And now with love's repentant tears I come once more on bended knee, Lamenting for the long, long years, The wasted years afar from Thee. THE OLIVE STAR. It sheds its gentle ray, Night and day, Above the spot where my beloved dwells; 'Mid incense, light, and flowers, The swell of organs and the chime of bells. When hushed the organ's tone, And aisles are lone, And waxen tapers fade, it grows not dim,- It burns most clear and bright, Shedding its constant light alone for Him. Ever before the ark It shines, to mark His presence, to this faith my spirit clings, As once of old, a star Brought wise men from afar Unto the cradle of the King of Kings. And thus, believing heart, Frail as thou art, Before thy day is spent,-thy night-lamps trim: Of love and pure desire, And on its flames aspire to dwell with Him. THE WAY OF THE CROSS. We may scatter our couch with roses, And sleep through the summer day, But the soul that in sloth reposes Is not in the narrow way. If we follow the chart that is given, For the only way to heaven Is the royal way of the Cross. To him who is reared in splendor And the feet that are soft and tender Will shrink from the thorny road; But the bonds of the soul must be riven, And gold must be held as dross; For the only way to heaven Is the royal way of the Cross. We say we will walk to-morrow What heeded the chosen eleven How the fortunes of life might toss, As they followed their Master to heaven By the royal way of the Cross. W.D. Howells. BEFORE THE GATE. They gave the whole long day to idle laughter, To moods of soberness as idle, after, And silences, as idle too as the rest. But when at last upon their way returning, Taciturn, late, and loath, Through the broad meadow in the sunset burning, They reached the gate, one sweet spell hindered them both. Her heart was troubled with a subtile anguish Such as but women know That wait, and lest love speak or speak not languish, Till he said,-man-like nothing comprehending Of all the wondrous guile That women won win themselves with, and bending "And I might open it!" His voice, affrighted At its own daring, faltered under his breath. Then she-whom both his faith and fear enchanted Far beyond words to tell, Feeling her woman's finest wit had wanted The art he had that knew to blunder so well Shyly drew near, a little step, and mocking, "For tea?" she said. "I'm quite worn out with walking: "Yes, thanks, your arm. And will you-open the gate ?" THE FIRST CRICKET. Ah me! is it then true that the year has waxed into waning, And that so soon must remain nothing but lapse and decay,— Earliest cricket, that out of the midsummer midnight complaining, All the faint summer in me takest with subtle dismay? Though thou bringest no dream of frost to the flowers that slumber, Though no tree for its leaves, doomed of thy voice, maketh moan; With the unconscious earth's boded evil my soul thou dost cumber, And in the year's lost youth makest me still lose my own. Answerest thou, that when nights of December are blackest and bleakest, And when the fervid grate feigns me a May in my room, And by my hearthstone gray, as now sad in my garden, thou creakest, Thou wilt again give me all,-dew and fragrance and bloom? Nay, little poet! full many a cricket I have that is willing, Leaving me only the sadder; for never one of my singers Lures back the bee to his feast, calls back the bird to his tree. Hast thou no art can make me believe, while the summer yet lingers, Better than bloom that has been red leaf and sere that must be? IN EARLIEST SPRING. Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death. But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow, Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift. Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire (How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes,Rapture of life ineffable, perfect,—as if in the brier, Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose. |