"My own, whose loss was such sharp gall to drink.
I trust! Yet what are we, that we should think
Eternal peace and rapture must be ours?
Again by fear appalled my spirit cowers
In abject terror on the grave's dark brink.
Can I believe that through a coffin-chink
From dust of me it breaks anew and flowers?
"But nay, I do believe and will attest
That God is good, and on my Saviour's breast
I shall lie safely, when this life is over".
So say thy lips; but thy soul sees above her
No visible heaven of deep joy and rest;
She knoweth not the end of her long quest,
And deathly fears once more about her hover.
'Youth, being eager, may be confident
Of things it really knows not; well content
False rest to follow, and to feed on lies;
But will these for the later years suffice?
I speak not of the unintelligent,
Who go, like sheep, the way their leader went,
But of those souls who have, and use, their eyes.
'That music which of old so loud did seem
Comes faint, as from a dawn-receding dream.
How has it paled — thy hope of future bliss!
Lo, by chill winds thy light extinguished is
Not quite, for by its fluctuating gleam,
Its little, wandering, insufficient beam,
Death has a ghastly look, not really his.
'Were it not best all thought to concentrate
Upon this life in which we work, and wait,
And love, and grieve, and bear. Life is a day,
And death the night that follows it? Nay, nay,
If, when our days of toil we terminate,
We go to be a very part of fate,
Or, no end serving, simply pass away.
'How shall death be, or night be, when we know not That life has ceased in us; that wild winds blow not For us again; for us no more the sun
Fulfils the earth, when winter-time is done;
For us the tender things of Spring they show not;
For us the birds are mute, the rivers flow not
What pain is there in this sweet dissolution?
'A slothful soul, in time of war I slept,
While other men their dangerous outposts kept;
And when you did command me to arise,
And with the light and air familiarize
My spiritual senses, I had crept
Back to my lair, by wholesome winds unswept,
Had you not fixed on Truth my coward eyes.
If life be full of comfort, fair and sweet,
I will be meekly thankful that my feet
Are spared the stones that wound, and as I may
Try to make smooth for others a rougher way;
But should life bitter prove, and incomplete,
This pain of living it is very fleet,
And rest will come with quiet set of day.
'I feel an ardor never felt till now-
A stimulus to work, to keep the vow
I take to help each weary woman and man.
There was no room before in my life's plan
For this my dreams and visions filled it so;
But now I know the way my soul shall go,
Shall I not use it here as best I can?
'Death holds no longer any fear for me,
Now that my hopes and doubts cease equally.
I know, at length, the place I journey to,
I know the work in life I have to do.
This rest of ours is true rest, verily.
O power of undeniable Truth, set free
All souls that from false rest a false joy drew.'
DEAR Love, thou art so far above my song,
It is small wonder that it fears to rise,
Knowing it cannot reach my Paradise ;
Yet ever to dwell here my thoughts among,
Nor try its upward flight would do thee wrong.
What time the lark soars singing to the skies,
We know he falters, know the sweet song dies,
That fain would reach Heaven's gate sustained and strong.
But angels bending from the shining brink
Catch the faint note, and know the poor song fails,
Having no strength to reach their heavenly height;
So listen thou, belovèd, and so think.
More for the earth than Heaven his song avails,
Yet sweetest heard when nearest to God's light.
SAD seems the room, and strangely still, where lies
Some form quite motionless, in which of late
Glad life exulted. Mark the changed estate,
The helpless hands, clasped now in peaceful wise,
The speechless lips, and unbeholding eyes
Which might not look into the eyes of Fate;
And as about the bed you watching wait,
What pleading pity to your spirit cries!
But, surely, yet a sadder thing is this,
To look upon Love's face, where Love lies dead,
While all his memories of pain and bliss,
Thorn-crowned and rose-crowned, watch beside the bed. Gone souls may live again, no man can tell;
But dead Love shall not break Death's awful spell.
HALF robed, with gold hair drooped o'er shoulders white,
She sits as one entranced, with eyes that gaze
Upon the mirrowed beauties of her face;
And through the distances of dark and light
She hears faint music of the coming night;
She hears the murmurs of receding days;
Her future life is veiled in such a haze
As hides, on sultry morns, the sun from sight.
Upon the brink of imminent change she stands,
Glad, yet afraid to look beyond the verge;
She starts, as at the touch of unseen hands;
Love's music grows half anthem and half dirge.
Strange sounds and shadows round her spirit fall,
Yet to herself she stranger seems than all.
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI.
WHERE Sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmèd sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.
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