HARRIET E. HAMILTON KING

FROM "THE DISCIPLES"

Born 1840

And now I speak, not with the bird's free voice,
Who wakens the first mornings of the year
With low sweet pipings, dropped among the dew;
Then stops and ceases, saying, "All the spring
And summer lies before me; I will sleep;
And sing a little louder, while the green
Builds up the scattered spaces of the boughs;
And faster, while the grasses grow to flower
Beneath my music; let the full song grow
With the full year, till the heart too is filled."

But as the Swan (who has pass'd through the spring,
And found it snow still in the white North land,

And over perilous wilds of Northern seas,
White wings above the white and wintry waves,
Has won, through night and battle of the blasts,
Breathless, alone, without one note or cry)

Sinks into summer by a land at last;

And knows his wings are broken, and the floods
Will bear him with them whither God shall will;-

And knows he has one hour between the tides;
And sees the salt and silent marshes spread
Before him outward to the shining sea,
Whereon was never any music heard.—

I am not proud for anything of mine,
Done, dreamed, or suffered, but for this alone:
That the great orb of that great human soul
Did once deflect and draw this orb of mine,
(In the shadow of it, not the sunward side),
Until it touched and trembled on the line
By which my orbit crossed the plane of his ;
And heard the music of that glorious sphere
Resound a moment; and so passed again,
Vibrating with it, out on its own way;
Where, intertwined with others, it may yet
Spin through its manifold mazes of ellipse,
Amid the clangour of a myriad more,
Revolving, and the dimness of the depths
Remotest, through the shadows without shape,
Arcs of aphelion, silences of snow:

But henceforth doth no more go spiritless,

But knows its own pole through the whirling ways, And hath beheld the Angel of the Sun,

And yearns to it, and follows thereunto;

And feels the conscious thrill that doth transmute
Inertia to obedience, underneath

The ordered sway of balanced counter-force,
That speedeth all life onward through all space;
And hears the key-note of all various worlds,
Caught and combined in one vast harmony,
And floated down the perfect Heavens of God.

FROM "AGESILAO MILANO”

Sunrise and it is summer, and the morning

Waits glorified

An hour hence, when the cool clear rose-cloud gathers
About heaven's eastern side,

And down the azure grottoes where the bathers
Loose the tired limbs, a lovely light will glide.

Fold after fold the winding waves of opal

The sands will drown;

And when the morning-star amid the pearly

Light of the east goes down,

Then my star shall arise, and late and early

Shine for a jewel in the Master's crown.

Mazzini, Master, singer of the sunrise!

Knowest thou me?

I held thy hand once, and the summer lightning Still of thy smile I see;

Me thou rememberest not amidst the heightening Vision of God, and of God's Will to be.

But thou wilt hear of me, by noon to-morrow,
And henceforth I

Shall be to thee a memory and a token

Out of the starry sky;

And when my soul unto thy soul hath spoken, Enough, I shall not wholly pass nor die.

Italia, when thou comest to thy kingdom,
Remember me!

Me, who on this thy night of shame and sorrow
Was scourged and slain with thee;

Me, who upon thy resurrection morrow

Shall stand among thy sons beside thy knee.

Shalt thou not be one day, indeed, O Mother,
Enthroned of all,

To the world's vision as to ours now only,
At Rome for festival;

Around thee gathered all thy lost and lonely

And loyal ones, that failed not at thy call.

With golden lyre, or violet robe of mourning,

Or battle-scar ;

And one shall stand more glorious than the others,

He of the Morning-Star,

Whose face lights all the faces of his brothers,
Out of the silvery northern land afar.

But grant to me there, unto all beholders,

Bare to the skies,

To stand with bleeding hands, and feet, and shoulders,
And rapt, unflinching eyes,

And locked lips, yielding to the question-holders
Nor moanings, nor beseechings, nor replies.

Is the hour hard? Too soon it will be over,

Too sweet, too sore;

The arms of Death fold over me with rapture,
Life knew not heretofore;

Heaven will be peace, but I shall not recapture,

The passion of this hour, for evermore.