Stray Pebbles from the Shores of Thought

RENUNCIATION

 
"Oh, is not love eternal
When once the heart be won?
Oh, is not love infernal
When love can be undone?"
 
 
So sighed a gentle maiden
In light of memory dear,
As, sad and heavy-laden,
She longed for knowledge clear.
 
 
But soon the bitter heart-ache
Gave way to victory's cheer;
For, brave, she chose for His sake
The life which knows no peer;
 
 
The life of abnegation
Which gives the Christ's own peace,
But leaves the sad temptation
To ask for life's release.
 

A WIDOW'S HEART-CRY

 
"Thy will, not mine, be done!"
So breathe I when the day's begun,
So breathe I when the day is done.
 
 
I whisper it in blinding tears,
I pause and listen, till appears
The welcome voice for listening ears;
 
 
The voice which checks my wayward will
And makes my longing heart to thrill
With love for those who need me still.
 
 
But, O, how long must I so pray?
When will I learn to calmly say,
"Thy will is mine," both night and day?
 
 
Ah! this can never be on earth,
Since he who gladly gave me birth
To everything that was of worth
 
 
Has gone from out my sense and sight,
To what? O ye who still invite
To heaven's sure realm and faith's own right,
 
 
Reveal some clue for me to see
What life is his, what he's to me.
Alas! ye can't. Then what can be
 
 
More precious when the day is done,
Or when the morning is begun,
Than, "Not my will, but Thine, be done."
 

TOGETHER

 
Transformed, redeemed from all that dwarfs or blights,
In perfect harmony with beauteous sights
Beyond imagination's highest flights
Ere reached by seer,
We shall together walk the golden streets
Sometime, my dear.
 
 
But how, you ask, shall we each other know,
So changed from what we were while here below,
When, caged like birds, we longed and suffered so?
Ah, do not fear.
Will not the soul, when free, seek like the bird
Its own, my dear?
 
 
It may not be at once or soon, 'tis true.
For you may be among the blessed few
Who'll sooner reach the blissful heights – your due
For pure life here —
But sometime, sure as God is love and truth,
We'll meet, my dear.
 
 
Some precious, long-forgotten look or word
Breathed through the softest, sweetest music heard,
Or some vibration rare of soul depths stirred
By memory's tear,
Will, like a flash of light, reveal our souls
Together, dear,
To live the fuller life we've dreamed of here.
 

SHADOWED CIRCLES

 
Why weepest thou, O dear one?
Do sorrows press?
Beneath the weight of sorrow
Is love's caress.
 
 
Why joyest thou, O dear one?
Is love thine own?
Ah! 'neath love's deep rejoicing
Is sorrow's moan.
 
 
Indeed, all earth's great passions —
Is it not so? —
Are circled in the shadow
Of joy or woe.
 
 
But why should we bemoan this?
Could otherwise
Truth's dazzling light be subject
To mortal eyes?
 
 
Could otherwise we enter
The endless light,
Beyond the shadowed circle
Of mortal sight?
 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

A SONG OF SUCCESS

YOUTH

 
I am dancing along. Just to live is a joy,
I'm so happy and free.
I know not nor care what will tame or destroy,
Life now satisfies me.
Oh, there's naught like dear youth
To reveal the glad truth
That 'tis pure, healthful joy just to know and to be!
 

MIDDLE AGE

 
I am marching along, full of work and of plan
To alleviate wrong.
With a heart full of love both to God and to man,
And an arm free and strong.
Oh, there's naught like mid-life
To make sure without strife
The beauty of progress through action and song.
 

OLD AGE

 
I am living along, sitting down by the way.
My work is all done.
I have fought the good fight, known the full of each day,
And true victory won.
Oh, there's naught like old age
To declare with the sage,
Life ending on earth is but heaven begun.
 

THE UNDER-WORLD

 
Under the restless surface
Of ocean's vast domain,
The god of perfect quiet
Holds ever peaceful reign.
 
 
Under the restless surface
Of passions strong and wild,
The still small voice of conscience
Is heard in accents mild.
 
 
Under the restless surface
Of all man's life on earth,
The Christ of sacred story
Renews each day his birth.
 

SHE KNOWS

(Written at Mountain Cottage, on Mount Wachusett, where Louisa M. Alcott spent the last summer of her life.)

 
Last summer she believed that in and through these beauteous scenes
God's loving self did flow,
But now she knows 'tis so.
 
 
For, having crossed the boundary lines of honest doubt and fear,
She sees with spirit-eye
What sense could not descry.
 
 
Her firm belief, thus blossomed into perfect flower of sight,
Becomes a restful cheer
To all who linger here,
 
 
Still asking for the secret of these changing, beauteous scenes,
And troubled with the why
Of all earth's sorrowing cry.
 
 
Her presence here has filled the place with memory of a soul
Made beautiful through pain
Eternity to gain.
 

August, 1888.

AT PITTSFORD, VERMONT

TO J. A. C

 
As winds the lovely Otter Creek through vales of summer green,
Ne'er pausing on its way,
Though love its tribute pay,
 
 
So gently winds my loving thought through memory's changing scenes,
To days of long ago
When thee I first did know.
 
