English

A TENDER child of summers three,
Seeking her little bed at night,
Paused on the dark stair timidly.
“Oh, mother! Take my hand,” said she,
“And then the dark will all be light.”

We older children grope our way
From dark behind to dark before;
And only when our hands we lay,
Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day,
And there is darkness nevermore.

Reach downward to the sunless days
Wherein our guides are blind as we,
And faith is small and hope delays;
Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise,

O STRONG , upwelling prayers of faith,
From inmost founts of life ye start,—
The spirit's pulse, the vital breath
Of soul and heart!

From pastoral toil, from traffic's din,
Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad,
Unheard of man, ye enter in
The ear of God.

Ye brook no forced and measured tasks,
Nor weary rote, nor formal chains;
The simple heart, that freely asks
In love, obtains.

For man the living temple is:
The mercy-seat and cherubim,
And all the holy mysteries,
He bears with him.

Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,
Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,
With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch'd, and the white now gray and ashy,
One wither'd rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;
But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?
Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?
No, while memories subtly play—the past vivid as ever;
For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,
Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:

Dost ask, dear Captain, why from Syme
I have no invitation,
When well he knows he has with him
My first friends in the nation?

Is it because I love to toast,
And round the bottle hurl?
No! there conjecture wild is lost,
For Syme by God's no churl!—

Is 't lest with bawdy jests I bore,
As oft the matter of fact is?
No! Syme the theory can't abhor—
Who loves so well the practice.—

Is it a fear I should avow
Some heresy seditious?
No! Syme (but this is entre nous)
Is quite an old Tiresias.—

There is a book, which we may call
(Its excellence is such)
Alone a library, tho' small;
The ladies thumb it much.

Words none, things num'rous it contains:
And, things with words compar'd,
Who needs be told, that has his brains,
Which merits most regard?

Ofttimes its leaves of scarlet hue
A golden edging boast;
And open'd, it displays to view
Twelve pages at the most.

Nor name, nor title, stamp'd behind,
Adorns its outer part;
But all within 'tis richly lin'd,
A magazine of art.

Not as beholding with our mortal sight
The things unseen, not yet to sense revealed;
Nor yet as those, who in the world delight,
From whom the glorious gospel is concealed;
We walk by faith; while many a vision sweet
Doth cheer us on our path from day to day:
And many a worldly show with grandeur cheat,
And seek to draw us from the narrow way.
The world doth walk by sight; its kingdom here,
To outward view, is builded high, and strong;
It knows not that the Lord is drawing near!
To whom the world and all therein belong;

Hsün-yang on the Yangtze, seeing off a guest at night;
maple leaves, reed flowers, autumn somber and sad:
the host had dismounted, the guest already aboard the boat,
we raised our wine, prepared to drink, though we lacked flutes and strings.
But drunkenness brought no pleasure, we grieved at the imminent parting;
at parting time, vague and vast, the river lay drenched in moonlight.
Suddenly we heard the sound of a lute out on the water;
the host forgot about going home, the guest failed to start on his way.

Fragrance, and I glimpse glory decline and pass;
a slanting wind drives the fine rain to the window cloth.
The last glow of the crab apple is a kingdom of bees,
the fresh green of the weeping willow a swallow's house.
Inside the curtain it's scented, with spring dreams warm;
out in the garden, with no moon, night's sentiments expand.
Yet, however I try, I cannot free myself from idle loneliness;
alone I light a lamp and write a poem on fallen blossoms.

“At your house, at the end of your roof,
the rain pours, and I have stood, getting drenched.
Open the door of your room!”
“There's neither clamp nor lock
on that door. Why should I lock it?
Open it and come in. Am I someone's wife?”

A pair of parent swallows sweep in the blinds,
and I wake from nap dreams in the slow afternoon.
Perspiration moistening the collar, beads of sweat on skin,
dislodged hairpin tangled in side-locks, ample hair droops.
The stitching by the window I'm too languid to resume,
no desire to open a book half read and put away.
Day-lily flowers fragrant outside the railing,
I flutter my silk fan quietly, standing in idleness.