LAST VERSES

LAST VERSES

Copyright, 1906,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
————
All rights reserved
Published October, 1906
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

SUSAN COOLIDGE

SARAH CHAUNCEY WOOLSEY (Susan Coolidge) was born in Cleveland, Ohio, January 29, 1835. Her father, John M. Woolsey, a New Yorker, had come to Cleveland to attend to property owned by his father, and had there met Jane Andrews, a charming and graceful girl from Connecticut, whom he made his wife.

Their home was on Euclid Avenue, and comprised about five acres in house-lot, garden, orchard, pasture, and woodland. Here came into the world a family of four girls and a boy,—all vigorous and active and full of life. Sarah was the eldest and the predestined leader of the little tribe. They grew up as children of that day did under similar conditions. There was the regular old-fashioned schooling, not too exacting or strenuous, and much wholesome out-of-door life. There were horses and dogs and cattle and birds for the children to care for and play with, and much climbing and romping were permitted in a place where no near neighbors could be disturbed. To the other children life was a joyous holiday, diversified with small disappointments and dismays; but to Sarah the sky and the earth held boundless anticipations and intentions, and the world was a place of enchantment.

She was always individual from the moment she first opened her big brown eyes—passionately loving and passionately wilful, with heroic intentions and desires, and with remorse and disappointments in proportion. Part of the woodland where the axe had not yet done its work of cutting and clipping was given to the children for a playground. They called it “Paradise,” and for all of them it was a place of rapture and mystery. To the others it was full of hiding places,—to little Sarah the hiding places were bowers. They looked for eggs and birds’ nests, and had thrilling encounters with furry wild creatures, which fled at their approach; but her intercourse was all with the fairies and elves and gnomes which peopled the place. After a time they felt the presence of the fairies too; but it was under the influence of her enthusiastic imagination, which controlled their own more mundane perceptions. With her for a leader they often passed into a new world of romance and adventure and high undertakings. They lived in battlemented castles, attended by knights and squires, with danger on all sides met by lofty courage; or they rode on elephants in India, always on dignified missions, attended by great pomp and ceremony; or they lived with fairies, whose gifts might crop up under every toadstool. To be sure, the elephant on which they made their proud progress might at other times, stripped of his trappings, be serviceable as a nursery table, and the fairy gifts were apt to bear a prosaic resemblance to certain well-known and well-worn nursery properties; but invested with the mystery and romance cast upon them by Sarah’s vivid imagination, the little band went, as she led them, into the land of dreams, and felt no incongruity.

Her education went on much as she chose. The best teachers available were employed, and to each in turn she became a favorite and interesting pupil; but though her quick intelligence enabled her to pass excellent examinations and gave her a foremost place in her classes, she really assimilated and retained only what she enjoyed. Mathematics she ignored entirely. All scientific problems fascinated her by their results; but she would not open her mind to the processes by which the results were reached. For languages she had no predilections, though she used her own with singular grace and precision, drawing her words from an apparently limitless vocabulary. Through life this charming use of language, combined with her keen humor and sympathetic appreciation of all that makes life stirring and vital, made her a most fascinating companion. Her delight in literature was her real education. From her early youth she revelled in books, reading so rapidly that it seemed impossible that she could remember what she read; but, in fact, remembering it all! To have looked over a poem two or three times was enough to make it a permanent possession. She devoured history, biography, romances, and poetry, and with intuitive judgment and taste revelled in what was really beautiful and interesting, and discarded the second-rate and commonplace. She began writing at a very early age,—fairy stories, verses, and romances,—but she never published anything until she had reached full maturity. Meantime she grew to vigorous, active womanhood, full of interests and friendships and delightful experiences of one sort and another. She was much loved, and gave such a wealth of self-forgetting, idolizing, ardent affection in return that her friends were all lovers. She drew a circle of loving admirers about her wherever she went, and was always totally unconscious of the charm she worked by her very sweet voice and manner, brilliant fun, and warm sympathy.

The Civil War broke out just as she passed from girlhood to young womanhood. It aroused in her a passion of enthusiasm and devotion, and she threw herself with all her heart and soul into work for the soldiers at home and afield. In the Soldiers’ Hospital at New Haven she was an enthusiastic helper, in the wards, or storeroom, or linen closet, wherever her energy was most needed. And her leisure was filled with knitting or sewing or preparing special diet for the sick and wounded. She was a tireless worker then and ever, and nature had endowed her with great practical gifts. She was an excellent cook and an expert needlewoman, both in plain sewing and the most dainty embroidery, and all work was done with such rapidity and perfection that it was a despair for the race of plodders even to watch her swift achievements.

From New Haven she went to the Convalescent Hospital established at Portsmouth Grove, and was one of a band of excellent workers there during the second year of the war. It was a very developing and vivid experience, and one which she counted among the greatest points of interest in her life.

When the war was over, her old career of busy, never-slackening industry and purpose began again. It was full, as ever, of friendships which could not possibly claim more than she was willing to give. She naturally drew around her the cleverest men and women of her acquaintance, and her society was sought far and near.

