Works

Come, walk with me,
There's only thee
To bless my spirit now
We used to love on winter nights
To wander through the snow;
Can we not woo back old delights?
The clouds rush dark and wild...

("Oh, quand je dors.")

[XXVII.]


Oh! when I sleep, come near my resting-place,
As Laura came to bless her poet's heart,
And let thy breath in passing touch my face -
At once a space...

Come, ye disconsolate, where'er you languish,
Come, at God's altar fervently kneel;
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish--
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.
...

Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so
Who art not missed by any that entreat.
Speak to mo as to Mary at thy feet!...

Say! You've struck a heap of trouble -
Bust in business, lost your wife;
No one cares a cent about you,
You don't care a cent for life;
Hard luck has of hope bereft you,...

Dark head by the fireside brooding,
Sad upon your ears
Whirlwinds of the earth intruding
Sound in wrath and tears:

Tender-hearted, in your lonely
Sorrow I would fain...

Comfort the sorrowful with watchful eyes
In silence, for the tongue cannot avail.
Vex not his wounds with rhetoric, nor the stale
Worn truths, that are but maddening mockeries...

Once through an autumn wood
I roamed in tearful mood,
By grief dismayed, doubting, and ill at ease;
When from a leafless oak,
Methought low murmurs broke,
Complaining accents, as of words like these:...

Most comfortable Light,
Light of the small lamp burning up the night,
With dawn enleagued against the beaten dark;
Pure golden perfect spark;

Or sudden wind-bright flame,...

O little Heart,
So much I see
Thy hidden smart,
So much I long
To sing some song
To comfort thee.

For, little Heart,
Indeed, indeed,
The hour to part
Makes cruel speed;...

'Tis no discomfort in the world to fall,
When the great crack not crushes one, but all.

How happens it that thou art sad,

While happy all appear?
Thine eye proclaims too well that thou

Hast wept full many a tear.

"If I have wept in solitude,
...

She thought by heaven's high wall that she did stray
Till she beheld the everlasting gate:
And she climbed up to it to long, and wait,
Feel with her hands (for it was night), and lay...

What would'st thou have for easement after grief,
When the rude world hath used thee with despite,
And care sits at thine elbow day and night,
Filching thy pleasures like a subtle thief?...

The same who crowns the conqueror, will be
A coadjutor in the agony.

Be not dismayed though crosses cast thee down;
Thy fall is but the rising to a crown.

Dry your sweet cheek, long drown'd with sorrow's rain,
Since, clouds dispers'd, suns gild the air again.
Seas chafe and fret, and beat, and overboil,
But turn soon after calm as balm or oil....

What needs complaints,
When she a place
Has with the race
Of saints?
In endless mirth,
She thinks not on
What's said or done
In earth:
She sees no tears,
Or any tone...

"Comfort ye, my people!"
Saith your God,--
"And be ye comforted!
And--be--ye--comforted!"

Roughly my plough did plough you,
Sharp were my strokes, and sore,
But nothing less could bow you,...

(Noel.)


By the sad fellowship of human suffering,
By the bereavements that are thine and mine,
I venture--oh, forgive me!--with this offering,
I would it were to thee God's oil and wine
...