white face had such a smile of peace,?They saw she never heard the music cease;?And weeping sisters laid her in her tomb,?Crowned with a wreath of perfumed hawthorn bloom.
And thus the Legend ended. It may be?Something is hidden in the mystery,?Besides the lesson of God's pardon shown,?Never enough believed, or asked, or known.?Have we not all, amid life's petty strife,?Some pure ideal of a noble life?That once seemed possible? Did we not hear?The flutter of its wings, and feel it near,?And just within our reach? It was. And yet?We lost it in this daily jar and fret,?And now live idle in a vague regret.?But still OUR PLACE IS KEPT, and it will wait,?Ready for us to fill it, soon or late:?No star is ever lost we once have seen,?We always may be what we might have been.?Since Good, though only thought, has life and breath,?God's life--can always be redeemed from death;?And evil, in its nature, is decay,?And any hour can blot it all away;?The hopes that lost in some far distance seem,?May be the truer life, and this the dream.
VERSE: ENVY
He was the first always: Fortune?Shone bright in his face.?I fought for years; with no effort?He conquered the place:?We ran; my feet were all bleeding,?But he won the race.
Spite of his many successes?Men loved him the same;?My one pale ray of good fortune?Met scoffing and blame.?When we erred, they gave him pity,?But me--only shame.
My home was still in the shadow,?His lay in the sun:?I longed in vain: what he asked for?It straightway was done.?Once I staked all my heart's treasure,?We played--and he won.
Yes; and just now I have seen him,?Cold, smiling, and blest,?Laid in his coffin. God help me!?While he is at rest,?I am cursed still to live:- even?Death loved him the best.
VERSE: OVER THE MOUNTAIN
Like dreary prison walls?The stern grey mountains rise,?Until their topmost crags?Touch the far gloomy skies:?One steep and narrow path?Winds up the mountain's crest,?And from our valley leads?Out to the golden West.
I dwell here in content,?Thankful for tranquil days;?And yet, my eyes grow dim,?As still I gaze and gaze?Upon that mountain pass,?That leads--or so it seems -?To some far happy land,?Known in a world of dreams.
And as I watch that path?Over the distant hill,?A foolish longing comes?My heart and soul to fill,?A painful, strange desire?To break some weary bond,?A vague unuttered wish?For what might lie beyond!
In that far world unknown,?Over that distant hill,?May dwell the loved and lost,?Lost--yet beloved still;?I have a yearning hope,?Half longing, and half pain,?That by that mountain pass?They may return again.
Space may keep friends apart,?Death has a mighty thrall;?There is another gulf?Harder to cross than all;?Yet watching that far road,?My heart beats full and fast -?If they should come once more,?If they should come at last!
See, down the mountain side?The silver vapours creep;?They hide the rocky cliffs.?They hide the craggy steep,?They hide the narrow path?That comes across the hill -?Oh, foolish longing, cease,?Oh, beating Heart, be still!
VERSE: BEYOND
We must not doubt, or fear, or dread, that love for life is only given,?And that the calm and sainted dead will meet estranged and cold in heaven:-?Oh, Love were poor and vain indeed, based on so harsh and stern a creed.
True that this earth must pass away, with all the starry worlds of light,?With all the glory of the day, and calmer tenderness of night; For, in that radiant home can shine alone the immortal and divine.
Earth's lower things--her pride, her fame, her science, learning, wealth and power -?Slow growths that through long ages came, or fruits of some convulsive hour,?Whose very memory must decay--Heaven is too pure for such as they.
They are complete: their work is done. So let them sleep in endless rest.?Love's life is only here begun, nor is, nor can be, fully blest; It has no room to spread its wings, amid this crowd of meaner things.
Just for the very shadow thrown upon its sweetness here below, The cross that it must bear alone, and bloody baptism of woe, Crowned and completed through its pain, we know that it shall rise again.
So