Hint more than all the sages say, Or poets sing, of death or life! For, truth half drawn from Nature's breast, Through subtlest types of form and tone, Outweigh what man at most hath guessed, While heeding his own heart alone. And midway betwixt heaven and us Stands Nature, in her fadeless grace, Still pointing to our Father's house, His glory on her mystic face! WINDLESS RAIN. THE rain, the desolate rain! Ceaseless, and solemn, and chill! How it drips on the misty pane, How it drenches the darkened sill! O scene of sorrow and dearth! I would that the wind awaking To a fierce and gusty birth Might vary this dull refrain Of the rain, the desolate rain: For the heart of heaven seems breaking In tears o'er the fallen earth, We list to the sombre strain, The rain, the murmurous rain! Weary, passionless, slow, 'Tis the rhythm of settled sorrow, "T is the sobbing of cureless woe! And all the tragic life, The pathos of Long-Ago, Comes back on the sad refrain Of the rain, the dreary rain, Till the graves in my heart unclose And the dead who are buried there From a solemn and weird repose Awake, but with eyeballs drear, And voices that melt in pain On the tide of the plaintive rain, The yearning, hopeless rain, The long, low, whispering rain? QUESTIONINGS. HATH this world without me wrought Doth yon fire-ball, poised in air, Now I close my eyes, my ears, Hues more bright and forms more rare Than reality doth wear, Flash across my inward sense Thought that in me works and lives, Life to all things living gives, By that world thou fanciedst sprung theme ? Be it thus, or be thy birth This bounded self in boundless mind. We know when moons shall wane, Speak, then, thou voice of God When summer-birds from far shall within! Thou of the deep low tone! Answer me through life's restless din, Where is the spirit flown? And the voice answered, "Be thou still! Enough to know is given; cross the sea, When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grain, But who shall teach us when to look for thee? Is it when spring's first gale Clouds, winds, and stars their task Comes forth to whisper where the fulfil; Thine is to trust in Heaven!" THE HOUR OF DEATH. LEAVES have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, And stars to set, but all, violets lie? Thou hast all seasons for thine own, And the world calls us forth,-and oh! Death. thou art there. |