But she did not really begin her life as an author until a few years later, when in a grove at Bethlehem, N. H., sitting on a fallen tree, she sketched the outline of “The New Year’s Bargain.” She had sent a few fugitive articles to certain magazines before this, but only now did she take up writing as a real work. That dainty little book, with its fantastic and graceful imaginings, was so well received by the public that she went on in a different vein, through the series of the “Katy Did” books, where fact and fiction, experience and fancy, were so blended that it was hardly possible to say in answer to the eager questionings of some of her little readers where the one ended and the other began. Katy found a large audience, and her biographer went on from children’s books to verses or historical studies, such as “Old Convent Days,” or mere editor’s work, like the condensations of those famous old diaries of Mrs. Delany and Miss Burney. She was consulting reader for Roberts Company in the days when the hall-mark of that firm was a proof of excellence. She was very industrious, but her literary work never seemed the most absorbing part of her life. This was partly because of her intense and vivid interest in the rest of life,—the journeys, the visits, and above all the friends,—and largely because she was absolutely devoid of literary vanity or self-consciousness. She seldom talked of her work or referred in any way to her success. Her verses found a warm welcome in many hearts whose owners were all unknown to her, and sometimes she acknowledged, with a sort of tender surprise, that it was a great reward to have been able to help and encourage others. But anything like flattery or mere compliment was very distasteful to her, and she sometimes owned impatiently that “Susan Coolidge” bored her to death, and she wished she had never heard of her!

While literature became the chief occupation of her life, her artistic temperament and love of the beautiful found expression in many other ways. She instinctively surrounded herself with beautiful objects and colors. Her taste was almost unerring, and harmony of design and softly shaded tints seemed to be her natural setting. She transformed every room she lived in, were it for a week only.

She thought little of her drawings in water color. They were all flower pieces studied from life, and she was conscious of the little instruction she had received and her ignorance of technique. But all the same these lovely panels were a joy to those who were fortunate enough to possess them. As was once said by one who was no mean artist himself, “She can do what many artists—adepts in technique—fail in. She gives us the flower in all its life and spirit.” Her china painting—necessarily more conventional—was still charming, holding something of her individuality.

This vivid life of purpose and energy and never-failing zest appeared to bubble up from such an inexhaustible fountain of vitality that it seemed as if it might go on for ever. But gradually a shadow stole over it—not a very dark one at first, but inexorable. She fought with it, played with it, defied it, but it was always there! She could not acknowledge defeat and was always planning for the future with gay self-confidence; but the shadow grew! By and by the narrowing limits shut her in her chamber, but even then she looked out upon the days to come with undaunted courage. The chamber was not like a sick room. It was bright with sunshine and the sparkle of fire, and scented and gay with the flowers she so dearly loved. Here she read and wrote and saw her many friends. From hence came words of rejoicing for all her dear ones who were happy, and words of truest sympathy for those who were sad. She was one of the few people to whom the joys and sorrows of others are of equal importance to their own. She pondered over the lives of her friends with never-ending interest, and gave at every turn and crisis the truest and most comprehending sympathy. No wonder that so many warmed hands and hearts by that generous flame!

Slowly the shadow deepened. She was disturbed by it, but still wrote happily of the future and filled it with plans and purposes. But one day, April 9, 1905, very gently, Death’s finger touched her. She was not conscious of pain or trouble, “only a new sensation,” but she closed her eyes, and without a word of farewell, was gone away from us.

It is hard to sum up such a life. It was a very full and happy one. She gave much, but received much. She loved beauty, and she was always surrounded by it. She loved friendship, and nobody had more or better friends. She gave them of her best, but she drew their best from them. Hers was an ideal companionship, so full of appreciative interest and sympathy, so illuminated by wit and humor. She was ardent and eager in her plans of life. Nothing could exceed the absorption and energy with which she carried them out. But she accepted disappointment, after a little struggle, with a gay insouciance. So when the final defeat came she seemed to resign herself without struggle to the inevitable, and to those of us who loved her best it seemed as if that sweet and brilliant and unwearied spirit had only folded its wings for a moment before taking a longer and surer flight.

E. D. W. G.

April, 1906.

CONTENTS

LAST VERSES

HELEN KELLER

BEHIND her triple prison-bars shut in

She sits, the whitest soul on earth to-day.

No shadowing stain, no whispered hint of sin,

Into that sanctuary finds the way.

There enters only clear and proven truth

Apportioned for her use by loving hands

And winnowed from all knowledge of all lands

To satisfy her ardent thirst of youth.

Like a strange alabaster mask her face,

Rayless and sightless, set in patience dumb,

Until like quick electric currents come

The signals of life into her lonely place;

Then, like a lamp just lit, an inward gleam

Flashes within the mask’s opacity,

The features glow and dimple suddenly,

And fun and tenderness and sparkle seem

To irradiate the lines once dull and blind,

While the white slender fingers reach and cling

With quick imploring gestures, questioning

The mysteries and the meanings:—to her mind

The world is not the sordid world we know;

It is a happy and benignant spot

Where kindness reigns, and jealousy is not,

And men move softly, dropping as they go

The golden fruit of knowledge for all to share.

And Love is King, and Heaven is very near,

And God to whom each separate soul is dear

Makes fatherly answer to each whispered prayer.

Ah, little stainless soul, shut in so close,

May never hint of doubt creep in to be

A shadow on the calm security

Which wraps thee, as its fragrance wraps a rose.

“A CLOUD OF WITNESSES”

ON Calais sands the breakers roar

In fierce and foaming track;

The screaming sea-gulls dip and soar,

White seen against the black;

And shuddering wind and furling sail

Are making ready for the gale.

Ho, keeper of the Calais Light!

See that your lamps burn free;

For, if they should go out to-night,

There will be wrecks at sea.

Fill them and trim them with due care,

For there is tempest in the air.

“Go out? My lamps go out, you say?

What words are on your lips?

There, in the offing far away,

Are sailing countless ships,

Beyond my ken, beyond my sight,

But all are watching Calais Light.

