All the flowers are praying For sun, before they close, And he prays too--unconscious--
That sunless human rose.
Blossom--that the west-wind Has never wooed to blow, Scentless are thy petals, Thy dew is cold as snow!
Soul--where kindred kindness, No early promise woke, Barren is thy beauty, As weed upon a rock.
Wither--soul and blossom!
You both were vainly given;Earth reserves no blessing For the unblest of heaven!
Child of delight, with sun-bright hair, And sea-blue, sea-deep eyes!
Spirit of bliss! What brings thee here Beneath these sullen skies?
Thou shouldst live in eternal spring, Where endless day is never dim;Why, Seraph, has thine erring wing Wafted thee down to weep with him?
"Ah! not from heaven am I descended, Nor do I come to mingle tears;But sweet is day, though with shadows blended;And, though clouded, sweet are youthful years.
"I--the image of light and gladness--
Saw and pitied that mournful boy, And I vowed--if need were--to share his sadness, And give to him my sunny joy.
"Heavy and dark the night is closing;Heavy and dark may its biding be:
Better for all from grief reposing, And better for all who watch like me--
"Watch in love by a fevered pillow, Cooling the fever with pity's balm Safe as the petrel on tossing billow, Safe in mine own soul's golden calm!
"Guardian-angel he lacks no longer;Evil fortune he need not fear:
Fate is strong, but love is stronger;And MY love is truer than angel-care."
THE VISIONARY.
Silent is the house: all are laid asleep:
One alone looks out o'er the snow-wreaths deep, Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze That whirls the wildering drift, and bends the groaning trees.
Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor;Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door;The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far:
I trim it well, to be the wanderer's guiding-star.
Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame!
Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame:
But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know, What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow.
What I love shall come like visitant of air, Safe in secret power from lurking human snare;What loves me, no word of mine shall e'er betray, Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay Burn, then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear--
Hush! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air:
He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me;Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.
ENCOURAGEMENT.
I do not weep; I would not weep;Our mother needs no tears:
Dry thine eyes, too; 'tis vain to keep This causeless grief for years.
What though her brow be changed and cold, Her sweet eyes closed for ever?
What though the stone--the darksome mould Our mortal bodies sever?
What though her hand smooth ne'er again Those silken locks of thine?
Nor, through long hours of future pain, Her kind face o'er thee shine?
Remember still, she is not dead;She sees us, sister, now;Laid, where her angel spirit fled, 'Mid heath and frozen snow.
And from that world of heavenly light Will she not always bend To guide us in our lifetime's night, And guard us to the end?
Thou knowest she will; and thou mayst mourn That WE are left below:
But not that she can ne'er return To share our earthly woe.
STANZAS.
Often rebuked, yet always back returning To those first feelings that were born with me, And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning For idle dreams of things which cannot be:
To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;And visions rising, legion after legion, Bring the unreal world too strangely near.
I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces, And not in paths of high morality, And not among the half-distinguished faces, The clouded forms of long-past history.
I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.
What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.
The following are the last lines my sister Emily ever wrote:-
No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life--that in me has rest, As I--undying Life--have power in thee!
Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main, To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by thine infinity;So surely anchored on The stedfast rock of immortality.
With wide-embracing love Thy spirit animates eternal years, Pervades and broods above, Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.
Though earth and man were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou were left alone, Every existence would exist in Thee.
There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou--THOU art Being and Breath, And what THOU art may never be destroyed.
*
SELECTIONS FROM POEMS BY ACTON BELL.
