It is the little brown hour of twilight.
I pause between two dark houses,
For there is a song in my heart.
If I could sing at this moment what I wish to sing,
The nations would crown me,
If I were dumb ever afterwards.
For I am sure it would be the greatest song in the world,
And the song every one has been trying to sing
Just now!
But it will not come out.

Earth is a prey of the hours
Life is dividing of days
Sorrow and happiness fly
Vanish dishonour and praise
Yet, toil we on toward something that lieth before our way,

Yearnings are shattered and healed
Battles are lost and are won
All the old visions are dead
All the old faces are gone
Only remains on the Earth the voice that is crying “on!”

Vanish the echoes of feet
That once in my chamber have trod
Die in the darkness without
With the silence of death they are shod
All but the roll and the march of the measureless purpose of God.

sing will I
for his sake
sing will I
1. Unto Jehovah sing will I For he
for his sake
2. This is my God, and for his sake I will
sing will I
for his sake
that rode thereon
is this same,
excelleth gloriously; The horse and him that rode thereon
an habitation make; God of my father is this same,
Into the sea thrown down hath he; Jah is my strength
And I will highly him prefer. Jehovah is
and melody And hath been my salvation.
a man of war, Jehovah his renownèd name.
salvation.
renownèd name.

3. Then with thy wind thou didest blow;

Shall we turn from the mysterious dark with the pagan prayer and spell,
As wholly a hideous dream from the gloom of the gateway of Hell?
Shall we say of the wild-eyed savage who crouches with gibber and moan,
Where the dead stone god sits glaring, that the worship is dead as the stone?
Not so; for the worshipper lives, and with him the worship grew,
And the fear of his heart is deep and the prayer of his lips is true;
The worshipper lives and prays, and with him the worship began,
Though the fetish that towers be a fetish, the man that kneels is a man;

Under the sun is nothing new?
Nothing, if Solomon says true.
Archdeacon, you'll excuse me then
If I today should not be seen
Amidst the goodly row of friends
Which on your reverence attends
To hail you happy this new year,
Wishing it full of health and cheer:
But lo! sir, compliments apart,
My muse shall greet you from her heart.
Through many good old years O! may
Your present temper not decay!
That temper, which denoteth plain
A mind and body free from pain.
And can my wishes not succeed?
They must, if sages have decreed

This cool and laughing mind, renewed
From covert sources like a spring's,
Is potent to translate the mood
Of all distraught and twisted things.

In this clear water shall be cast
Outrageous shapes of steel and gold,
And all their hot and clotted past
Beaded with bubbles silver-cold.

The moving power takes their heat
Into itself, forgetting them;
And warmth in trickles, slow and sweet
Comforts a fainting lily-stem.

[Good Jonathan, I've read your ditty
Which was, of course, well-turned and pretty;
It was as always charming, clever,
As you are in your writing ever.
I laud you with the highest praise;
To me you shine with Phoebus' rays.
O brother Phoebus, brother poet
Who brings me needed eyewash so it
Repairs the damages of mad
Diana's rays that struck—bedad,
Not scorched—and made my eyes a mess
With ever-growing iciness.
My quack prescribes a double blanket,
Then takes my wine and says, “Don't drink it.”
O Earth! O Sky! O heaving breast!

Of all good gifts that the Lord lets fall,
Is not silence the best of all?

The deep, sweet hush when the song is closed,
And every sound but a voiceless ghost;

And every sigh, as we listening leant,
A breathless quiet of vast content?

The laughs we laughed have a purer ring
With but their memory echoing;

And the joys we voiced, and the words we said,
Seem so dearer for being dead.

So of all good gifts that the Lord lets fall,
Is not silence the best of all?

The harvests with abundance fill the land,
And call for gratitude and festive song;
And industry revives on every hand,
Which from war's wasteful scourge has suffered long.
And fell disease, that wasted day by day,
Is checked and staid, confined to narrow bound;
That else might thousands and ten thousands slay,
And desolate a fertile region round!
Our fathers' God! who, in their sore distress,
Did'st save from famine and from dangers dire,
And gav'st them shelter in the wilderness;
Our hearts with praise and gratitude inspire,

There's nothing new the Preacher cries,
With saddened heart, and weary mind;
That which hath been is that which is,
And nothing new on earth we find.

Night follows day, and day the night,
As the earth circles round the sun;
The rivers from the ocean rise,
And back into the ocean run.

Man cannot rise above himself,
And reason's calm behests obey;
Though for a time he heed her laws,
Soon will he yield to passion's sway.

The order of our daily life
May wild confusion yet succeed;
We see not yet those happy years,