Let the strange frost-work sink and crumble, And let the loosened tree-boughs swing, Till all their bells of silver ring.

Shine warmly down, thou sun of noon-time, On this chill pageant, melt and move The winter's frozen heart with love.

And, soft and low, thou wind south-blowing,
Breathe through a veil of tenderest haze,
Thy prophecy of summer days.

Come with thy green relief of promise,
And to this dead, cold splendor bring
The living jewels of the spring!

THE SINGER.

YEARS since (but names to me before),
Two sisters sought at eve my door;
Two song-birds wandering from their nest,
A gray old farm-house in the West.

How fresh of life the younger one,
Half smiles, half tears, like rain in sun!
Her gravest mood could scarce displace
The dimples of her nut-brown face.

Wit sparkled on her lips not less
For quick and tremulous tenderness;
And, following close her merriest glance,
Dreamed through her eyes the heart's romance.

Timid and still, the elder had
Even then a smile too sweetly sad;
The crown of pain that all must wear
Too early pressed her midnight hair.

Yet ere the summer eve grew long,
Her modest lips were sweet with song;
A memory haunted all her words
Of clover-fields and singing birds.

Her dark, dilating eyes expressed
The broad horizons of the west;

Her speech dropped prairie flowers; the gol
Of harvest wheat about her rolled.

Fore-doomed to song she seemed to me;
I queried not with destiny;

I knew the trial and the need,
Yet, all the more, I said, God speed!

What could I other than I did?
Could I a singing-bird forbid?
Deny the wind-stirred leaf? Rebuke
The music of the forest brook?

She went with morning from my door,
But left me richer than before;
Thenceforth I knew her voice of cheer,
The welcome of her partial ear.

Years passed: through all the land her name
A pleasant household word became :
All felt behind the singer stood
A sweet and gracious womanhood.

Her life was earnest work, not play;
Her tired feet climbed a weary way;
And even through her lighest strain
We heard an undertone of pain.

Unseen of her her fair fame grew,
The good she did she rarely knew,
Unguessed of her in life the love
That rained its tears her grave above.

When last I saw her, full of peace,
She waited for her great release;
And that old friend so sage and bland,
Our later Franklin, held her hand.

For all that patriot bosoms stirs
Had moved that woman's heart of hers,
And men who toiled in storm and sun
Found her their meet companion.

Our converse, from her suffering bed
To healthful themes of life she led :
The out-door world of bud and bloom
And light and sweetness filled her room.

Yet evermore an underthought
Of loss to come within us wrought,
And all the while we felt the strain
Of the strong will that conquered pain.

God giveth quietness at last!
The common way that all have passed
She went, with mortal yearnings fond,
To fuller life and love beyond.

Fold the rapt soul in your embrace,
My dear ones! Give the singer place
To you, to her,-I know not where,-
I lift the silence of a prayer.

For only thus our own we find;
The gone before, the left behind,
All mortal voices die between;
The unheard reaches the unseen.

Again the blackbirds sing; the streams
Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams,
And tremble in the April showers
The tassels of the maple flowers.

But not for her has spring renewed
The sweet surprises of the wood;
And bird and flower are lost to her
Who was their best interpreter !

What to shut eyes has God revealed?
What hear the ears that death has sealed?
What undreamed beauty passing show
Requites the loss of all we know?

O silent land, to which we move,
Enough if there alone be love,
And mortal need can ne'er outgrow
What it is waiting to bestow!

O white soul! from that far-off shore
Float some sweet song the waters o'er,
Our faith confirm, our fears dispel,
With the old voice we loved so well!

CHICAGO.

MEN said at vespers : "All is well!"
In one wild night the city fell;
Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain
Before the fiery hurricane.

On threescore spires had sunset shone,
Where ghastly sunrise looked on none.
Men clasped each other's hands, and said:
"The City of the West is dead!"

Brave hearts who fought, in slow retreat, The fiends of fire from street to street, Turned, powerless, to the blinding glare, The dumb defiance of despair.

266

A sudden impulse thrilled each wire
That signalled round that sea of fire;
Swift words of cheer, warm heart-throbs came;
In tears of pity died the flame!

From East, from West, from South and North,
The messages of hope shot forth,
And, underneath the severing wave,
The world, full-handed, reached to save.

Fair seemed the old; but fairer still
The new, the dreary void shall fill
With dearer homes than those o'erthrown,
For love shall lay each corner-stone.

Rise, stricken city!-from thee throw
The ashen sackcloth of thy woe;
And build, as to Amphion's strain,
To songs of cheer thy walls again!

How shrivelled in thy hot distress
The primal sin of selfishness!

How instant rose, to take thy part,
The angel in the human heart!

Ah! not in vain the flames that tossed
Above thy dreadful holocaust;

The Christ again has preached through thee
The Gospel of Humanity!

Then lift once more thy towers on high,
And fret with spires the western sky,
To tell that God is yet with us,

And love is still miraculous!

How hushed the hiss of party hate,

The clamor of the throng! How old, harsh voices of debate Flow into rhythmic song!

Methinks the spirit's temper grows
Too soft in this still air;
Somewhat the restful heart foregoes
Of needed watch and prayer.

