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I were told that I must die to-morrow,
That the next sun
Which sinks should bear me past all fear and
sorrow
For any one,
All the fight fought, all the short journey through:
What should I do?
I do not think that I should shrink or falter,
But just go on,
Doing my work, nor change, nor seek to alter
Aught that is gone;
But rise and move and love and smile and pray
For one more day.
And, lying down at night for a last sleeping,
Say in that ear
Which hearkens ever: "Lord, within Thy keeping
How should I fear?
And when to-morrow brings Thee nearer still.
Do Thou Thy will."
I might not sleep for awe; but peaceful, tender,

My soul would lie
All the night long; and when the morning splendor
Flashed o'er the sky,
I think that I could smile--could calmly say,
"It is His day."
But, if instead a hand from the blue yonder
Held out a scroll,
On which my life was, writ, and I with wonder
Beheld unroll
To a long century's end its mystic clew,
What should I do?
What COULD I do, O blessed Guide and Master,
Other than this:
Still to go on as now, not slower, faster,
Nor fear to miss
The road, although so very long it be,
While led by Thee?
Step after step, feeling Thee close beside me,
Although unseen,
Through thorns, through flowers, whether the
tempest hide Thee,
Or heavens serene,
Assured Thy faithfulness cannot betray,
Thy love decay.
I may not know, my God; no hand revealeth
Thy counsels wise;
Along the path a deepening shadow stealeth,
No voice replies
To all my questioning thought, the time to tell,
And it is well.

Let me keep on, abiding and unfearing
Thy will always,
Through a long century's ripening fruition,
Or a short day's.
Thou canst not come too soon; and I can wait
If thou come late.
ON THE SHORE.
The punctual tide draws up the bay,
With ripple of wave and hiss of
spray,
And the great red flower of the light-house tower
Blooms on
the headland far away.
Petal by petal its fiery rose
Out of the darkness buds and grows;
A
dazzling shape on the dim, far cape,
A beckoning shape as it comes
and goes.
A moment of bloom, and then it dies
On the windy cliff 'twixt the sea
and skies.
The fog laughs low to see it go,
And the white waves
watch it with cruel eyes.
Then suddenly out of the mist-cloud dun,
As touched and wooed by
unseen sun,
Again into sight bursts the rose of light
And opens its
petals one by one.
Ah, the storm may be wild and the sea be strong,
And man is weak
and the darkness long,
But while blossoms the flower on the
light-house tower
There still is place for a smile and a song.
AMONG THE LILIES.
She stood among the lilies
In sunset's brightest ray,
Among the tall
June lilies,
As stately fair as they;
And I, a boyish lover then,

Looked once, and, lingering, looked again,
And life began that day.

She sat among the lilies,
My sweet, all lily-pale;
The summer lilies
listened,
I whispered low my tale.
O golden anthers, breathing balm,

O hush of peace, O twilight calm,
Did you or I prevail?
She lies among the lily-snows,
Beneath the wintry sky;
All round
her and about her
The buried lilies lie.
They will awake at touch of
Spring,
And she, my fair and flower-like thing,
In spring-time--by and by.
NOVEMBER.
Dry leaves upon the wall,
Which flap like rustling wings and seek
escape,
A single frosted cluster on the grape
Still hangs--and that is all.
It hangs forgotten quite,--
Forgotten in the purple vintage-day,
Left
for the sharp and cruel frosts to slay,
The daggers of the night.
It knew the thrill of spring;
It had its blossom-time, its perfumed
noons;
Its pale-green spheres were rounded to soft runes
Of summer's whispering.
Through balmy morns of May;
Through fragrances of June and bright
July,
And August, hot and still, it hung on high
And purpled day by day.
Of fair and mantling shapes,
No braver, fairer cluster on the tree;

And what then is this thing has come to thee

Among the other grapes,
Thou lonely tenant of the leafless vine,
Granted the right to grow thy
mates beside,
To ripen thy sweet juices, but denied
Thy place among the wine?
Ah! we are dull and blind.
The riddle is too hard for us to guess
The
why of joy or of unhappiness,
Chosen or left behind.
But everywhere a host
Of lonely lives shall read their type in thine:

Grapes which may never swell the tale of wine,
Left out to meet the frost.
EMBALMED.
This is the street and the dwelling,
Let me count the houses o'er;

Yes,--one, two, three from the corner,
And the house that I love
makes four.
That is the very window
Where I used to see her head
Bent over
book or needle,
With ivy garlanded.
And the very loop of the curtain,
And the very curve of the vine,

Were full of the grace and the meaning
Which was