“If but a single lamp should fail,

A single flame burn dim,

How could they ride the gathering gale,

Or justly steer and trim?

To right, to left, would equal be,

There are no road-marks in the sea.

“I should not hear their drowning cry,

Or see the ship go down,

And weeks and months might pass us by,

Ere came to Calais town

The word—‘A ship was lost one night,

And all for want of Calais Light.’

“Here in my tower, my lamps in row,

I sit the long hours through;

There is no soul to mark or know

If I my duty do;

Yet oftentimes I seem to see

A world of eyes all bent on me!

“Go out! My lamps go out! alas!

It were a woeful day

If ever it should come to pass

That I must live to say,

A ship went down in storm and night,

Because there failed it Calais Light.”

Ah, Christian, in your watch-tower set,

Fill all your lamps and trim;

For though there seem no watchers, yet

Far in the darkness dim,

Where souls are tossing out of view,

A hundred eyes are fixed on you!

COR CORDIUM

ALL diamonded with glittering stars

The vast blue arch of air;

Pent in behind these mortal bars

We strain our eyes to where,

Oh noblest heart, thou walkest apart

Amid thy heavenly kin.

Though blinded with the veils of sense,

We may not look within.

Oh eyes so tender with command!

Oh eloquent lips and true,

Whose speech fell like a quickening fire,

Fell like a healing dew!

Oh zeal so strong to right the wrong,

Oh rich, abounding heart!

Oh stintless, tireless, kindest hand,—

God bless thee where thou art!

Not thine the common fate to live

Through life’s long weary days,

And give all that thou had’st to give

Uncheered by love and praise.

Men did not wait to call thee great

Till death had sealed thy brow.

They crowned thy living head with bays;

What does it matter now?

Thy grave mound is a shrinèd place,

Where pilgrim hearts may go,

With loving thoughts and thankful prayers,

Soft passing to and fro.

Seldom with word the air is stirred,

Seldom with sob or sigh;

All silently and ceaselessly

The march of hearts goes by.

Now half our lives seems lived on earth,

And half in heaven with thee.

Our heart-beats measure out the road

To where we fain would be,—

Beyond this strife of mortal life,

This lonely ache and pain,

Where we who miss and mourn thee so

May find thee once again.

MARTHA

HOT on the pavement burns the summer sun,

In the deep shadow of the ilex tree

The Master rests, while gathering one by one

The neighbors enter, crowding silently

To hear His words, which drop like honey-dew;

I may not hear, there is too much to do.

How can I pause? I seem the only one

To take a thought about this multitude

Who, the day past and all the preaching done,

Will need to be refreshed with wine and food;

We cannot send the people home unfed—

What words were those? “I am the living bread.”

There is my sister sitting the day long

Close to His side, serene and free from care,

Helping me not; and surely it is wrong

To leave to me the task that she should share.

Master, rebuke her, just and true Thou art—

What do I hear? “She hath the better part.”

If all chose thus then all would go unfed—

Souls hunger, yes! but bodies have their need.

Some one must grind and mix the daily bread,

Some one wake early that the rest may feed,

Some one bear burdens, face the summer sun—

But must I always, always be the one?

“Cumbered with serving,” thus the Master spake;

But ’twas to serve Him that I worked so hard

(And I would serve the year long for His sake).

I dare not take the rest which is reward

Lest He should suffer while I stay my hand.

How hard it is, how hard to understand!

What does a voice say? “He whose power divine

Could feed the thousands on the mountain side

Needeth no fretting, puny aid like thine.

One thing is needful, trust him to provide;

The Heavenly Chance comes once nor tarries long”—

Master, forgive me, teach me, I was wrong!

CAEN
1894

IN the quaint Norman city, far apart,

A width of humming distance set between,

They rest who once lived closely heart to heart,

William the conquering Duke and his fair Queen.

Too near of kin to wed, the Church averred,

And barred the way which joy was fain to tread;

But hearts spoke louder than the priestly word,

And youth and love o’erleaped the barrier dread.

No will of wax had England’s future King;

With iron hand he brushed the curse aside,

As ’twere a slight and disregarded thing,

And asking leave of no man, claimed his bride.

And they were happy, spite of ban and blame,

Rich in renown, estate, in valiant deed;

And the sweet Duchess at her broidery frame

Wrought her lord’s victories for all men to read.

But as the years of wedlock ebbed and flowed,

And still the Church averted her stern face,

The royal pair grew weary of the load

Of unrepented sin and long disgrace,

And bought a peace from late relenting Rome.

Two stately abbeys built they, and endowed,

With carven pinnacle and tower and dome,

And soaring spire and bell-chimes pealing loud.

Within the crypt of one they buried her,

True wife and queen, when her time came to die;

And when strong death conquered the Conqueror,

He slept beneath the other’s altar high.

Was it of love’s devising that to-day,

With all the wide-grown city space to bar,

Across the roofs and towers from far away

St. Etienne looks upon La Trinita?

Was it some subtle prescience of the heart,

Which laid on time and change resistless spell,

Forbidding both to hide or hold apart

The resting-place of those who loved so well?

For still defying distance, day and night

The spires like beckoning fingers seem to rise,

The bells to call, as perished voices might,

“Love is not dead, Beloved; love never dies!”

TEMPERAMENTS

JACOB BOEHME, Sage and Mystic, wert thou right or wert thou wrong,

In believing and upholding that all human souls belong

To some elemental structure, be they weak or be they strong?

That each separate spirit made is of one element, and shows,

By its power or by its weakness, its unrest or its repose,

Whether earth, air, fire, or water is the Source from which it flows?

