For while the inexorable years

To saddened features fit their mould,
Beneath the work of time and tears

Waits something that will not grow old!

The rifted pine upon the hill,

Scarred by the lightning and the wind,
Through bolt and blight doth nurture still
Young fibres underneath the rind;

And many a storm-blast, fiercely sent,
And wasted hope, and sinful stain,
Roughen the strange integument

The struggling soul must wear in pain;

Yet when she comes to claim her own,
Heaven's angels, happy, shall not ask
For that last look the world hath known,
But for the face behind the mask!

SPARROWS.

Little birds sit on the telegraph-wires,

And chitter, and flitter, and fold their wings;

Maybe they think that for them and their sires

Stretched always, on purpose, those wonderful strings:

And perhaps the Thought that the world inspires,
Did plan for the birds, among other things.

Little birds sit on the slender lines,

And the news of the world runs under their feet:

How value rises, and how declines,

How kings with their armies in battle meet;

And all the while, 'mid the soundless signs,

They chirp their small gossipings, foolish-sweet.

Little things light on the lines of our lives,—

Hopes, and joys, and acts of to-day;
And we think that for these the Lord contrives,
Nor catch what the hidden lightnings say.

Yet from end to end his meaning arrives,

And his word runs underneath all the way.

Is life only wires and lightnings then,

Apart from that which about it clings?

Are the thoughts, and the works, and the prayers of men Only sparrows that light on God's telegraph-strings, Holding a moment, and gone again?

Nay; He planned for the birds, with the larger things.

"I WILL ABIDE IN THINE HOUSE."

Among so many, can He care?
Can special love be everywhere?
A myriad homes,—a myriad ways,—
And God's eye over every place.

Over; but in? The world is full;
A grand omnipotence must rule;
But is there life that doth abide
With mine own loving, side by side?

So many, and so wide abroad;
Can any heart have all of God?
From the great spaces, vague and dim,
May one small household gather Him?

I asked my soul bethought of this:—
In just that very place of his
Where He, hath put and keepeth you,
God hath no other thing to do.

A sound as if from bells of silver,
Or elfin cymbals smitten clear,
Through the frost-pictured panes I hear.

A brightness which outshines the morning,
A splendor brooking no delay,
Beckons and tempts my feet away.

I leave the trodden village highway

For virgin snow-paths glimmering through
A jeweled elm-tree avenue;

Where, keen against the walls of sapphire,
The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed,
Hold up their chandeliers of frost.

I tread in Orient halls enchanted,

I dream the Saga's dream of caves
Gem-lit beneath the North Sea waves!

I walk the land of Eldorado,

I touch its mimic garden bowers,

Its silver leaves and diamond flowers!

The flora of the mystic mine-world
Around me lifts on crystal stems
The petals of its clustered gems!

What miracle of weird transforming

Is this wild work of frost and light,
This glimpse of glory infinite!

This foregleam of the Holy City

Like that to him of Patmos given,

The white bride coming down from heaven!

How flash the ranked and mail-clad alders,

Through what sharp-glancing spears of reeds
The brook its muffled water leads!

Yon maple, like the bush of Horeb,

Burns unconsumed: a white, cold fire
Rays out from every grassy spire.

Each slender rush and spike of mullein,
Low laurel shrub and drooping fern,
Transfigured, blaze where'er I turn.

How yonder Ethiopian hemlock

Crowned with his glistening circlet stands!
What jewels light his swarthy hands!

Here, where the forest opens southward,
Between its hospitable pines,

As through a door, the warm sun shines.

The jewels loosen on the branches,

And lightly, as the soft winds blow,

Fall, tinkling, on the ice below.

And through the clashing of their cymbals I hear the old familiar fall

Of water down the rocky wall,

Where, from its wintry prison breaking,
In dark and silence hidden long,
The brook repeats its summer song,

One instant flashing in the sunshine,
Keen as a sabre from its sheath,
Then lost again the ice beneath.

I hear the rabbit lightly leaping,

The foolish screaming of the jay,
The chopper's axe-stroke far away;

The clamor of some neighboring barn-yard,
The lazy cock's belated crow,
Or cattle-tramp in crispy snow.

And, as in some enchanted forest

The lost knight hears his comrades sing,
And, near at hand, their bridles ring,

So welcome I these sounds and voices, These airs from far-off summer blown, This life that leaves me not alone.

For the white glory overawes me;
The crystal terror of the seer
Of Chebar's vision blinds me here.

Rebuke me not, O sapphire heaven!

Thou stainless earth, lay not on me
Thy keen reproach of purity,