English

WHEN direful judgments pour in like a flood,
And fields, Alas! are drench'd with human blood;
When armies after armies prostrate lie,
And brother, by his brother's hand must die;
When kingdoms seem to rise, or empires fall,
One great Omnipotent conducts it all;
And those have but a superficial scan,
Who view no higher origin than man.

Be still, methinks I hear J EHOVAH cry,
Be still before your God , and know 'tis I!
'Tis I make peace, and I create stern war,
And ride to battle in my flaming car;

Alone? Not I, indeed! Though thou art gone,
And countless leagues between our paths we see,
I'm not, and never shall be, quite alone
The while one blissful thought
In memory caught
Of thee abides with me.

Mine eye still holds the glory of thy face.
Remembered smiles my solitude rejoice,
And in despite the ban of Time and Space
Within my soul I hear,
Still ringing clear,
The music of thy voice!

Sometimes, across these later years
One memory chaste and holy
Drifts back and makes me love my past
For that sweet reason solely;
Not any tide of time or chance
Bears out of sight the old romance.

No love on earth can satisfy
The dream of child or poet;
I who was happy, guessed it not—
I who am sadder, know it,
Yet—O dear days! O sweet belief!
O so well worth all later grief!

And all fair things, too pure for earth,
And therefore briefly given,—
Lent to us for a passing hour

Everywhere, everywhere, following me;
Taking me by the buttonhole, pulling off my boots, hustling me with the elbows;
Sitting down with me to clams and the chowder-kettle;
Plunging naked at my side into the sleek, irascible surges;
Soothing me with the strain that I neither permit nor prohibit;
Flocking this way and that, reverent, eager, orotund, irrepressible;
Denser than sycamore leaves when the north-winds are scouring Paumanok;
What can I do to restrain them? Nothing, verily nothing.
Everywhere, everywhere, crying aloud for me;

Man has a soul of vast defines,
He burns within with restless fires.
Tossed to and fro his passions fly,
From vanity to vanity.

When swing the morning-glory bells,
By marble pillar wreathing;
When o'er the perfumed violet dells
The morning zephyr's breathing,
That time I wander down a way
That myrtle sweet encloses,
And all about I pry and peep
For Love amongst the Roses.

A rosy brake I see ahead,
In golden vapour flushing;
My steps are winged, and on I speed,
The fragrant fortress crushing.
The dewy petals flutter fast—
The gap to me discloses,
Asleep upon the damask blooms,
Sweet Love amongst the Roses.

There's a feel of all things flowing,
And no power of Earth can bind them;
There's a sense of all things growing,
And through all their forms a glowing
Of the shaping souls behind them.

And the break of beauty heightens
With the swiftening of the motion,
And the soul behind it lightens,
As a gleam of splendor whitens
From a running wave of ocean.

See the still hand of the Shaper,
Moving in the dusk of being:
Burns at first a misty taper,
Like the moon in veil of vapor,
When the rack of night is fleeing.

Death conquers All.
Love conquers Death,
The Conqueror—
And these be They
Who through great tribulation gave
Us Victory.
By faith in deeds and hope and lives
Like Theirs,
Love conquers All.

Her ringlets glistened like the gold of morn,
And framed an oval outline statue fair,
Save where a shell-blush lingered for awhile,
Sending its ripples to the wavy hair.
Upon her features grace had shed its charm,
And in her smile sweetness to naught gave way;
'Twas like a streak of sunshine thrown across
The motionless repose of early day.
No sorrow rested on the calm, pure brow,
But thought held undisputed empire there.
Eyes like the dusky blue of evening skies,
Gazed in a dream or in a quiet prayer;

My friend bade farewell at the Yellow Crane House,
And went down eastward to Willow Valley
Amid the flowers and mists of March.
The lonely sail in the distance
Vanished at last beyond the blue sky.
And I could see only the river
Flowing along the border of heaven.