We paused: the winds were in the beech: Sat silent, looking each at each. Then echo-like our voices rang; We sung, though every eye was dim, We ceased: a gentler feeling crept "They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet," And silence followed, and we wept. Our voices took a higher range; Once more we sang: "They do not die, Nor change to us, although they change; Rapt from the fickle and the frail, From orb to orb, from veil to veil. "Rise, happy morn! rise, holy morn! Draw forth the cheerful day from night : O Father! touch the east, and light The light that shone when Hope was born." XXXI. WHEN Lazarus left his charnel-cave, To hear her weeping by his grave ? "Where wert thou, brother, those four days?" From every house the neighbors met, The streets were filled with joyful sound; The purple brows of Olivet. Behold a man raised up by Christ! XXXII. HER eyes are homes of silent prayer, Then one deep love doth supersede And rests upon the Life indeed. All subtle thought, all curious fears, Borne down by gladness so complete, With costly spikenard and with tears. Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, Whose loves in higher love endure; What souls possess themselves so pure, Or is there blessedness like theirs? XXXIII. O THOU that after toil and storm Mayst seem to have reached a purer air, Nor cares to fix itself to form, Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, Her early Heaven, her happy views; A life that leads melodious days. Her faith through form is pure as thine, See, thou that countest reason ripe XXXIV. My own dim life should teach me this, And dust and ashes all that is; This round of green, this orb of flame, In some wild Poet, when he works What then were God to such as I? 'Twere hardly worth my while to choose Of things all mortal, or to use A little patience ere I die, "Twere best at once to sink to peace, XXXV. YET if some voice that man could trust Might I not say? "yet even here, But for one hour, O Love, I strive To keep so sweet a thing alive:" But I should turn mine ears and hear The moanings of the homeless sea, The sound of streams that, swift or slow, The dust of continents to be; And Love would answer, with a sigh, "The sound of that forgetful shore Will change my sweetness more and more, Half dead to know that I shall die." O me! what profits it to put An idle case? If Death were seen At first as Death, Love had not been, Or been in narrowest working shut, Mere fellowship of sluggish moods, Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape Had bruised the herb and crushed the grape, And basked and battened in the woods. XXXVI. THOUGH truths in manhood darkly join, For wisdom dealt with mortal powers, Where Truth in closest words shall fail, Shall enter in at lowly doors. And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought; Which he may read that binds the sheaf, XXXVII. URANIA speaks with darkened brow: "Thou pratest here where thou art least; This faith has many a purer priest, And many an abler voice, than thou; "Go down beside thy native rill, About the ledges of the hill." And my Melpomene replies, A touch of shame upon her cheek: Of thy prevailing mysteries; |