Spirituality

Now Morning from her orient chamber came,
And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill;
Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,
Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill;
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill,
And after parting beds of simple flowers,
By many streams a little lake did fill,
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,
And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.

There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright
Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below;
Whose silken fins, and golden scales' light
Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow:
There saw the swan his neck of arched snow,
And oar'd himself along with majesty;
Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show
Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony,
And on his back a ...

Yes, if the intensities of hope and fear
Attract us still, and passionate exercise
Of lofty thoughts, the way before us lies
Distinct with signs, through which in set career,
As through a zodiac, moves the ritual year
Of England's Church; stupendous mysteries!
Which whoso travels in her bosom eyes,
As he approaches them, with solemn cheer.
Upon that circle traced from sacred story
We only dare to cast a transient glance,
Trusting in hope that Others may advance
With mind intent upon the King of Glory,
From his mild advent till his countenance
Shall dissipate the seas and mountains hoary.

Three Souls there were that reached the Heavenly Gate,
And gained permission of the Guard to wait.
Barred from the bliss of Paradise by sin,
They did not ask or hope to enter in.
'We loved one woman (thus their story ran);
We lost her, for she chose another man.
So great our love, it brought us to this door;
We only ask to see her face once more.
Then will we go to realms where we belong,
And pay our penalty for doing wrong.'

'And wert thou friends on earth?'    (The Guard spake thus.)
'Nay, we were foes; but Death made friends of us.
The dominating thought within each Soul
Brought us together, comrades, to this goal,
To see her face, and in its radiance bask
For one great moment - that is all we ask.
And, having seen her, we must journey back
The p...

One morning (raw it was and wet
A foggy day in winter time)
A Woman on the road I met,
Not old, though something past her prime:
Majestic in her person, tall and straight;
And like a Roman matron's was her mien and gait.

The ancient spirit is not dead;
Old times, thought I, are breathing there;
Proud was I that my country bred
Such strength, a dignity so fair:
She begged an alms, like one in poor estate;
I looked at her again, nor did my pride abate.

When from these lofty thoughts I woke,
"What is it," said I, "that you bear,
Beneath the covert of your Cloak,
Protected from this cold damp air? "
She answered, soon as she the question heard,
"A simple burthen, Sir, a little Singing-bird."

And, thus continuing, she said,
"I had a...

1.

One morn before me were three figures seen,
I With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp'd serene,
In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;
They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,
When shifted round to see the other side;
They came again; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
And they were strange to me, as may betide
With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

2.

How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?
How came ye muffled in so hush a masque?
Was it a silent deep-disguised plot
To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;
The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
Pain ha...

On the river of life, as I float along,
    I see with the spirit's sight
That many a nauseous weed of wrong
    Has root in a seed of right.
For evil is good that has gone astray,
    And sorrow is only blindness,
And the world is always under the sway
    Of a changeless law of kindness.

The commonest error a truth can make
    Is shouting its sweet voice hoarse,
And sin is only the soul's mistake
    In misdirecting its force.
And love, the fairest of all fair things
    That ever to man descended,
Grows rank with nettles and poisonous things
    Unless it is watched and tended.

There could not be anything better than this
    Old world in the way it began;
And though some matters have gone amiss
    From the great original plan,<...

You call me an angel of love and of light,
    A being of goodness and heavenly fire,
Sent out from God's kingdom to guide you aright,
    In paths where your spirit may mount and aspire,
You say that I glow like a star on its course,
Like a ray from the altar, a spark from the source.

Now list to my answer - let all the world hear it,
    I speak unafraid what I know to be true -
A pure, faithful love is the creative spirit
    Which make women angels!    I live but in you.
We are bound soul to soul by life's holiest laws;
If I am an angel - why, you are the cause.

As my ship skims the sea, I look up from the deck.
    Fair, firm at the wheel shines Love's beautiful form.
And shall I curse the bark that last night went to wreck
    By the pilot abandon...

Troubled long with warring notions
Long impatient of thy rod,
I resign my soul's emotions
Unto Thee, mysterious God!

What avails the kindly shelter
Yielded by this craggy rent,
If my spirit toss and welter
On the waves of discontent?

Parching Summer hath no warrant
To consume this crystal Well;
Rains, that make each rill a torrent,
Neither sully it nor swell.

Thus, dishonouring not her station,
Would my Life present to Thee,
Gracious God, the pure oblation
Of divine tranquillity!

Midsummer midnight skies,
Midsummer midnight influences and airs,
The shining sensitive silver of the sea
Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn:
And all so solemnly still I seem to hear
The breathing of Life and Death,
The secular Accomplices,
Renewing the visible miracle of the world.

The wistful stars
Shine like good memories.    The young morning wind
Blows full of unforgotten hours
As over a region of roses.    Life and Death
Sound on, sound on. . . . And the night magical,
Troubled yet comforting, thrills
As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart
Of the wood's dark wonderment
Swung wide his valves and filled the dim sea-banks
With exquisite visitants:
Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires
With living looks intolerable, ...

Day.

I am Day; I bring again
Life and glory, Love and pain:
Awake, arise! from death to death
Through me the World's tale quickeneth.

Spring.

Spring am I, too soft of heart
Much to speak ere I depart:
Ask the Summer-tide to prove
The abundance of my love.

Summer.

Summer looked for long am I;
Much shall change or e'er I die.
Prithee take it not amiss
Though I weary thee with bliss.

