Works

All through the Castle of High-bred Ease,
Where the chief employment was do-as-you-please,
Spread consternation and wild despair.
The queen was wringing her hands and hair;...

Not they who know the awful gibbet's anguish,
Not they who, while sad years go by them, in
The sunless cells of lonely prisons languish,
Do suffer fullest penalty for sin.
...

Not they who know the awful gibbet's anguish,
Not they who, while sad years go by them, in
The sunless cells of lonely prisons languish,
Do suffer fullest penalty for sin.
...

Over and over the task was set,
Over and over I slighted the work,
But ever and alway I knew that yet
I must face and finish the toil I shirk.

Over and over the whip of pain...

(Written on the day of Queen Victoria's funeral)



The Queen is taking a drive to-day,
They have hung with purple the carriage-way,
They have dressed with purple the royal track...

Beside us in our seeking after pleasures,
Through all our restless striving after fame,
Through all our search for worldly gains and treasures,
There walketh one whom no man likes to name....

I

Arise, O master artist of the age,
And paint the picture which at once shall be
Immortal art and bless'd prophecy.
The bruised vision of the world assuage;...

In the face of the sun are great thunderbolts hurled,
And the storm-clouds have shut out its light;
But a Rainbow of Promise now shines on the world,
And the universe thrills at the sight.
...

High o'er the clouds a Sunbeam shone,
And far down under him,
With a subtle grace that was all her own,
The Mist gleamed, fair and dim.

He looked at her with his burning eyes...

Do you know what moves the tides
As they swing from low to high?
'Tis the love, love, love,
Of the moon within the sky.
Oh! they follow where she guides,
Do the faithful-hearted tides.
...

(Suggested by the book of Mr. Ed. C. Randall.)



'There is no death, there are no dead.'
From zone to zone, from sphere to sphere,
The souls of all who pass from here...

Suddenly and without warning they came -
The Revealing Angels came.
Suddenly and simultaneously, through city streets,
Through quiet lanes and country roads they walked....

AHASUERAS

Is this the way to greet thy loving spouse,
But now returned from scenes of blood and strife?
I pray thee raise thy veil and let me gaze
Upon that beauty which hath greater power...

I am a river flowing from God's sea
Through devious ways. He mapped my course for me;
I cannot change it; mine alone the toil
To keep the waters free from grime and soil....

There are curious isles in the River of Sleep,
Curious isles without number.
We'll visit them all as we leisurely creep
Down the winding stream whose current is deep,
In our beautiful barge of Slumber.
...

The saddest hour of anguish and of loss
Is not that season of supreme despair
When we can find no least light anywhere
To gild the dread, black shadow of the Cross;
Not in that luxury of sorrow when...

When Venus, mother and maker of blisses,
Rose out of the billows, large-limbed, and fair,
She stood on the sands and blew sweet kisses
To the salt sea-wind as she dried her hair.
...

The rain falls long, and the rain falls light,
With a desolate drip -drop, sad to hear.
But never a star shines through the night
As I sit afar, from the world anear.
...

How will Christ come back again,
How will He be seen, and where,
Where His chosen way?
Will He come in dead of night,
Shining in His robes of light,
Or at dawn of day?
...

For he who climbs to say his prayer
Meets half way the descending Grace.

ELSA BARKER, in British Review.

This is the secret of all prayers
That in God's sight have worth,...