’Tis a difficult conclusion; but, as in the jewel’s blue,

Red and rose and green and amber flash and leap and sparkle through,

Through your speculative fancy seems to scintillate the true.

For the variance of the creature whom we call our fellow-man,

Framed alike in needs and passions, on the self-same human plan,

Grows more wide, more past believing, as we study it and scan.

Ah, the temperaments, the fateful, how they front us and surprise,

Looking with bewildering distance out of wistful, alien eyes,

Never drawing any nearer, or to hate or sympathize.

Eager, dominant, all unresting are the spirits born of Fire,

Burning with a fitful fever, ever reaching high and higher,

Shrivelling weaker wills before them in the heat of their desire.

Cool, elusive, fluctuating, hard to fix and strangely fair

Are the difficult, grievous, grieving souls which born of Water are—

Ours to-day, not ours to-morrow; never ours to hold and wear.

Vainly love and passion battle ’gainst their unresisting chill,

Like the oar-stroke in the water which the drops make haste to fill,

The impression melts and wavers, the cool surface fronts us still.

But the souls of Air! ah, sweetest, rarest of the human kind,

They the poets are, the singers, making music for the mind,

Lifting up the weight of living like a fresh and rushing wind.

And the souls of Earth, dear, steadfast, firm of root and sure of stay,

Not disdaining commonplaces, not afraid of every day,

Taking from the air and water and the sunshine what they may.

Theirs the dower of happy giving, theirs the heritage of Fate

Which, when faith has grown to fulness, and the little is made great,

Brings to love its true rewarding, harvested or soon or late.

Jacob Boehme, by-gone mystic, gifted with a strange insight,

As I read your yellowed pages, which in former times were white,

And review my men and women, half I deem that you were right.

THE HOLY NAME

’TIS said when pious Moslem walk abroad,

If on the path they spy a floating bit

Of paper, reverently they turn aside

And shun the scrap, nor set a foot on it,

Lest haply thereupon the awful name

Of mighty Allah should by chance be writ.

We smile at the vain dread; but blind and dull

The soul that only smiles, and cannot see

A thought of perfect beauty folded in

The zealot’s reverent fear, as in some free

And flaunting flower-cup may be hived and held

One drop of precious honey for the bee.

Small wind-blown things there are, which any day

Float by in air or on our pathway lie,

Swift-winged moments speeding on their way,

Brief opportunities, which we pass by

Heedless and smiling, little subtle threads

Of influence—intimations soft and sly.

Careless we tread them down, as, pressing on,

Our eager inconsiderate feet we set

On the unvalued treasures where they lie.

We are too blind to prize or to regret,

Too dull to recognize the mystic Name

Graven upon them as on amulet.

Ah! dears, let us no longer do this thing,

And thus the sweeter life lose and let fall;

But with anointed eyes and reverent feet

Pass on our way, noting and prizing all,

Knowing that God’s great token-sign is set,

Not on the large things only, but the small.

“I AM THE WAY”

ART Thou the way, Lord? Yet the way is steep!

And hedged with cruel thorns and set with briars;

We stumble onward, or we pause to weep,

And still the hard road baffles our desires,

And still the hot noon beats, the hours delay,

The end is out of sight,—Art Thou the way?

Art Thou the way, Lord? Yet the way is blind!

We grope and guess, perplexed with mists and suns;

We only see the guide-posts left behind,

Invisible to us the forward ones;

The chart is hard to read, we wind and stray,

Beset with hovering doubts,—Art Thou the way?

Art Thou the way, Lord? Yet the way is long!

Year follows year while we are journeying still,

The limbs are feeble grown which once were strong,

Dimmed are the eyes and quenched the ardent will,

The world is veiled with shadows sad and gray;

Yet we must travel on,—Art Thou the way?

Art Thou the way, Lord? Then the way is sweet,

No matter if it puzzle or distress,

Though winds may scourge, or blinding suns may beat,

The perfect rest shall round our weariness,

Cool dews shall heal the fevered pulse of day;

We shall find home at last through thee, the way.

HER HEART WAS LIKE A GENEROUS
FIRE
(S. P. C.)

HER heart was like a generous fire,

Round which a hundred souls could sit

And warm them in the unstinted blaze.

Those who held nearest place to it

Had cheer and comfort all their days;

Those who, perforce, were further still

Yet felt her radiance melt their chill,

Their darkness lightened by her rays.

Her heart was like a generous fire!

The trivial dross of thought and mind

Shrivelled when brought too near its heat,

The hidden gold was caught, refined;

A subtle effluence keen and sweet

From every creature drew its best;

Gave inspiration, strength, and rest,

Quickened the moral pulse’s beat.

Her heart was like a generous fire!

Circled by smaller fires in ring,

Each lit by her infectious spark

To send forth warmth and comforting

Into hard paths and by-ways dark.

The little fires, they still burn on;

But the great kindling flame is gone,

Caught up past our imagining.

Her heart was like a generous fire!

How changed the summer scenes, how chill,

How coldly do the mornings break,

Since that great heart is quenched and still,

Which kept so many hearts awake!

O Lord the Light! shine Thou instead,

Quicken and trim the fires she fed,

And make them burn for her dear sake.

THE LEGEND OF THE ALMOST SAVED
FROM THE RUSSIAN

ONCE a poor soul, reft from a dull, hard lot

(Which yet was dear, as even dull life may be),

Found herself bodiless in that dread spot

Which mortals know as “Hell” and fearfully

Name in a whisper, while the Saints name not.

