Poems of Cheer | Page 7

of creeds, and hailed his own as best;
Of man's corruption
and of Adam's-falling,
But naught that gave me rest:
Nothing that helped me bear the daily grinding

Of soul with body, heart with heated brain;
Nothing to show the
purpose of this blinding
And sometimes overwhelming sense of pain.
And then, dear friend, I
thought of thee, so lowly,
So unassuming, and so gently kind,
And lo! a peace, a calm serene
and holy,
Settled upon my mind.
Ah, friend, my friend! one true heart, fond and tender,
That understands our troubles and our needs,
Brings us more near to
God than all the splendour
And pomp of seeming worship and vain creeds.
One glance of thy
dear eyes so full of feeling,
Doth bring me closer to the Infinite
Than all that throng of worldly
people kneeling
In blaze of gorgeous light.
INEVITABLE
To-day I was so weary and I lay
In that delicious state of semi-waking,
When baby, sitting with his
nurse at play,
Cried loud for "mamma," all his toys forsaking.
I was so weary and I needed rest,
And signed to nurse to bear him from the room.
Then, sudden, rose
and caught him to my breast,

And kissed the grieving mouth and cheeks of bloom.
For swift as lightning came the thought to me,
With pulsing heart-throes and a mist of tears,
Of days inevitable, that
are to be,
If my fair darling grows to manhood's years;
Days when he will not call for "mamma," when
The world, with many a pleasure and bright joy,
Shall tempt him
forth into the haunts of men
And I shall lose the first place with my boy;
When other homes and loves shall give delight,
When younger smiles and voices will seem best.
And so I held him to
my heart to-night,
Forgetting all my need of peace and rest.
THE OCEAN OF SONG
In a land beyond sight or conceiving,
In a land where no blight is, no wrong,
No darkness, no graves, and
no grieving,
There lies the great ocean of song.
And its waves, oh, its waves
unbeholden
By any save gods, and their kind,
Are not blue, are not green, but are
golden,
Like moonlight and sunlight combined.

It was whispered to me that their waters
Were made from the gathered-up tears
That were wept by the sons
and the daughters
Of long-vanished eras and spheres.
Like white sands of heaven the
spray is
That falls all the happy day long,
And whoever it touches straightway
is
Made glad with the spirit of song.
Up, up to the clouds where their hoary
Crowned heads melt away in the skies,
The beautiful mountains of
glory
Each side of the song-ocean rise.
Here day is one splendour of
sky-light -
Of God's light with beauty replete.
Here night is not night, but is
twilight,
Pervading, enfolding, and sweet.
Bright birds from all climes and all regions,
That sing the whole glad summer long,
Are dumb, till they flock here
in legions
And lave in the ocean of song.
It is here that the four winds of
heaven,
The winds that do sing and rejoice,
It is here they first came and were
given
The secret of sound and a voice.

Far down along beautiful beeches,
By night and by glorious day,
The throng of the gifted ones reaches,
Their foreheads made white with the spray,
And a few of the sons and
the daughters
Of this kingdom, cloud-hidden from sight,
Go down in the wonderful
waters,
And bathe in those billows of light.
And their souls evermore are like fountains,
And liquid and lucent and strong,
High over the tops of the mountains
Gush up the sweet billows of song.
No drouth-time of waters can dry
them.
Whoever has bathed in that sea,
All dangers, all deaths, they defy
them,
And are gladder than gods are, with glee.
"IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN"
We will be what we could be. Do not say,
"It might have been, had not or that, or this."
No fate can keep us
from the chosen way;
He only might, who IS.
We will do what we could do. Do not dream
Chance leaves a hero, all uncrowned to grieve.
I hold, all men are
greatly what they seem;

He does, who could achieve.
We will climb where we could climb. Tell me not
Of adverse storms that kept thee from the height.
What eagle ever
missed the peak he sought?
He always climbs who might.
I do not like the phrase, "It might have been!"
It lacks all force, and life's best truths perverts
For I believe we have,
and reach, and win,
Whatever our deserts.
MOMUS, GOD OF LAUGHTER
Though with gods the world is cumbered,
Gods unnamed, and gods
unnumbered,
Never god was known to be
Who had not his devotee.

So I dedicate to mine,
Here in verse, my temple-shrine.
'Tis not Ares,--mighty Mars,
Who can give success in wars.
'Tis not
Morpheus, who doth keep
Guard above us while we sleep,
'Tis not
Venus,