"Greeting!" "And may you speak, indeed?" All in the dark her sense grew clearer; She knew that she had, for company, All day an angel near her. "May you tell us of the life divine, To us unknown, to angels given?" "Count me your earthly joys, and I May teach you those of heaven." "They say the pleasures of earth are vain; "And while he quickens the air with song, My breaths with scent, my fruits with flavor, Will he, dear angel, count as sin My life in sound and savor? "See, at our feet the glow-worm shines, Lo! in the east a star arises; And thought may climb from worm to world Forever through fresh surprises: "And thought is joy. . . . And, hark! in the vale Music, and merry steps pursuing; They leap in the dance, a soul in my blood Cries out, Awake, be doing! "Action is joy; or power at play, "And are these all?" She flushed in the dark. "These are not all. I have a lover; At sound of his voice, at touch of his hand, The cup of my life runs over. "Once, unknowing, we looked and neared, And doubted, and neared, and rested never, Till life seized life, as flame meets flame, To escape no more forever. "Lover and husband; then was love The wine of my life, all life enhancing: Now 't is my bread, too needful and sweet To be kept for feast-day chancing. "I have a child." She seemed to change; The deep content of some brooding creature Looked from her eyes. "O, sweet and strange! Angel, be thou my teacher: "When He made us one in a babe, Was it for joy, or sorest proving? For now I fear no heaven could win Our hearts from earthly loving. "I have a friend. Howso I err, I see her uplifting love bend o'er me; Howso I climb to my best, I know Her foot will be there before me. VESPERS. ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER. WHEN I have said my quiet say, I thought beside the water's flow What matter now for promise lost, Thou lovest still the poor; O, blest I come to thee with empty hands, 273 ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER. [U. s. A., 1816-1848.] CHARITY. INA D. COOLBRITH. WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME. WHEN the grass shall cover me, THE pilgrim and stranger, who, through Head to foot where I am lying; the day, Holds over the desert his trackless way, Where the terrible sands no shade have known, No sound of life save his camel's moan, Hears, at last, through the mercy of Allah to all, From his tent-door, at evening, the Bed ouin's call: "Whoever thou art, whose need is great, In the name of God, the Compassionate And Merciful One, for thee I wait!" { When not any wind that blows, Summer bloom or winter snows, Shall awake me to your sighing: Close above me as you pass, You will say, "How kind she was,' You will say, "How true she was,' When the grass grows over me. When the grass shall cover me, Holden close to earth's warm bosom; While I laugh, or weep, or sing, Nevermore for anything You will find in blade and blossom, Sweet small voices, odorous, Tender pleaders of my cause, That shall speak me as I was, When the grass grows over me. When the grass shall cover me! Ah, beloved in my sorrow, Very patient can I wait; Knowing that or soon or late, There will dawn a clearer morrow: When your heart will moan, "Alas, Now I know how true she was; Now I know how dear she was,' When the grass grows over me. UNKNOWN. AGAIN. O, SWEET and fair! O, rich and rare! That day so long ago. The autumn sunshine everywhere, The heather all aglow, The waves sang on the shore. O, fit and few! O, tried and true! And so in earnest play The hours flew past, until at last The twilight kissed the shore. We said, "Such days shall come again One day again, no cloud of pain And yet we strove in vain, in vain, -evermore. For ghosts unseen crept in between, And, when our songs flowed free, Sang discords in an undertone, And marred our harmony. "The past is ours, not yours," they said: "The waves that beat the shore, Though like the same, are not the same, O, never, never more!" |