“I was not wicked; they have told God lies

To make him send me here,” she moaned in pain,

Then suddenly her wan, reproachful eyes,

Raised to the Pity never sought in vain,

Beheld a hovering shape in aureoled guise.

It was Saint Peter, guardian of the gate,

The shining gate where blessed ones go in.

“Why thus,” demanded he, “bewail your fate?

What good deed did you in your life to win

The right to Heaven? Speak ere it be too late!”

Then the poor soul,—all downcast and dismayed,

Scanning the saint’s face and his austere air,

In vain reviewed her life, in vain essayed

To think of aught accomplished which might bear

Heaven’s scrutiny. At length she answer made.

“Poor was I,” faltered she, “so very poor!

Little I had to spare, yet once I gave

A carrot from my scanty garden store

To one more poor than I was.” Sad and grave

Saint Peter questioned, “Didst thou do no more?”

“No,” said the trembling soul. He bent his head.

“Wait thou until I bear thy plea on high;

The angel there who judges quick and dead

Shall weigh thee in his scales, and rightfully

Decide thy final place and doom,” he said.

So the soul waited till Hell’s doors should ope.

It opened never, but adown the sky

There swung a carrot from a slender rope,

And a voice reached her, sounding from on high,

Saying, “If the carrot bear thee, there is hope.”

She clutched the rescue by the Heavens sent.

The carrot held—small good has mighty strength;

But one, and then another, as she went

Caught at her flying garments, till at length

Four of the lost rose with her, well content.

The smoke of Hell curled darkly far beneath,

The blue of Heaven gleamed fair and bright in view,

Life quivered in the balance over Death.

Almost had life prevailed when, “Who are you,”

The soul cried out with startled, jealous breath,

“Who hang so heavily, going where I go?

God never meant to save you! It is I,

I whom he sent for from the Place of Wo.

Loosen your hold at once!” Then suddenly

The carrot yielded, and all fell below.

The pitiful, grieved angels overhead

Watched the poor souls shoot wailing through the air

Toward the lurid shadows darkly red,

And sadly sighed. “Heaven was so near, so fair,

Almost we had them safely here,” they said.

TWO ANGELS

BESIDE a grave two Angels sit,

Set there to guard and hallow it;

With grave sweet eyes and folded wings

They watch it all the day and night,

And dress the place and keep it bright,

And drive away all hurtful things.

And one is called in heavenly speech,

Used by the Blessed each to each,

“The Angel of the Steadfast Heart”:

Those hearts which still through storm and stress,

Strong in a perfect faithfulness,

Keep the firm way and better part.

Unto the other has been given

The loveliest name is known in Heaven,

“The Guardian of the Selfless Soul,”—

Those dear souls who through joy and pain

Lose their own lives to find again,

Bearing the weight of other’s dole.

A crown of roses snowy white

Surrounds one Angel’s brow of light,—

Sweet, sweet the odor that it breathes;

A starry band of asphodels,

Which shake out dim, mysterious smells,

The other’s statelier forehead wreathes.

“She is of mine,” one Angel saith;

“Her heart was faithful unto death,”—

His voice has a triumphant tone.

“Mine, too,” the other soft replies;

“By her whole life’s self-sacrifice

I mark and claim her as mine own.”

And then the voices blend and vie

In clear, celestial harmony:

“Both in the task may rightly share,

For she whose gentle rest we tend

Was brave and constant to the end,

With never a selfish thought or care.

“The quiet earth wherein she lies

Is holy-ground in heavenly eyes;

It well befits for such as she

That we should quit all other task;

Nor better could an angel ask

Than be the guard of such as she.”

Beside a grave two Angels sit,

Set there to tend and hallow it;

Unseen by men they sit alway;

With folded wings and eyes of light

They make it dewy-sweet all day,

And balm it subtly every night.

LIMITATION

“Let us accept from God even our own nature, and treat it charitably.”—Henri Amiel.

GREATER than Fate ordains we fain would be;

Wiser and purer, strung with life and power

And insight and compelling energy;

But with the first breath of our first faint hour

The limit line is set, vain our endeavor,

Our longing and our hope; we pass it never.

Since this is so, since this indeed is so,

Let us accept ourselves as God has made,—

The lagging zest, the pulse which beats too slow,

Dull wit, and scanty joy,—nor be afraid

That we shall thwart the purpose of our living

By such self-tolerance and such forgiving;

For the least spark which fires the mortal clod,

And wakes the hunger and the thirst divine

In the least soul, as truly is of God

As the great flame which burns a beaconing sign

To light the nations when their hope is dim,

Set in the darkness as a type of Him.

Take courage then, poor soul, so little worth

In thine own eyes, so puny and afraid,

And all unfit to combat the fierce earth;

Forgive thyself because the Master made

And meant thee meeker than thy wish and will,

And knows, and understands, and loves thee still.

THE MIRACLE OF FRIENDSHIP

OUT of the width of the world, out of the womb of Fate,

The souls that are meant for each other shall meet, and shall know and embrace.

Age or youth are nothing, are nothing or soon or late,

When the heart to heart makes answer and joyful face to face.

Where hast thou tarried, my Love, while I waited and missed thee long,

One of the two shall question, and the other shall make reply,

In a voice of gladness and triumph, less like unto speech than song,

“I knew not that I was a hungered till God sent thee as supply.”

The world may crowd and question, but friends are always alone,

Set in bright atmosphere, like a planet in far-off skies;

A touch, a glance, a sigh, love comprehends its own,

And words are feeble and poor compared with the spark of the eyes.

