The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems | Page 5

with heavy night-dews wet,
shall place her gold
and purple sentinels,
And in the populous woods sound reveille,
falling from field and fen
her sweet deserters back--

But he,--no long roll of the impatient drum,
for battle trumpet eager
for the fray,
From the far shores of blue Lake Erie blown,
shall rouse the soldier's
last long bivouac.
QUESTIONINGS.
I touch but the things which are near;
The heavens are too high for
my reach:
In shadow and symbol and creed,
I discern not the soul
from the deed,
Nor the thought hidden under, from speech;
And the
thing which I know not I fear.
I dare not despair nor despond,
Though I grope in the dark for the
dawn:
Birth and laughter, and bubbles of breath,
And tears, and the
blank void of death,
Round each its penumbra is drawn,--
I touch
them,--I see not beyond.
What voice speaking solemn and slow,
Before the beginning for me,

From the mouth of the primal First Cause,
Shall teach me the thing
that I was,
Shall point out the thing I shall be,
And show me the
path that I go?
Were there any that missed me, or sought,
In the cycles and centuries
fled.
Ere my soul had a place among men?--
Even so,
unremembered again
I shall lie in the dust with the dead,
And my
name shall be heard not, nor thought.
Yea rather,--from out the abyss,
Where the stars sit in silence and
light,
When the ashes and dust of our world
Are like leaves in their
faces up-whirled,--
What orb shall look down through the night,

And take note of the quenching of this?
Yea, beyond--in the heavens of space
Where Jehovah sits, absolute
Lord,
Who made out of nothing the whole
Round world, and man's
sentient soul--
Will He crush, like a creature abhorred,
What He

fashioned with infinite grace
In His own awful image, and made
Quick with the flame of His
breath,--
Which He saw and behold it was good?--
Ah man! thou
hast waded through blood
And crime down to darkness and death,

Since thou stood'st before Him unafraid.
My life falls away like a flower
Day by day,--dispersed of the wind

Its vague perfume, nor taketh it root,
Ripening seeds for the sower, or
fruit
To make me at one with my kind,
And give me my work, and
my hour
No creed for my hunger sufficed,
Though I clung to them, each after
other,
They slipped from my passionate hold,--
The prophets, the
martyrs of old,--
Thy pitying face, Mary Mother,--
Thy
thorn-circled forehead, O Christ!
Pilgrim sandalled, the deserts have known
The track of my wandering
feet,
Where dead saints and martyrs have trod,
To search for the
pure faith of God,
Making life with its bitterness sweet,
And death
the white gate to a throne.
O Thou, who the wine-press hast trod,
O
sorrowful--stricken--betrayed,--
Thy cross o'er my spirit prevails;
In
Thy hands with the print of the nails,
My life with its burdens is
laid,--
O Christ--Thou art sole--Thou art God!
PANSIES.
When the earliest south winds softly blow
Over the brown earth, and
the waning snow
In the last days of the discrowned March,--
Before
the silver tassels of the larch,
Or any tiniest bud or blade is seen;
Or
in the woods the faintest kindling green,
And all the earth is veiled in
azure mist,
Waiting the far-off kisses of the sun,--
They lift their
bright heads shyly one by one.
And offer each, in cups of amethyst,


Drops of the honey wine of fairy land,--
A brimming beaker poised in
either hand
Fit for the revels of King Oberon,
With all his royal
gold and purple on:
Children of pensive thought and airy fancies,

Sweeter than any poet's sweetest stanzas,
Though to the sound of
eloquent music told,
Or by the lips of beauty breathed or sung:

They thrill us with their backward-looking glances,
They bring us to
the land that ne'er grows old,--
They mind us of the days when life
was young
Nor time had stolen the fire from youth's romances,
Dear English pansies!
While still the hyacinth sleeps on securely,
And every lily leaf is
folded purely,
Nor any purple crocus hath arisen;
Nor any tulip
raised its slender stem,
And burst the earth-walls of its winter prison,

And donned its gold and jewelled diadem;
Nor by the brookside in
the mossy hollow,
That calls to every truant foot to follow,
The
cowslip yet hath hung its golden ball,--
In the wild and treacherous
March weather,
The pansy and the sunshine come together,
The
sweetest flower of all!
The sweetest flower that blows;
Sweeter
than any rose,
Or that shy blossom opening in the night,
Its waxen
vase of aromatic light--
A sleepy incense to the winking stars;
Nor
yet in summer heats,
That crisp the city streets,--
Where the spiked
mullein grows beside the bars
In country places, and the ox-eyed
daisy
Blooms in the meadow grass, and brooks are lazy,
And
scarcely murmur in the twinkling heat;
When sound of babbling
water is so sweet,
Blue asters, and the purple orchis tall,
Bend o'er
the wimpling wave together;--
The pansy blooms through all the
summer weather,
The sweetest flower of all!
The sweetest flower that blows!

When all the rest are scattered and
departed,
The symbol of the brave and faithful-hearted,
Her bright
corolla glows.
When leaves hang pendant on their withered