“Arise, Shine, For Thy Light Has Come.”

LONG time in sloth, long time in sin, Contented with thy dark estate Hast thou abode, O soul of mine; Now dawns the morning, fair though late, Her sunny tides are sweeping in. Thy light has come; arise and shine!

The sheathèd bud which all night long Has folded close its purple up Upon the morning-glory vine; At the first rose-flush, the first song, Unrolls its petals, rears its cup, And, light being come, makes haste to shine.

It cannot clasp the whole bright day, Nor the wide-brimming sea of dew Within its curve exact and fine. Of countless beams a single ray, One little freshening sip or two, It takes, and so is glad to shine.

Make ready likewise, O my soul! God’s blessed day has dawned; partake! Anoint thy head with oil and wine; From the great sum, the mighty whole, Thy little crumb and portion break, And, giving thanks, arise and shine!

A WITHERED VIOLET.

I PLUCKED a purple violet, Its petals were all dewy wet, I held it tightly for an hour, And then I dropped the faded flower; Dropped it and lost unconsciously, Scarce thinking of the how or why. ’Twas hours since, but my fingers yet Are scented with the violet; The fragrant spell, invisible, Has caught and holds me in it’s sway. I would not flee if flight might be; The violet still rules my day.

I plucked a flower when life was young, I chose it all the flowers among. It was so fresh, it was so fair, Heaven’s very dew seemed cradled there; A little while it smiled in morn, And then it withered and was gone. ’Tis long years since, but every hour I taste the perfume of that flower. Still it endures, and all day pours A balm of fragrance on the way. I catch its breath high over death; A memory still rules my day.

DARKENED.

HIGH in the windy lighthouse tower The lamps are burning free, Each sending with good-will and power Its message o’er the sea, Where ships are sailing out of sight, Hidden in storm and cloud and night.

On the white waves that seethe and dash A ruddy gleam is shed; Above, the lighted windows flash Alternate gold and red, Save where one sad and blinded glass Forbids the happy light to pass.

The hungry sea entreats the light, The struggling light is fain, But obdurate and blank as night Rises the darkened pane, Casting a shadow long and black Along the weltering ocean track.

Ah, who shall say what drowning eyes Yearn for that absent ray; What unseen fleets and argosies, Ploughing a doubtful way, Seek through the night, and grope and strain For guidance from that darkened pane?

Ah, Light Divine, so full, so free! Ah, world that lies in night! Ah, guiding radiance! shine through me Brightly and still more bright, Nor ever be thy rays in vain Because I am a “darkened pane.”

THE KEYS OF GRANADA.

’TIS centuries since they were torn away, Those sad-faced Moors from their belovèd Spain; In long procession to the wind-swept bay, With sobs and muttered curses, fierce with pain, They took their woful road and never came again.

Behind them lay the homes of their delight, The marble courtyards and cool palaces, Where fountains flashed and shimmered day and night ’Neath dusk and silver blooms of blossoming trees. They closed the echoing doors, and bore away the keys.

Palace and pleasure-garden are forgot; The marble walls have crumbled long ago; Their site, their ownership, remembered not, And helpless wrath alike and hopeless woe Are cooled and comforted by Time’s all-healing flow.

But still the children of those exiled Moors, A sad transplanted stem on alien shore, Keep as their trust—and will while time endures— The rusty keys which their forefathers bore; The keys of those shut doors which ne’er shall open more.

The doors are dust, but yet the hope lives on; The walls are dust, but memories cannot die; And still each sad-faced father tells his son Of the lost homes, the blue Granadian sky, The glory and the wrong of those old days gone by.

Ah, keys invisible of happy doors Which long ago our own hands fastened tight! We treasure them as do those hapless Moors, Though dust the palaces of our delight, Vacant and bodiless and vanished quite.

Keys of our dear, dead hopes, we prize them still, Wet them with tears, embalm with useless sighs; And at their sight and touch our pulses still Waken and throb, and under alien skies We taste the airs of home and gaze in long-closed eyes.

BEREAVED.

WHEN Lazarus from his three days’ tomb Fronted with dazzled eyes the day, And all the amazèd crowd made room, As, wrapped in shroud, he went his way, His sisters daring scarce to touch His hand, their wonderment was such;

When friends and kindred met at meat, And in the midst the man just dead Sat in his old-time wonted seat, And poured the wine and shared the bread With the old gesture that they knew,— Were they all glad, those sisters two?

Did they not guess a hidden pain In the veiled eyes which shunned their gaze; A dim reproach, a pale disdain For human joys and human ways; A loneliness too deep for speech, Which all their love might never reach?

And as the slowly ebbing days Went by, and Lazarus went and came Still with the same estrangèd gaze, His loneliness and loss the same, Did they not whisper as they grieved, “We are consoled—and he bereaved”?

Oh, weeper by a new-heaped mound, Who vexes Heaven with outcries vain, That, if but for one short hour’s round, Thy heart’s desire might come again,— The buried form, the vanished face, The silent voice, the dear embrace,—

Think if he came, as Lazarus did, But came reluctant, with surprise, And sat familiar things amid With a new distance in his eyes, A distance death had failed to set,— If hearts met not when bodies met!

If when you smiled you heard him sigh, And when you spoke he only heard As men absorbed hear absently The idle chirping of a bird, As, rapt in thoughts surpassing speech, His mind moved on beyond your reach;

And still your joy was made his pain, And still the distance wider grew, His daily loss your daily gain, Himself become more strange to you Than when your following soul sought his In the vast secret distances;—

If, death once tasted, life seemed vain To please or tempt or satisfy, And all his longing was again To be released and free to die, To get back to scarce-tasted bliss,— What grief could be so sharp as this?