Works

From the German of Dessler.

O Lord, how happy is the time
When in thy love I rest!
When from my weariness I climb
Even to thy tender breast!
The night of sorrow endeth there--...

The lightning and thunder
They go and they come:
But the stars and the stillness
Are always at home.

I took it for a bird of prey that soared
High over ocean, battled mount, and plain;
'Twas but a bird-moth, which with limp horns gored
The invisibly obstructing window-pane!
...

Who know thee, love: thy life be such
That, ere the year be o'er,
Each one who loves thee now so much,
Even God, may love thee more!

PART I.


I.

I lay and dreamed. The Master came,
In seamless garment drest;
I stood in bonds 'twixt love and shame,
Not ready to be blest.
...

Ah me! in ages far away,
The good, the heavenly land,
Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,
And men could understand.

The dead yet find it, who, when here,
Did love it more than this;...

0 Lord, my God, how long
Shall my poor heart pant for a boundless joy?
How long, O mighty Spirit, shall I hear
The murmur of Truth's crystal waters slide
From the deep caverns of their endless being,...

"If I sit in the dust
For lauding good wine,
Ha, ha! it is just:
So sits the vine!"

Abu Midjan sang as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape ran the juice of his veins....

"It is only just
To laud good wine:
If I sit in the dust,
So sits the vine."

Abu Midjan sang, as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape was the juice of his veins....

Babe Jesus lay in Mary's lap,
The sun shone in his hair;
And this was how she saw, mayhap,
The crown already there.

For she sang: "Sleep on, my little king;
Bad Herod dares not come;...

THE YEAR OF THE TROUBLE IN LANCASHIRE.

The skies are pale, the trees are stiff,
The earth is dull and old;
The frost is glittering as if
The very sun were cold....

Loving looks the large-eyed cow,
Loving stares the long-eared ass
At Heaven's glory in the grass!
Child, with added human birth
Come to bring the child of earth
Glad repentance, tearful mirth,...

Lord, hear my discontent: all blank I stand,
A mirror polished by thy hand;
Thy sun's beams flash and flame from me--
I cannot help it: here I stand, there he!
To one of them I cannot say,...

When the clock hath ceased to tick
Soul-like in the gloomy hall;
When the latch no more doth click
Tongue-like in the red peach-wall;
When no more come sounds of play,
Mice nor children romping roam,...

A child was born in sin and shame,
Wronged by his very birth,
Without a home, without a name,
One over in the earth.

No wifely triumph he inspired,
Allayed no husband's fear;...

I dreamed of a song--I heard it sung;
In the ear of my soul its strange notes rung.
What were its words I could not tell,
Only the voice I heard right well,
For its tones unearthly my spirit bound...

The stars are spinning their threads,
And the clouds are the dust that flies,
And the suns are weaving them up
For the day when the sleepers arise.

The ocean in music rolls,...

THE OUTER DREAM.

Young, as the day's first-born Titanic brood,
Lifting their foreheads jubilant to heaven,
Rose the great mountains on my opening dream.
And yet the aged peace of countless years...

When God's own child came down to earth,
High heaven was very glad;
The angels sang for holy mirth;
Not God himself was sad!

Shall we, when ours goes homeward, fret?...

O Mother Earth, I have a fear
Which I would tell to thee--
Softly and gently in thine ear
When the moon and we are three.

Thy grass and flowers are beautiful;
Among thy trees I hide;...