A tall centurion first drew near,
Brass-booted, on whose crest sat Fear.
He bent low to the fragrant bed,
With beard coal-black and cheek rust-red,
And each palm hard as horn;
Quoth he, "Our old gods' empire shakes,
Meherculé! Now this babe o'ertakes
All that our Venus-Mother makes
Betwixt the night and morn."
A shepherd spake: "Behold the Lamb,
Who ere He reign as heaven's I AM
Must undergo and overcome,
As sheep before the shearers dumb,
Unfriended, faint, forlorn.
Him then as King the skies shall greet,
And with strewn stars beneath His feet
This Lamb shall couch in God's gold seat,
And rule from night to morn."
A woman of the city came,
Who said, "In me hope conquers shame.
Four names in this child's line shall be
As signs to all who love like me,—
God pities where men scorn:
Dame Rahab, Bathshebah, forsooth,
Tamar, whose love outloved man's truth,
And she cast out, sweet alien Ruth,
Betwixt the night and morn.'
Next Joseph, spouse of Mary, came,-
Joseph Bar-Panther was his name,-
Who said, "This babe, Lord God, is Thine
Only begotten Son divine,
As Thou didst me forewarn;
And I will stand beside His throne,
And all the lands shall be His own
Which the sun girds with burning zone,
And leads from night to morn."
Said Zacharias, "Love and will
With God make all things possible.
Shall God be childless? God unwed?
Nay; see God's first-born in this bed
Which kings with gifts adorn.
I would this babe might be at least
As I, an incense-burning priest,
Till all man's incense-fires have ceased,
Betwixt the night and morn.
Whereat his wife Elisabeth:
"My thoughts are on the myrrh, since death
Shades my sere cheek, which, as a shore,
Is wrought with wrinkles o'er and o'er.
Now be this child new-born
A prophet, like my prophet-boy,-
A voice to shake down and destroy
Throne, shrine, each carved and painted toy,
Betwixt the night and morn."
But Mary, God's pure lily, smiled:
Lord, with Thy manhood crown my child,More man, more God; for they who shine Most human shall be most divine.
Of those I think no scorn,
King, prophet, priest, when worlds began;
But higher than these my prayer and plan :
Oh, make my child the Perfect Man,
The Star 'twixt night and morn."
LOVE'S INFINITE MADE FINITE.
Он, there are moments in man's mortal years, When for an instant that which long has lain Beyond our reach, is on a sudden found In things of smallest compass, and we hold The unbounded shut in one small minute's space, And worlds within the hollow of our hand,
A world of music in one word of love,
A world of love in one quick wordless look,
A world of thought in one translucent phrase,
A world of memory in one mournful chord,
A world of sorrow in one little song.
Such moments are man's holiest,—the full-orbed
And finite form of Love's infinity.
THE CREED OF LOVE.
A MIGHTIER church shall come, whose covenant word Shall be the deeds of love.
Amo shall be the password through its gates.
Man shall not ask his brother any more,
"Believest thou?" but "Lovest thou?" and all
Shall answer at God's altar, "Lord, I love."
For Hope may anchor, Faith may steer, but Love,
Great Love alone, is captain of the soul.
From "Liber Amoris."
THE SENSE OF LOSS.
WHEN the first minstrel winds of winter lay Their wild hands on the leafless boughs, which heave With slow-drawn sighs, till all the forest harp Wails o'er the buried autumn and lets loose
The sea-like music of eternity;
Then if perchance thou wanderest forth alone
Toward the sad setting of the autumnal day,
Across the darkening spirit's instrument
There comes the rush of sad and tender thoughts
And wild regrets and mournful memories;
And lamentations and deep dirge-like airs
Awake within thee for sweet summers gone
And the dead faces and the buried years
That never can return. All, all is lost;
Surge upon surge of tempest-driven stars
Seems sinking to the tomb whither great God
Waits to descend: 'tis Nature's burial-day.
Such, such was I in spirit at that hour;
With desolation darker even than this,
I folded me about. What now was left?
Father and friend and love and hope and all
Reft from me, grief and memory but remained.
In these I clothed my thoughts, on these I fed,
With these I walked and talked; till sorrow grew
To be a sort of joy to my sad soul,
And desolation well-nigh a delight.
From "Liber Amoris.”
[Born in New York City, 21st September 1840. York, 13th April 1876. Graduated at Yale, 1862. Author of Poems (New York, 1866); Episodes and Lyric Pieces (1870), and others. The poems given are from the collected edition of his poems, published by Henry Holt & Co., with whose kind permission they are quoted.]
BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON.
THE boughs that bend over,
The vines that aspire
To be close to your window
Prevent my desire.
Come forth from them, darling!
Enough 'tis to bear
That between us be even
Impalpable air!
THANKS to a few clouds that show
So white against the blue,
At last even I begin to know
What I was born to do;
What else but here to lie
And bask me in the sun?
Well pleased to see the sails go by
In silence one by one;
Or lovingly, along the low
Smooth shore no plough depraves,
To watch the long low lazy flow
Of the luxurious waves.
THE MIST.
I SAW along the lifeless sea
A mist come creeping stealthily,
Without a noise and slow,
A crouching mist came crawling low
Along the lifeless sea.
None marked that creeping, crawling mist
That crawled along the sea,
That crept and crawled so stealthily
And was so weak and white;
The moon was shining clear, I wist,
Above it in the night.
I saw it creeping, crawling low,
Slow crawling from the sea,
I saw it creep and crawl and grow
Till all the stifled earth below
Was shrouded silently:
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