The undug gold in the mine, the pearl in the deep, deep seas,

The gem which lies undiscovered, are the daydreams of the earth;

But the love unreckoned, unhoped for, which is mightier far than these,

Is the miracle of Heaven for the souls which it counts as worth.

ROSE TERRY COOKE

OUT of the life that was so hard to bear,

Clouded by sorrow and perplexed by care,

Out of the long watch and the heavy night,

She has gone forth into the light of light.

A tropic-blossom, warm with sun and scent,

Set in New England’s chill environment;

Through beat of storm and stress of winter’s cold,

She kept the summer in her heart of gold.

Love was the life which pulsed her being through;

No task too hard if set by Love to do,

No pain too sharp if Love called to endure,

No weariness she knew if Love was sure.

Her rose of Love was set with many a thorn,

Clouds veiled and hid the promise of her morn;

Thirsting and spent, she journeyed on unfed,

While Love, too often, gave her stones for bread.

But still ’mid waning hopes and deepening fears

And brave, hard strivings through the ebbing years,

Lifting her up when she was like to fall,

Love led her to the land where Love is all.

Heaven has received her as a welcome guest,

Balming earth’s tire with compensating rest,

Healing earth’s grievous wound with sure content,—

The sense of home after long banishment.

But more to her than smile of vanished kin,

Or hands outstretched to greet and draw her in,

Or “Bonded Walls” of amethyst unpriced,

Is the clear vision of the Face of Christ!

That Face Divine, which, in her girlhood’s day

Seeing, she loved, and never looked away,

Which, like a star in the dim firmament,

Guided her steps and moved where’er she went.

Out of the life that was not always sweet,

Out of the puzzle and the day’s defeat,

Out of earth’s hindering and alien zone,

The Lord of Love has led her to her own.

INTO THE DEEP

“LORD, we have toiled all day and taken naught.”

Thus spoke the fishers by the darkling sea,

While the dusk deepened, and the shadows drew

Over the desert sand-dunes and the blue

Waters of Galilee.

“What shall we do, Lord?” And the Master said:

“Spread sail, and let the breeze of evening waft

To the deep seas; quit the familiar shore,

And let your nets down fearlessly once more,

As for a certain draught.”

Lord, we have toiled in vain, even as these,

Dragging our nets unfruitful waters through;

Not one poor fish rewards our pains all day,

And, like the twelve of old, we come and say,

“Master, what shall we do?”

And still for us, as then, the answer sounds,

Making the very hearts within us leap:

“Leave the safe shallows where the ripples play,

The sluggish inlet and confining bay—

Push out into the deep.

“Strain toward the mighty ocean of God’s love,

His great Love’s all unfathomed energies,

Where never plummet reached or bound was set.

Quit ye like valiant fishermen, and let

Your nets down in deep seas.

“Those rich, rewarding waters shall not fail,

Till the nets break the fish shall crowd therein;

And I, the Master, waiting other where,

Will lend My strength to land the precious fare

Which ye have toiled to win.”

Lord, Thou hast spoken, and we trust Thy word;

We will push out and leave the safe, known land,

And count it full reward if, coming back

Laden at nightfall, o’er the waters black

We see Thee on the strand.

THROUGH THE CLOUD

THE morning was chill and misty,

And a white and drifting veil

Hid all the mountain passes

And the elm-fringed intervale.

We gazed in a puzzled wonder,

And looked to the left and the right,

For it seemed that some spell had seized the world

And had changed it during the night.

Was there ever a mountain yonder,

We asked, or a pine-clad stream?

Or red-gold trees in the hollow?

Or were all these things a dream?

Then suddenly as we questioned

The mists turned thin and blue,

And up in the far, high heaven

A mountain outline grew.

Like a vision it gleamed and vanished,

But its beckon was seen and caught,

And one peak after another

Flashed out with the speed of thought;

And the mist wreaths floated higher,

And drifted off one by one,

And the wet, green autumn meadows

Shone out in the yellow sun;

And the scarlet and dun of the hillsides

Had borrowed a fresher hue,

And the purple gate of the notch swung wide,

And a pink cloud floated through.

And I thought of some heavy-hearted ones

Whose world had suddenly changed

To a whirl of mist and driving cloud

From all fair things estranged,

And who sat and wearily wondered

If ever the world seemed bright,

And half believed that joy was a dream

Which fled with the flying night;

And how, by little and little,

The clouds were tinged with sun,

And the former joys of living

Dawned out of them one by one,—

The hope and the work and the loving,

The zest of thought and plan,

The old-time strength of friendship,

The old-time need of man.

And the world which was changed for a morning

Was the same dear world again,

With only an added ripeness, caught

From its brief eclipse of pain.

NEARER HOME

THE wind is like an armèd foe,

Drawn up to bar the way,

The strong seas smite us blow on blow,

The decks are lashed with spray;

High-crested tower above the ship

The waves with lips afoam,

But welcome every plunge and dip

Which brings us nearer home.

The dear West beckons from afar

With gold gleams in her eyes,

The glinting stars familiar are

High hung in clear cool skies;

We send an answering smile for smile

Up to the airy dome,

And welcome every weary mile

So it but bring us home.

Sweet hope which lifts the dull, long hour

And makes it light to bear,

Sweet waiting welcome which has power

To make the dark seem fair,

Sweet hands held out across the sea

To reach us where we roam,—

We can bear hardest things since we

Have turned our face toward home.

ROOTED

WE rail at fate which holds us bound

To duty’s dull and narrow round,

To face as bravely as we may

The common cares of every day.

