HYMN TO THE NIGHT. Ασπασίη, τρίλλιστος. I HEARD the trailing garments of the Night I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light I felt her presence by its spell of might, The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love. I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, From the cool cisterns of the midnight air The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,- O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear Thou layst thy finger on the lips of Care, Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! The welcome, the thrice-prayed-for, the most fair, The best-beloved Night! A PSALM OF LIFE. WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST. TELL me not, in mournful numbers, Life is real! Life is earnest ! And the grave is not its goal; Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! THE LIGHT OF STARS. THE night is come, but not too soon; All silently, the little moon Drops down behind the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven, Is it the tender star of love? The star of love and dreams? O no! from that blue tent above, And earnest thoughts within me rise, Suspended in the evening skies, The shield of that red star. 1 O star of strength! I see thee stand Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand, Within my breast there is no light, The star of the unconquered will, And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art, O fear not in a world like this, THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS. THERE is a Reaper, whose name is Death, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, "Shall I have nought that is fair?" saith he; Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves; It was for the Lord of Paradise He bound them in his sheaves. "My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," The Reaper said, and smiled; "Dear tokens of the earth are they, Where he was once a child. "They shall all bloom in fields of light, Transplanted by my care, And saints, upon their garments white, And the mother gave, in tears and pain, O, not in cruelty, not in wrath, 'Twas an angel visited the green earth, And took the flowers away. FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS. WHEN the hours of Day are numbered, Ere the evening lamps are lighted, Then the forms of the departed He, the young and strong, who cherished They, the holy ones and weakly, With a slow and noiseless footstep And she sits and gazes at me With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies. Uttered not, yet comprehended, O, though oft depressed and lonely, Such as these have lived and died! FLOWERS. SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden, Stars they are, wherein we read our history, Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, Bright and glorious is that revelation, Written all over this great world of ours; Making evident our own creation, In these stars of earth,--these golden flowers. And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part Of the self-same, universal being, Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues, These in flowers and men are more than seeming; Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming, Seeth in himself and in the flowers. |