He led me to her and let me speak, How am I wrong in adoring her, (Tira-la-la on my bugle horn!) And what other song can I sing to-day?— By folds and fields and meadows. A Psalm in Autumn. SET to thy seal that God is true. Of all His words what word has failed? Has He not watched thee hitherto, And in thy danger brought thee through, Though feet have slipped and heart has quailed? Hast thou not seen how He provides What thou hast shared thou still shalt share? And peering blindly through the dark, Fate. HIGH in the spaces of sky Change and re-birth and decay, Lost in a pitiless night. Men are like children who play She waits the eternal She. Nay, but the gods are afraid Of the hoary Mother's nod; They have seen dynasties fall Her no upheavals appal- Silent, unmoved and serene, Hereafter. οὖλος ὁρᾶ, οὖλος δὲ νοει οὖλος δὲ τ ̓ ἀκούει. XENOPHANES. "There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest."-ECCLESIASTES ix. 10. I WAIT for thee, beloved: and my heart, Merged in the ocean of infinitude Wherein all thoughts and hopes and passions brood In dreamful slumber mid a world apart, Dreams of that mortal sphere, where still thou art ; Yet if thou camest where the unmoving main I think thy love, changing the changeless scene, Might spread in widening circles, more and more, Might waken passion's cry for what had been, And fire the ancient pulse of joy and pain. Death. GRIEF, and the ache of things that pass and fade, Our save eyes from tears, nor make us less afraid Of that dread mystery which God has made: How many thousand thousand men who wave Know well the mockery of Death's parade? This cannot help us to transgress the bounds, Ramparts of Heaven which God's angels keep: Wide is the "great gulf fixed": for us the mounds Of fresh-turned earth; above, sweet peace surrounds The painless patience of eternal sleep. |