“There Will Be Silence Here, Love.”

There will be silence here, love, in the slow Long summer months when there are none to break The stillness with the laugh of those who wake New-born each day to joy; and yet I know The stillness cannot be so still, or grow So deeply soundless, but that for my sake The memory-haunted, lonely rooms will take Some echo of my vanished voice;--even so, Amid the scenes to which I have no choice But go without thee, dearest, there will be No gayety so gay, no glad light glee Wherein with others I, too, must rejoice, But through it all my heart will make for me Silence, wherein I shall but hear thy voice.

FAITH IN WORKS.

My faith begins where your religion ends: In service to mankind. This single thread Is given to guide us through the maze of life. You start at one end, I the other;--you, With eyes fixed only upon God, begin With lofty faith, and seeking but to know And do His will who guides the universe, You find the slender and mysterious thread Leads down to earth, with God’s divine command To help your fellow-men; but this to me Is something strangely vague; I see alone The fellow-men, the suffering fellow-men. Yet with a cup of water in my hand For all who thirst, who knows but I one day, Following faithfully the slender thread, May reach its other end, and kneel at last With you in heaven at the feet of God?

“No. 33--A PORTRAIT.”

FOR R. H. L.

With careless step I wander through the hall Scarce heeding many a work of lovely art; Till with a sudden thrill my listless heart Leaps up to greet upon a stranger’s wall Those dear remembered eyes;--her face, with all The dreamy charm that made so sweet a part Of my life once;--and tender memories start To meet her at her unexpected call. True portrait of the unforgotten face, How do I thank thee, that dost give me here Tidings from her, so distant yet still dear To me;--for as I bid the painting tell If all be well with her, its pictured grace Answers beyond all doubting, “It is well!”

LONGING.

Not high above us with the pitiless stars, Nor deep below us in the soundless sea, Nor far away to east or westward, lie The little things we long for. Here they are; Close to our hands, the eager, restless hands That fain would grasp them; and no fetters bind The wistful fingers; no relentless fate Tells us we must not; we are wholly free To take them if we choose. And yet--and yet-- We dare not! lest the soul should wake some day, Years hence, perhaps, to sense of other needs. God save us ever from those sudden moods When all life narrows to a single point, And when the poor heart seizes its desire. Only to wake to deeper restlessness. But after all, what matter? would it be Harder to wake years hence to sense of thirst Than to stand thirsty now? for sunny wine Sparkles before us, and a precious pearl, Eager to lose its life upon our lips, Waits but our instant grasping to dissolve Its costly beauty in the nectar. Nay! We have no right to the white lovely pearl. God give us strength not to stretch out our hands! See! they are slipping slowly from our reach-- Fading into the darkness-- They are gone-- The little things we longed for!

THE NEW DAY.

Supreme through all the hours of the day I hold one sweetest: not the day or hour, Dear, when you came to me; nor yet the flower Of perfect days, though that is sweet alway, When your love came to me; I cannot say Why these are not divinest in their power; Yet as each new day comes, it brings for dower One moment whose rich gladness will outweigh All others: that first moment when the night Yields to the daylight’s clear and vivid blue; And waking to things real from things that seem, My eager eyes unclose to the fair light, Still undeceived; to find their visions true, And that your love for me was not my dream.

CONFESSION.

The eager year Is passing, with its triumphs and defeats. Alike earth rests from labor and from joy; Hushing each tiniest insect, wearing now No careless ornament of flower or leaf; Reaching her pleading arms up to the sky In longing for its silent chrism of snow In benediction; like a weary heart, That worn with spent emotion, sinks at last Into exhaustion that almost seems rest. Not brooding over her lost violets, High in her hands upon the leafless trees She holds the woodbine, swaying in the wind, A crimson rosary of remembered sins.

How shall we keep this solemn festival, Thou, O my heart, and I? have we no sins It would be well, confessing here to-night, To know forgiven? Not to some gentle friend Whose tenderness ere half the tale were told Would silence it with kisses; but before A more severe tribunal in my own Exacting soul, that could endure no blot Upon the scutcheon of its spotless truth. Not without hope of pardon; for the soul Is sponsor to the heart; if she can tell Of purest purpose loftily upheld, We need not be so sad, my heart and I, To wear a little while upon our breast The crimson rosary. And when the soul Shall speak at last the full “Absolvo te,” Then will we lay forevermore aside These memories of fault. Earth does not wear Her scarlet woodbine all the year, to pain Her beating heart with constant self-reproach. Content with frank and full confession once, The trembling vine, with sighing of the wind, Drops slowly, one by one, its deep red leaves. So having won forgiveness from myself, Listening I hear the far-off harmonies Of solemn chant in heaven: “Though thy sins Had been as scarlet, they shall be like wool.” God’s benediction calms my troubled heart, Pained with its consciousness of frailty, Even as upon the fading crimson leaves Fall tenderly the first white flakes of snow.