Works

Into the world's most high and holy places
Men carry selfishness, and graft and greed.
The air is rent with warring of the races;
Loud Dogmas drown a brother's cry of need....

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
...

God can't be wrathful: but we may conclude
Wrathful He may be by similitude:
God's wrathful said to be, when He doth do
That without wrath which wrath doth force us to.

God when He's angry here with anyone,
His wrath is free from perturbation;
And when we think His looks are sour and grim,
The alteration is in us, not Him.

Once in a time of trouble and of care
I dreamed I talked with God about my pain;
With sleepland courage, daring to complain
Of what I deemed ungracious and unfair....

Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming,
Snatched from the altars of insolent foes,
Burning with star-fires, but never consuming,
Flash its broad ribbons of lily and rose.
...

GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS KING. (It seems
The Church is full of bygone dreams.)

LONG LIVE OUR NOBLE KING. (My own,
'Tis hard to stand here all alone.)

GOD SAVE THE KING. (But, sweetheart, you...

In vain our labours are whatsoe'er they be,
Unless God gives the benedicite.

"For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield."


Like the dew-drops that fall
Through the chill, midnight hours,
Unheeded by all,...

God's bounty, that ebbs less and less
As men do wane in thankfulness.

I fear not, my Father, the tempest's loud roar,
Nor dread the huge breakers on the rock-girded shore;
Thy presence is with me, my refuge is near,
With help all-sufficient; oh, why should I fear?...

God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers
O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours.
A hundred lights in every temple burn,
And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn.

In God's commands ne'er ask the reason why;
Let thy obedience be the best reply.

God is then said for to descend, when He
Doth here on earth some thing of novity;
As when in human nature He works more
Than ever yet the like was done before.

God's said to dwell there, wheresoever He
Puts down some prints of His high Majesty;
As when to man He comes, and there doth place
His Holy Spirit, or doth plant His Grace.

I saw him steal the light away
That haunted in her eye:
It went so gently none could say
More than that it was there one day
And missing by-and-by.

I watched her longer, and he stole...

God sees me always. When I sleep,
He kindly watches near;
He loves the little child to keep,
Who tries to please Him here.

When I'm alone He sees me too,
Though no one else is by;...

The air is chill with the frost of doubt,
And men's hearts are sadly failing;
They do not hear the great Victor's shout;
But indulge in bitter wailing.
"The old gives place to the new," they say,...

I

I saw a slowly-stepping train -
Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar -
Following in files across a twilit plain
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.

II
...

God hears us when we pray, but yet defers
His gifts, to exercise petitioners;
And though a while He makes requesters stay,
With princely hand He'll recompense delay.