Our wandering wishes urge and fret,

But circumstance is mightier yet,

And curbs and checks the restless will,

And bids the impatient heart be still.

And while we vainly strive and chide,

Little by little, undescried,

The tiny roots of life take hold,

Anchoring their fibres in the mould.

The roots of habit, tough and long,

Of deathless love, than death more strong,

Of order measuring out the days,

And duty’s sweet, recurrent ways,—

They bind us when we fain would fly,

They check and thwart till, by and by,

The narrow plot which they control

Becomes the home-ground of the soul;

And stormy, mutinous youth, grown wise,

Looks out and in, with older eyes,

And in his limitations sees

His helpers, not his hindrances.

THE BURIED STATUE

DEEP in the earth long years it lay;

Its marble eyes were sealed to day,

Its marble ears were deaf and dull,

Yet it was wondrous beautiful.

A vineyard grew above its head;

The grapes they knew, and whisperèd

Each unto each, as evening fell:

“Brothers, keep counsel, nothing tell!”

There was no record left, or trace

Of sculptor or of hiding-place;

The hand that shaped it lay in dust,

His cunning chisel turned to rust.

The hands that dug the grave so deep,

And laid the statue to its sleep,

While hearts beat quick with haste and fear,

And ears were strained a step to hear;

The foe who threatened them that day—

All, all were dead and passed away.

The world had turned and turned it o’er;

Nothing was as it was before.

Still through all change of war or peace,

New men, new laws, new dynasties,

The buried statue kept its place,

With the same smile upon its face.

The years to centuries gave birth;

Heavier and heavier pressed the earth;

Autumn and spring enriched the vine

Whose purple grapes were crushed for wine;

And then, in search of gain or spoil,

Men came to dig the aged soil;

And after half a thousand years

In silence spent, the statue hears!

How did it feel when, fine and thin,

The first long ray of light broke in,

And gilt the gloom with glory new,

And let the imprisoned beauty through?

Say, did it tremble, as a heart

Long pent in darkness and apart

Trembles, with fear and rapture stirred

At love’s low signal long unheard?

Or did it blench as, sharp and clear,

The urgent spade-strokes drew more near,

Blindly directed, fraught with harm

To marble breast and marble arm?

No answer, save the subtle smile,

Baffling and tempting in its guile,

Which seems all wordlessly to say:

“Darkness was safe, but fairer, day.”

FAR AND NEAR

“From every point on earth we are equally near to heaven and the infinite.”—Henri Amiel.

OUT of the depths that are to us so deep,

Up to the heights so hopelessly above,

Past storms that intervene and winds that sweep,

Unto thine ear, O pitying Lord of love,

We send our cry for aid, doubtful and half afraid

If thou, so very far, canst hear us or canst aid.

Out of the dull plane of our common life,

Beset with sordid, interrupting cares,

And petty motives and ignoble strife,

We dimly raise our hesitating prayers,

And question fearfully if such a thing can be

That the great Lord can care for creatures such as we.

Up from the radiant heights of just-won bliss,

Achieved through pain and toil and struggle long,

We raise our thanks, nor fear that God will miss

One least inflection of the happy song.

Heaven seems so very near, the earth so bright and dear,

The Lord so close at hand, that surely he must hear!

But the great depth that was to us so dark,

And the dull place that was to us so dull,

And the glad height where, singing like a lark,

We stood, and felt the world all-beautiful,

Seen by the angels’ eyes, bent downward from the skies,

Were just as near to heaven and heaven’s infinities.

So out of sunshine as of deepest shade,

Out of the dust of sordid every-days,

We may look up, and, glad and unafraid,

Call on the Lord for help, and give him praise;

No time nor fate nor space can bar us from his face,

Or stand between one soul and his exhaustless grace.

GREECE

AH, little David! least of all thy kin,

Fresh from the thyme-sweet meads of Thessaly,

Where the cool pastures overhang the sea,

Leaving thy sheep to join the battle’s din:

Here is Philistia, here the chosen hosts

Wavering half-hearted on the unfought plain,

Chiding thy zeal as “premature” and “vain,”

The while the turbaned giant struts and boasts.

We catch the shining of thy brave young face,

We watch thee fit the pebble to the sling

With straight, true aim and heart that knows no fear,

And turn to see, O wonder of disgrace,

The serried soldiery of Christ the King

Skulking, protesting, squabbling in the rear!

IF YOUTH COULD KNOW

IF youth could know, what age knows without teaching,

Hope’s instability and Love’s dear folly,

The difference between practising and preaching,

The quiet charm that lurks in melancholy;

The after-bitterness of tasted pleasure;

That temperance of feeling and of words

Is health of mind, and the calm fruits of leisure

Have sweeter taste than feverish zeal affords;

That reason has a joy beyond unreason;

That nothing satisfies the soul like truth;

That kindness conquers in and out of season,—

If youth could know—why, youth would not be youth.

If age could feel the uncalculating urgence,

The pulse of life that beats in youthful veins,

And with its swift, resistless ebb and surgence

Makes light of difficulties, sport of pains;

Could once, just once, retrace the path and find it,

That lovely, foolish zeal, so crude, so young,

Which bids defiance to all laws to bind it,

And flashes in quick eye and limb and tongue,

Which, counting dross for gold, is rich in dreaming,

And, reckoning moons as suns, is never cold,

And, having naught, has everything in seeming,—

If age could do all this—age were not old!

THE SOUL’S CLIMATE

“Every soul has a climate of its own, or rather is a climate.”—Henri Amiel.

O HEART beloved, O kindest heart!

