Verses

And as the sweet saint's loaves were turned, it is said, To roses, so your roses turned to bread, That hungering souls and weary might be fed.

Dear friends, my poor words do but paint you wrong, Nor can I utter, in one trivial song, The goodness I have honored for so long.

Only this leaf, a single petal flung, One chord from a full harmony unsung, May speak the life-long love that lacks a tongue.

CONTENTS.

To J. H. and E. W. H. Prelude Commissioned The Cradle Tomb in Westminster Abbey "Of such as I have" A Portrait When? On the Shore Among the Lilies November Embalmed Ginevra Degli Amieri Easter Lilies Ebb-Tide Flood-Tide A Year Tokens Her Going A Lonely Moment Communion A Farewell Ebb and Flow Angelus The Morning Comes Before the Sun Laborare est Orare Eighteen Outward Bound From East to West Una Two Ways to Love After-Glow Hope and I Left Behind Savoir c'est Pardonner Morning A Blind Singer Mary When Love went Overshadowed Time to Go Gulf-Stream My White Chrysanthemum Till the Day Dawn My Birthday By the Cradle A Thunder Storm Through the Door Readjustment At the Gate A Home The Legend of Kintu Easter Bind-Weed April May Secrets How the Leaves Came Down Barcaroles My Rights Solstice In the Mist Within Menace "He That Believeth Shall Not Make Haste" My Little Ghost Christmas Benedicam Domino

PRELUDE.

Poems are heavenly things, And only souls with wings May reach them where they grow, May pluck and bear below, Feeding the nations thus With food all glorious.

Verses are not of these; They bloom on earthly trees, Poised on a low-hung stem, And those may gather them Who cannot fly to where The heavenly gardens are.

So I by devious ways Have pulled some easy sprays From the down-dropping bough Which all may reach, and now I knot them, bud and leaf, Into a rhymed sheaf.

Not mine the pinion strong To win the nobler song; I only cull and bring A hedge-row offering Of berry, flower, and brake, If haply some may take.

VERSES.

COMMISSIONED.

"Do their errands; enter into the sacrifice with them; be a link yourself in the divine chain, and feel the joy and life of it." --ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY

What can I do for thee, Beloved, Whose feet so little while ago Trod the same way-side dust with mine, And now up paths I do not know Speed, without sound or sign?

What can I do? The perfect life All fresh and fair and beautiful Has opened its wide arms to thee; Thy cup is over-brimmed and full; Nothing remains for me.

I used to do so many things,-- Love thee and chide thee and caress; Brush little straws from off thy way, Tempering with my poor tenderness The heat of thy short day.

Not much, but very sweet to give; And it is grief of griefs to bear That all these ministries are o'er, And thou, so happy, Love, elsewhere, Never can need me more:--

And I can do for thee but this (Working on blindly, knowing not If I may give thee pleasure so): Out of my own dull, burdened lot I can arise, and go

To sadder lives and darker homes, A messenger, dear heart, from thee Who wast on earth a comforter, And say to those who welcome me, I am sent forth by her.

Feeling the while how good it is To do thy errands thus, and think It may be, in the blue, far space, Thou watchest from the heaven's brink,-- A smile upon my face.

And when the day's work ends with day, And star-eyed evening, stealing in, Waves a cool hand to flying noon, And restless, surging thoughts begin, Like sad bells out of tune,