Poems From The Breakfast Table | Page 9

not learned the mystery of awaking?Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching,?Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breaking.
Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token?Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken,?Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken?
She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies,--?Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances,?And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances.
Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing:?Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring,?Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing.
Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her??What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her??Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor.
And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven,?Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven,?Save me! Oh, save me! Shall I die forgiven?
And then--Ah, God! But nay, it little matters:?Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters,?The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters!
If she had--Well! She longed, and knew not wherefore.?Had the world nothing she might live to care for??No second self to say her evening prayer for?
She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming,?Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming?Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming.
Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher.?What if a lonely and unsistered creature?Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature,
Saying, unsaddened,--This shall soon be faded,?And double-hued the shining tresses braided,?And all the sunlight of the morning shaded?
This her poor book is full of saddest follies,?Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies,?With summer roses twined and wintry hollies.
In the strange crossing of uncertain chances,?Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances?May fall her little book of dreams and fancies.
Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee,?Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee,?Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee.
Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping,?Peace with her! she has had her hour of weeping.?No more! She leaves her memory in thy keeping.
ROBINSON OF LEYDEN
HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer?His wandering flock had gone before,?But he, the shepherd, might not share?Their sorrows on the wintry shore.
Before the Speedwell's anchor swung,?Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread,?While round his feet the Pilgrims clung,?The pastor spake, and thus he said:--
"Men, brethren, sisters, children dear!?God calls you hence from over sea;?Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer,?Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee.
"Ye go to bear the saving word?To tribes unnamed and shores untrod;?Heed well the lessons ye have heard?From those old teachers taught of God.
"Yet think not unto them was lent?All light for all the coming days,?And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent?In making straight the ancient ways;
"The living fountain overflows?For every flock, for every lamb,?Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose?With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam."
He spake; with lingering, long embrace,?With tears of love and partings fond,?They floated down the creeping Maas,?Along the isle of Ysselmond.
They passed the frowning towers of Briel,?The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand,?And grated soon with lifting keel?The sullen shores of Fatherland.
No home for these!--too well they knew?The mitred king behind the throne;--?The sails were set, the pennons flew,?And westward ho! for worlds unknown.
And these were they who gave us birth,?The Pilgrims of the sunset wave,?Who won for us this virgin earth,?And freedom with the soil they gave.
The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,--?In alien earth the exiles lie,--?Their nameless graves our holiest shrine,?His words our noblest battle-cry!
Still cry them, and the world shall hear,?Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea!?Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer,?Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee!
ST. ANTHONY THE REFORMER
HIS TEMPTATION
No fear lest praise should make us proud!?We know how cheaply that is won;?The idle homage of the crowd?Is proof of tasks as idly done.
A surface-smile may pay the toil?That follows still the conquering Right,?With soft, white hands to dress the spoil?That sun-browned valor clutched in fight.
Sing the sweet song of other days,?Serenely placid, safely true,?And o'er the present's parching ways?The verse distils like evening dew.
But speak in words of living power,--?They fall like drops of scalding rain?That plashed before the burning shower?Swept o' er the cities of the plain!
Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale,--?Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring,?And, smitten through their leprous mail,?Strike right and left in hope to sting.
If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath,?Thy feet on earth, thy heart above,?Canst walk in peace thy kingly path,?Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,--
Too kind for bitter words to grieve,?Too firm for clamor to dismay,?When Faith forbids thee to believe,?And Meekness calls to disobey,--
Ah, then beware of mortal pride!?The smiling pride that calmly scorns?Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed?In laboring on thy crown of thorns!
THE OPENING OF THE PIANO
IN the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night!
Ah me I