Autumn.

Laden Autumn here I stand
Worn of heart, and weak of hand:
Nought but rest seems good to me,
Speak the word that sets me free.

Winter.

I am Winter, that do keep
Longing safe amidst of sleep:
Who shall say if I were dead
What should be remembered?

In these rapid, restless shadows,
Once I walked at eventide,
When a gentle, silent maiden,
Walked in beauty at my side
She alone there walked beside me
All in beauty, like a bride.

Pallidly the moon was shining
On the dewy meadows nigh;
On the silvery, silent rivers,
On the mountains far and high
On the ocean’s star-lit waters,
Where the winds a-weary die.

Slowly, silently we wandered
From the open cottage door,
Underneath the elm’s long branches
To the pavement bending o’er;
Underneath the mossy willow
And the dying sycamore.

With the myriad stars in beauty
All bedight, the heavens were seen,
Radiant hopes were bright around me,
Like the light of stars serene;
Like the mellow midnight splendor
Of the Night’...

Lead gently, Lord, and slow,
For oh, my steps are weak,
And ever as I go,
Some soothing sentence speak;

That I may turn my face
Through doubt's obscurity
Toward thine abiding-place,
E'en tho' I cannot see.

For lo, the way is dark;
Through mist and cloud I grope,
Save for that fitful spark,
The little flame of hope.

Lead gently, Lord, and slow,
For fear that I may fall;
I know not where to go
Unless I hear thy call.

My fainting soul doth yearn
For thy green hills afar;
So let thy mercy burn--
My greater, guiding star!

Thanks to the morning light,
Thanks to the foaming sea,
To the uplands of New Hampshire,
To the green-haired forest free;
Thanks to each man of courage,
To the maids of holy mind,
To the boy with his games undaunted
Who never looks behind.

Cities of proud hotels,
Houses of rich and great,
Vice nestles in your chambers,
Beneath your roofs of slate.
It cannot conquer folly,--
Time-and-space-conquering steam,--
And the light-outspeeding telegraph
Bears nothing on its beam.

The politics are base;
The letters do not cheer;
And 'tis far in the deeps of history,
The voice that speaketh clear.
Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.

If heart be tired and soul be sad
As life goes on in homespun clad,
Drab, colorless, with much of care,
Not even a ribbon in her hair;
Heart-broken for the near and new,
And sick to do what others do,
And quit the road of toil and tears,
Doffing the burden of the years:
And if beside you one should rise,
Doubt, with a menace, in its eyes
What then?
Why, look Life in the face;
And there again you may retrace
The dream that once in youth you had
When life was full of hope and glad,
And knew no doubt, no dread, that trails
In darkness by, and sighs, "All fails!"
And in its every look and breath
A shudder, old as night, that saith,
With something of finality,
"There is no immortality!"
Confusing faith who stands alone
Like a green tre...

All roads that lead to God are good;
    What matters it, your faith, or mine;
    Both centre at the goal divine
Of love's eternal Brotherhood.

The kindly life in house or street;
    The life of prayer, and mystic rite;
    The student's search for truth and light;
These paths at one great junction meet.

Before the oldest book was writ,
    Full many a prehistoric soul
    Arrived at this unchanging goal,
Through changeless love, that led to it.

What matters that one found his Christ
    In rising sun, or burning fire;
    If faith within him did not tire,
His longing for the truth sufficed.

Before our 'Christian' hell was brought
    To edify a modern world,
    Full many a hate-filled soul was hurled
In lakes of fire ...

Pause, courteous Spirit! Balbi supplicates
That Thou, with no reluctant voice, for him
Here laid in mortal darkness, wouldst prefer
A prayer to the Redeemer of the world.
This to the dead by sacred right belongs;
All else is nothing. Did occasion suit
To tell his worth, the marble of this tomb
Would ill suffice: for Plato's lore sublime,
And all the wisdom of the Stagyrite,
Enriched and beautified his studious mind:
With Archimedes also he conversed
As with a chosen friend, nor did he leave
Those laureat wreaths ungathered which the Nymphs
Twine near their loved Permessus. Finally,
Himself above each lower thought uplifting,
His ears he closed to listen to the songs
Which Sion's Kings did consecrate of old;
And his Permessus found on Lebanon.
A bless...

Through my north window, in the wintry weather, -
My airy oriel on the river shore, -
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together
Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar.

The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen,
Lets the loose water waft him as it will;
The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden,
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still.

I see the solemn gulls in council sitting
On some broad ice-floe pondering long and late,
While overhead the home-bound ducks are flitting,
And leave the tardy conclave in debate,

Those weighty questions in their breasts revolving
Whose deeper meaning science never learns,
Till at some reverend elder's look dissolving,
The speechless senate silently adjourns.

But when along the waves the shr...

(Lyra Eucharistica, second edition, 1865.)


Golden-winged, silver-winged,
    Winged with flashing flame,
Such a flight of birds I saw,
    Birds without a name:
Singing songs in their own tongue
    (Song of songs) they came.

One to another calling,
    Each answering each,
One to another calling
    In their proper speech:
High above my head they wheeled,
    Far out of reach.

On wings of flame they went and came
    With a cadenced clang,
Their silver wings tinkled,
    Their golden wings rang,
The wind it whistled through their wings
    Where in Heaven they sang.

They flashed and they darted
    Awhile before mine eyes,
Mounting, mounting, mounting still
    In haste to scale the skies -