Father, let thy blessing
Touch us and remain,
Guiding all our actions
Till we meet again.

Father, keep us loving,
Brave and true and free,
Kind to every creature,—
All belong to thee.

Unto all thy children,
Here and everywhere,
Father, give the comfort
Of thy loving care.

Speed ye, warm hours, along th' appointed path,
Speed, though ye bring but pain, slow pain to me;
I will not much bemoan your heavy wrath,
So ye will make my lady glad and free.
What is't that I must here confined be,
If she may roam the summer's sweets among,
See the full-cupped flower, the laden tree,
Hear from deep groves the thousand-voiced song?
Sometimes in that still chamber will she sit
Trim ranged with books, and cool with dusky blinds,
That keep the moon out, there, as seemed fit,
To sing, or play, or read—what sweet hope finds

Oh Poetry, oh rarest spirit of all
That dwell within the compass of the mind,
Forsake not him, whom thou of old didst call:
Still let me seek thy face, and seeking find.
Some years have gone about since I and thou
Became acquainted first: we met in woe;
Sad was my cry for help as it is now;
Sad too thy breathed response of music slow;
But in that sadness was such essence fine,
So keen a sense of Life's mysterious name,
And high conceit of natures more divine,
That breath and sorrow seemed no more the same.
Oh let me hear again that sweet reply!

There loomed a great shape lately scarce in sight
Of Scituate cliffs,—a mountain mid the mist;
Perchance an Indiaman, we said; but hist!
Heard you that gun-stroke, out by yonder light?
Then the fog thickened in the gathering night;
No further signal heard (save that dread one
Which brings back terror even as I write)
Of the mysterious wanderer; nor is known
Aught else of her—but that she comes no more.
O unknown mourners! watchers of the sea
By many a lonely fireside on the shore,
One thing is sure: He brought them to the breast

In the fair blank that now, like some new bay
In life's vague ocean, opens with to-day,
Couldst thou but write, dear lady, at thy will,
All thou wouldst choose of good, or shun of ill,
As on this paper thou mayst fill the space
With thoughts and wishes gentle as thy face,
Thou couldst not crowd the days that are to be
With happier fortune than I hope for thee.

For, if the saint that keeps the book above
Which holds the record of thy life and love,
Where at one view thy childhood and thine age,
Thy past and future, gleam upon the page,

Alive am I through lack of joy;
By joy you have been slowly slain;
So you are old, and I, a boy,
In all my hopes and dreams remain.

I have been kept alive by strife,
But you are moribund thro' peace,
My soul still longs for fuller life,
And yours from living seeks release.

You cannot live! I cannot die
While life has still so much to give.
You, through success, are dead; and I
By virtue of my failures live.

You, having garnered all things fair,
Can hope no more, so you are dead;
I, menaced by a black despair,

Her dreamy eyes are of the blue of smoke,
That softly, frond by frond and gyre by gyre,
O'er some thatched bothy, in a Highland glen,
Unfurls at gloaming from an ingle fire,

Whose hearth-stone is love's altar,—blue of smoke
Ascending, blending in blue heaven away,—
Blue of the fragrant smoke of vestal flame
That in her virgin heart burns night and day.

I, who had slept the dreamless sleep of Death
For æons, wakened to a sense of pain,
Wrenched my stiff hands asunder, gasped for breath,
And was a man again.

The tatters of torn heaven overhead
Were swayed by hurrying wings and busy breath.
It was the resurrection of the dead,
The dying-day of Death.

The sun had halted half-way down the west;
But in the shadow of the pendant blue,
Patient and calm amid the world's unrest,
There shone a star or two.

Weird voices wailed about the vexéd sea;
Cold corses lay upon the yellow sands,

Only to follow you, dearest, only to find you!
Only to feel for one instant the touch of your hand;
Only to tell you once of the love you left behind you,—
To say the world without you is like a desert of sand;

That the flowers have lost their perfume, the rose its splendor,
And the charm of nature is lost in a dull eclipse;
That joy went out with the glance of your eyes so tender.
And beauty passed with the lovely smile on your lips.

I did not dream it was you who kindled the morning
And folded the evening purple in peace so sweet;

Be tremblingly fearful;
Be careful night and day.
Men trip not on mountains;
They trip on anthills.