Purple headland over yonder,
 Fleecy, sun-extinguished moon,
I am here alone, and ponder
 On the theme of Afternoon.

Past has made a groove for Present,
 And what fits it is : no more.
Waves before the wind are weighty;
 Strongest sea-beats shape the shore.

Just what is is just what can be,
 And the Possible is free;
'Tis by being, not by effort,
 That the firm cliff juts to sea.

With an uncontentious calmness
 Drifts the Fact before the ‘Law’;
So we name the ordered sequence
 We, remembering, foresaw.

The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;
A Thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his perch.
" Happy be! for fair are ye! " the gentle singer told them,
But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.
" Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity! "
Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee,
Half parson-like, half soldierly.

The sweet-faced maidens trembled, with pretty, pinky blushes,
Convinced that it was wicked to listen to the Thrushes;

The purest soul that e'er was sent
Into a clayey tenement
Informed this dust, but the weak mould
Could the great guest no longer hold;
The substance was too pure, the flame
Too glorious, that thither came:
Ten thousand Cupids brought along
A grace on each wing, that did throng
For place there, till they all oppressed
The seat in which they sought to rest;
So the fair model broke, for want
Of room to lodge th' inhabitant.

Purer in heart, O God,
Help me to be;
May I devote my life
Wholly to Thee
Watch Thou my wayward feet
Guide me with counsel sweet;
Purer in heart, help me to be.

Purer in heart, O God,
Help me to be;
Teach me to do Thy will
Most lovingly.
Be Thou My Friend and Guide,
Let me with Thee, abide
Purer in heart, help me to be.

Purer in heart, O God
Help me to be;
That I Thy holy Face
One day may see.
Keep me from secret sin,
Reign Thou my soul within;
Purer in heart, help me to be.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.

O Man, forgive thy mortal foe,
Nor ever strike him blow for blow;
For all the souls on earth that live
To be forgiven must forgive.
Forgive him seventy times and seven:
For all the blessed souls in Heaven
Are both forgivers and forgiven!

The pure air trembles, O pitiless God,
The air aches with flame on these gaunt rocks
Over the flat sea's face, the forest
Shakes in gales of piercing light.

But the altars are behind and higher
Where the great hills raise naked heads,
Pale agonists in the reverberance
Of the pure air and the pitiless God.

On the domed skull of every hill
Who stand blazing with spread vans,
The arms uplifted, the eyes in ecstasy?

What wine has the God drunk, to sing
Violently in heaven, what wine his worshippers

O love of God, how strong and true;
Eternal and yet ever new,
Uncomprehended and unbought,
Beyond all knowledge and all thought.

O love of God, how deep and great!
Far deeper than man's deepest hate;
Self-fed, self-kindled like the light,
Changeless, eternal, infinite.

O heavenly love, how precious still,
In days of weariness and ill!
In nights of pain and helplessness,
To heal, to comfort, and to bless.

O wide-embracing, wondrous love,
We read thee in the sky above,
We read thee in the earth below,

Come from the woods with the citron flowers,
Come with your lyres for the festal hours,
Maids of bright Scio! They came, and the breeze
Bore their sweet songs o'er the Grecian seas; —
They came, and Eudora stood robed and crown'd,
The bride of the morn, with her train around.
Jewels flash'd out from her braided hair,
Like starry dews 'midst the roses there;
Pearls on her bosom quivering shone,
Heaved by her heart through its golden zone;
But a brow, as those gems of the ocean pale,
Gleam'd from beneath her transparent veil;

We saw thee, O stranger, and wept!
We look'd for the youth of the sunny glance,
Whose step was the fleetest in chase or dance!
The light of his eye was a joy to see,
The path of his arrows a storm to flee!
But there came a voice from a distant shore:
He was call'd—he is found 'midst his tribes no more!
He is not in his place when the night-fires burn,
But we look for him still—he will yet return!
His brother sat with a drooping brow
In the gloom of the shadowing cypress bough:
We roused him—we bade him no longer pine,