The bark by tempest vainly tossed
May founder in the calm,
And he who braved the polar frost
Faint by the isles of balm.

Better than self-indulgent years
The outflung heart of youth,
Than pleasant songs in idle years
The tumult of the truth.

Rest for the weary hands is good,
And love for hearts that pine,
But let the manly habitude

Of upright souls be mine.

Let winds that blow from heaven refresh,
Dear Lord, the languid air;

And let the weakness of the flesh
Thy strength of spirit share.

And, if the eye must fail of light,
The ear forget to hear,

Make clearer still the spirit's sight,
More fine the inward ear!

The land with Soma's praises rang;
On Gihon's banks of shade
Its hymns the dusky maidens sang;
In joy of life or mortal pang
All men to Soma prayed.

The morning twilight of the race

Sends down these matin psalms; And still with wondering eyes we trace The simple prayers to Soma's grace, That Vedic verse embalms.

As in that child-world's early year,
Each after age has striven
By music, incense, vigils drear,

And trance, to bring the skies more near,
Or lift men up to heaven!-

Some fever of the blood and brain,
Some self-exalting spell,
The scourger's keen delight of pain,
The Dervish dance, the Orphic strain,
The wild-haired Bacchant's yell,

The desert's hair-grown hermit sunk
The saner brute below;
The naked Santon, hashish-drunk,
The cloister madness of the monk,
The fakir's torture-show!

And yet the past comes round again And new doth old fulfil;

In sensual transports wild as vain We brew in many a Christian fane The heathen Soma still!

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives thy service find,

In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea

The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,

Where Jesus knelt to share with thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of thy call,
As noiseless let thy blessing fall
As fell thy manna down.

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!

A WOMAN.

O, DWARFED and wronged, and stained with ill,
Behold! thou art a woman still!
And, by that sacred name and dear,
I bid thy better self appear.

Still, through thy foul disguise, I see
The rudimental purity,

That, spite of change and loss, makes good
Thy birthright-claim of womanhood;
An inward loathing, deep, intense;
A shame that is half innocence.
Cast off the grave-clothes of thy sin!
Rise from the dust thou liest in,
As Mary rose at Jesus' word,
Redeemed and white before the Lord!
Reclaim thy lost soul! In His name,
Rise up, and break thy bonds of shame.
Art weak? He's strong. Art fearful? Hear
The world's O'ercomer: "Be of cheer!"
What lip shall judge when He approves ?
Who dare to scorn the child he loves?

DISARMAMENT.

267

"PUT up the sword!" The voice of Christ

once more

Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar,
O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped
And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped
With nameless dead; o'er cities starving slow
Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe
Down which a groaning diapason runs
From tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, son
Of desolate women in their far-off homes,
Waiting to hear the step that never comes!
O men and brothers! let that voice be heard.
War fails, try peace; put up the useless sword!

268

"Get thee back to the bed so warm, No good comes of watching a storm.

"What is it to thee, I fain would know, That waves are roaring and wild winds blow?

"No lover of thine 's afloat to miss, The harbor-lights on a night like this."

"But I heard a voice cry out my name, Up from the sea on the wind it came!

"Twice and thrice have I heard it call, And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!"

On her pillow the sister tossed her head. "Hall of the Heron is safe," she said.

"In the tautest schooner that ever swam He rides at anchor in Anisquam.

"And, if in peril from swamping sea
Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee?"

But the girl heard only the wind and tide,
And wringing her small white hands she cried:
"O sister Rhoda, there's something wrong;
I hear it again, so loud and long.

"Annie! Annie!' I hear it call,

And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!"

Up sprang the elder, with eyes aflame, "Thou liest! He never would call thy name!

"If he did, I would pray the wind and sea To keep him forever from thee and me!"

Then out of the sea blew a dreadful blast;
Like the cry of a dying man it passed.

The young girl hushed on her lips a groan,
But through her tears a strange light shone,--

The solemn joy of her heart's release
To own and cherish its love in peace.

"Dearest!" she whispered, under breath,
Life was a lie, but true is death.
"The love I hid from myself away
Shall crown me now in the light of day.

"My ears shall never to wooer list,
Never by lover my lips be kissed.

"Sacred to thee am I henceforth, Thou in heaven and I on earth!"

She came and stood by her sister's bed: 'Hall of the Heron is dead!" she said.

"The wind and the waves their work have done, We shall see him no more beneath the sun.

"Little will reck that heart of thine, It loved him not with a love like mine.

"I, for his sake, were he but here, Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear,

"Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet, And stitch for stitch in my heart be set.

"But now my soul with his soul I wed; Thine the living, and mine the dead!"

MARGUERITE.

MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 1760.

THE robins sang in the orchard, the buds into blossoms grew;

Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins knew!

Sick, in an alien household, the poor French neutral lay;

Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the April day.

Through the dusty window, curtained by the spider's warp and woof,

On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs of roof.

The bedquilt's faded patchwork, the teacups on the stand,

The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from her sick hand!

What to her was the song of the robin, or warm morning light,

As she lay in the trance of the dying, heedless of sound or sight?

Done was the work of her hands, she had eaten her bitter bread;

The world of the alien people lay behind her dim and dead.