Irene Elder Morton
Browning
HE sits at last among his peers,
While we stand chilled with eyes grown dim
In looking over life’s grey fields,
And feel the heart-light folded in.
O great soul! entered in to know
The fulness of the Central Life!
O giant leader of the race,
Who never with the world made strife,
But led it surely, grandly on,
Scaling clear heights with leap and bound,—
Then, beckoning with a strong man’s hand,
He kept his way to higher ground!
No maudlin cry he gave the world,—
“Behold my grief, pity my pain;”
Strong as the breath of Alpine hills,
Sweet as the sound of summer rain,
The songs he gave us. Evermore
The deathless might of English speech
Shall sound their notes from shore to shore,
And to the coming nations teach
That it is nobler to endure,
And smother back the cry of pain—
Shall call us onward to the heights,
To press ahead and bear the strain.
He wore no caste-bound fetters here;
A man of men he proved his soul;
The mighty pulse within his words
Beat full and free above control.
The illumined fringes of his thoughts
Have set the world’s face after him,
As one would follow clear flute notes
Heard in cool aisles of forests dim.
With loving face of child and friend
To look on as the last of earth,
God wrapt him in a robe of light,
And gave him strong immortal birth.
He looks again in the clear eyes
Of her, the love-dream of his youth,
The moonlit side of his great heart,
To whom he gave his manhood’s truth.
Perfect conditions of new life
Are vibrant to his being there,—
Gone in to feel the wider thrill,
Gone in to breathe the purer air.
Completeness
LIFE gives us better than it takes away,—
In brighter hope, and broader, fuller day.
There is no past, but all things move and blend
In sure fulfilment of a promised end.
We leave the misty capes and vales we trod,
For the glad sunshine on the Hills of God.
To slow grand measure up the aisle of years
Move truths enfranchised from long bonds and tears.
Hands that groped darkly for the truth of things
Hold the clear signet of the King of Kings.
Broad waves that tossed in fierce white passion-heat
Fall into psalm and kiss the resting feet.
My Garden Wall
I
IT comforts me through all my days
To know that on this strange old earth,
On which we two found human birth,
I have a friend who cares for me.
Not a high God, serene and just,
Who from His calm sure place of bliss
Looks down from His world into this,
And burns me that I grow more white.
But just a man, so strong and dear—
How dear the stars know in the sky,
And the sweet birds as home they fly,
When evening comes, to the warm nest!
He can do things that I can not:
He builds a wall around my heart;
Some day we will not dwell apart—
A man is stronger than a girl.
II
Within the wall that he has made
I plant the seeds of life’s queen flowers;
I watch them grow through pleasant hours,—
Be sure they neither droop nor fade.
Perhaps some passers-by may think:
“It only is a common wall,
Solid and square, not very tall”—
But could they look over the brink,
And see the rose and mignonette,
Spicy carnations red and white,
That pulse their perfume in the light,
With tall pale lilies firmly set!
III
Now while the sweet wild autumn rain
Is falling on the world outside,
How safely does my heart abide
In the dear shelter of my wall!
In June
SOME glad thing comes to me
Always in June,
Some new joy gladly set
To a sweet tune.
Is it that earth so thrills
With bud and bloom,
That the sad heart of life
Lets go its gloom?
Some dear long absent face
Answers some prayers,
Or may be just a token
That some one cares.
Some glad thing hidden long
In some old room,
Says, “Let us go to her,
For it is June.
“Why cheat her any more,
For we are hers,
Unlock the dusty door,
My being stirs
“With longing to behold
A human face,
And with a touch of joy
Add some new grace.”
Far back in earth’s grey dawn,
Before God’s words
Had crystalized in suns,
Or stars had heard
That clear creative call,
“Let there be light
On all My works below,
For day and night”—
When first earth’s wrinkled face
Saw the white moon
Gleam on unfinished work,
There was no June,—
But as the thoughts of God
Shewed perfect spheres,
We think He called up June
To gem the years!
When we are inward drawn
To God’s dear heart,
And the white silence falls
As we depart,
And the new air seems filled
With some rare tune,
How sweet our last earth-look
If it were June!
Song of the Pagan Princess
THE rivers that sweep to the sea
Bear to it the heart of the land—
The eyes of the gods in the stars
The thoughts of my heart understand.
And the joy in the heart of the rose,
The song in the heart of the rain,
The glory of gladness that flows
O’er the billows of tall ripened grain,
The strength in the heart of the hills,
The unmeasured lament of the sea,
The low happy laugh of the rills,—
All answer to something in me,
To something in me!
Song
WHERE the soft shadows fall,
Where the wind’s voices call,
Softly and low,—
Mother earth, cover me!
Daisies, grow over me!
Bury me low.
Far from the sound of strife,
From the rude voice of life,
Bury me deep!
Where the soft summer rain
Soothes all my weary pain,
There let me sleep.
Wild are earth’s hopes and vain,
Even love touches pain—
Bury me low!
Mother earth, cover me!
Daisies, grow over me!
Bury me low!