 
Thy heartfelt sympathy and help were to my fresh young soul
What these dear Vermont hills
Are to the little rills;
 
 
A presence near, a faithful strength, life-giving and serene —
Oh, hills, be now as much
To her who feels Time's touch!
 
 
In different paths, through various ways, we've known the world since then.
Together now we rest
On Nature's peaceful breast.
 

CHILDHOOD'S DAYS

TO M. C

 
If knowledge gained in later years
May wholly cloud from sight
The glimpse which childhood's eye hath caught
Of heaven's celestial light,
 
 
Then need we not the atmosphere
Of second childhood's days
To catch another broader glimpse
Of heaven's immortal rays?
 
 
Ah, yes; we even need to seek,
Through earth's illusive hour,
Immortal childhood's heavenly days
Of sweet, revealing power;
 
 
For how can otherwise we catch
The deeper glimpses yet
Of life eternal, glorious, pure,
Where sun hath never set?
 

AN ANSWER

TO B. P. S

 
"Why don't I write a story?"
Ah, friend, if you could see
The depths of hidden heart-life
Alas! so known to me,
 
 
You'd find the truest story
Flashed out in gleams of light,
Before which all pens falter
And vanish out of sight.
 
 
And as they vanish from me
They leave the impress clear,
That only Heaven's pen could write
Such stories acted here.
 
 
So in His book of life,
Revealed to all some day,
You'll find my story grand and true,
Worked out in His own way.
 

WHERE? WHAT? WHENCE?

 
The kingdom of heaven is where?
Oh, where?
Would that the heart which with pity o'erflows,
While deigning love's burdens to share,
Could disclose!
 
 
The kingdom of heaven is what?
Oh, what?
Would that the Infinite Presence which flows
Through a life on the earth finely cut
Might disclose!
 
 
The kingdom of heaven is whence?
Oh, whence?
Ah! let the wind and the breath of the rose
Their secrets of life and of sense
Dare disclose!
Could we then see the better whence spirit arose?
Who knows? Oh, who knows?
 

HEROES

 
The heroes on the battlefield are calm in death,
Their fighting o'er;
They feel no more the fevered breath
Of battle's war;
They hear at last the voice that saith
"Fight on no more."
 
 
But oh, the heroes on the grander field of peace,
Who know no rest!
Whose hearts ne'er feel the full release
From mortal quest,
Nor breathe the air where struggles cease
The soul to test.
 
 
For such we mourn, O purifying soul of life,
For such we pray.
Let Nature free them from the strife
Of falsehood's way,
And Love through every struggle rife
Have free, full play.
 

A MAGDALEN'S EASTER CRY

 
In the different mansions of heavenly space
Prepared for the faithful and pure,
(Ah me, for the faithful and pure!)
Can I dare hope to find e'en a small resting place
Free from sin and all earthly allure?
 
 
Can a soul such as mine, that has wasted life's wealth
On the baubles and gewgaws of time,
(Ah me, on the baubles of time!)
Have a fitting strength left to regain needed health
For the life of a heavenly clime?
 
 
For a life where the laws of the spirit, not sense,
Bring their perfect eternal reward,
(Ah me, their eternal reward!)
And the pleasures obtained with such fever intense
Can find nowhere a vibrating chord?
 
 
Oh, woe is me, woe is me, this Easter day!
No hope riseth up in my soul.
(Ah me, my poor sin-laden soul!)
I have only the dregs of my pleasure to pay,
And such wrong, bitter thoughts of life's whole.
 
 
But, listen! What's that? What's that message I hear
Bearing down on my sad troubled heart?
(Ah me, on my sad troubled heart!)
"Christ is risen indeed. He is risen to cheer,
And His strength to the weakest impart."
 
 
O Christ, can it be that Thine own risen strength
Can give life, added life, to my soul,
To my sin-laden, weak, starving soul?
Yes, 'tis true. I'll believe, and rejoice now at length
To feel Easter's sweet joy o'er me roll.
 

FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF MRS. BROWNING'S DEATH

June 29, 1861

 
"'Tis beautiful," she faintly cried,
Then closed her weary eyes and died.
 
 
So stands plain fact on history's page,
Attested to by friend and sage.
 
 
But in our hearts the fact grows bright,
Illumined with immortal light.
 
 
For open eyes saw heaven's shores,
And life, not death, revealed its stores.
 
 
"'Tis beautiful!" It must be so,
If such a soul 'midst parting's woe,
 
 
Could with truth's perfect clearness see
The secret of life's mystery;
 
 
Could know that fullest life of man
Needs heaven's light to round God's plan.
 
 
O woman-soul without a peer,
We thank thee more and more each year
 
 
For this sweet proof of Beauty's power
Beyond earth's transitory hour.
 
 
It calms our hours of doubt and pain,
And beautifies earth's troubled reign,
 
 
To feel that thou art sending still
This same sweet message of God's will,
 
 
Born of fruition's grander sight,
Of perfect beauty, peace, and light.