Balming like summer and like sun

The sting of tears, the ache of sorrow,

The shy, cold hurts which sting and smart,

The frets and cares which underrun

The dull day and the dreaded morrow—

How when thou comest all turns fair,

Hard things seem possible to bear,

Dark things less dark, if thou art there.

Thou keepest a climate of thine own

’Mid earth’s wild weather and gray skies,

A soft, still air for human healing,

A genial, all-embracing zone

Where frosts smite not nor winds arise;

And past the tempest-storm of feeling

Each grieved and weak and weary thing,

Each bird with numbed and frozen wing,

May sink to rest and learn to sing.

Like some cathedral stone begirt,

Which keeps through change of cold and heat

Still temperature and equal weather,

Thy sweetness stands, untouched, unhurt

By any mortal storms that beat,

Calm, helpful, undisturbed forever.

Dear heart, to which we all repair

To bask in sunshine and sweet air,

God bless thee ever, everywhere.

THE BETTER PRAYER

WHEN I sit and think of heaven so beautiful and dear,

Think of the sweet peace reigning there and the contentions here,

Think of the safe, sure justice beside the earthly wrong,

And set our ringing discords against celestial song,

And all the full securities beside “O Lord, how long?”

Oh, then I long to be there, and in my heart I pray,

“Lord, open thou the pearly gates, and let me in to-day.”

And then I turn to earth again, and in my thoughts I see

The small, unnoted corner given in charge to me,

The work that needs be done there which no one else will do,

The briars that rend, the tares that spring, the heartease choked with rue,

The plants that must be trained and set to catch the sun and dew;

And there seems so much to do there, that in my heart I pray,

“Lord, shut thy gate, and call me not, and let me work to-day.”

SUPPLY

“Why does all heaven move toward beseeching souls?”

Nathaniel Burton.

EMPTY the brook-fed basin high on the mountain side,

Drain it drop by drop, and make it dry as you will,

The forces that guide the waters no vacuum can abide;

They rush, they join, they link their threads in a foaming tide,

And down they hurry and hasten the spent pool to re-fill.

Empty the sphere of glass, exhaust its last spent air,

Seal it and make it sure, and deem your work complete,

Let but a pin pierce through the fabric anywhere,

And the urgent and crowding ether, for all your guarding care,

Will enter and fill the space, and laugh at your swift defeat.

So to the empty chambers of these craving souls of ours

Comes the invisible grace which breathes from the Lord of heaven,

Comes as comes to the sand the tide with its freshening powers,

Comes as come to the harvest the solacing summer showers,

As to thirst of the desert the draft which is life is given.

Only be ready and wait, and Heaven shall haste to bless.

Empty thy old wine out and make a place for the new;

Swifter than rushing wind shall the force divine down press,

And the pitiful Lord, instead of the want and the loneliness,

Shall give the peace of peace and the fulness of joy to you.

A THOUGHT

“It is better to be lost than to be saved all alone.”

Henri Amiel.

WHAT! heaven all to one’s self and the rest of men shut out?

Better were hell than that, with a share in the common doom,

Than to bask and smile content, with never a fear and doubt,

In the vast, vast Paradise space with the countless flowers abloom.

To lie by the River of Life and see it run to waste,

To eat of the Tree of Heaven while the nations go unfed,

To taste the full salvation—the only one to taste—

To live while the rest are lost,—oh, better by far be dead!

For to share is the bliss of heaven, as it is the joy of earth,

And the unshared bread lacks savor, and the wine unshared lacks zest,

And the joy of the soul redeemed would be little, little worth,

If, content with its own security, it could forget the rest.

HOLGER DANSKE

WHERE the mighty walls of Kronberg

Tower o’er the cold blue tides,

Like a couching lion set to guard

A treasure which he hides,

In a deep, deep vault shut out from day,

In the heart of the dungeon place,

There sleepeth Holger Danske,

The noblest of his race.

There sleeps he in his rusted mail,

With his sword across his knees,

His snowy beard has grown ell long

Through the long centuries.

And if ever a faint, far murmur stirs,

Or the sound of a bell’s dim chime,

He moves, and fumbles at the hilt,

And mutters, “Is it time?”

A peasant once of old, ’tis said,

Lost in the labyrinth ways,

Chanced on the door and raised the bar,

And stared with a wild amaze.

And, “Is it time?” he heard the shape

In an awful voice demand;

Trembling he answer made, “Not yet!”

“Then reach to me thy hand.”

But the frightened hind dares not approach

To touch that form of eld,

And laid instead in the mailed grasp

The iron bar he held.

Like wax the iron bent and snapped,

And the grim lips moved to smile.

“Ha! There are men in Denmark still;

I may rest me yet a while.”

Never since then has mortal man

Trod the forgotten stair,

Or lifted the bar of the hidden vault

To rouse the sleeper there.

But whenever the Danish blood is hot,

Or the land for a hero cries,

Men think of Holger Danske,

And they look to see him rise.

For the runes have read and the sagas sung

That whenever the worst shall be,

And the Raven standard flutter low

Above the Northern Sea,

And the Danish blade be broken short,

And the land be rent with grief,

The genius of the Danes shall wake

And come to his relief.

Before his cold and frozen look,

Before his blasting blade,

The armies of the foe shall flee,

The alien shrink, afraid;

And the Paladin of ancient days

Shall rule with the ancient might,

And all the bitter be made sweet,

And all the wrong made right.

Out of the throes of the heaviest pain

This new peace shall be born,

Out of the very heart of night

Break the unlooked-for morn,

When the nation’s need shall answer

In one deep, according chime,