Still, as each year the lilies blow
And gardens grow
Divine with fragrance, as each year the sea
In centuries yet to be

With royal smile puts on anew
Its radiant robes of sunlit blue,
Through all the glory of Nature men will cry,
“Why must our loved ones die?”

This is a helpful thought—
That something wondrous waits
Behind the cloud-girt mystic gates
Of death,—a something each day nearer brought.

“Look forward,” thou didst say,
“To meeting those we love.” Ah! through the strife,
The toil, the cares, of every day,
Mother, the great hope shines, and hallows life.

If so the lesson must be learned,
If love be taken from the earth
That we may know love's utmost worth,
Will there be scope to use the knowledge earned?

Will there be given me power to show,
Mother, that while thou wast with me
I failed to grasp the God in thee,
Knowing not what now I know?

If we would value love aright,
Must love be taken away?
Can no man truly love the day
Save only for the contrast of the night?

O mother, was it just?
Did I not feel the blessing of thine hand
Upon my brow? Can I not understand,
Save when that hand is turning into dust?

For years beyond man's dream
That viewless host of death has held its own:
With trumpet-sound, or with no bugle blown,
No warning lance-point's gleam,

That dim veiled host has crept from town to town
Changing man's mirth to sighs—
Snatching from monarch's brow the lordliest crown,
Closing the fairest eyes.

And yet to those who weep
The shock seems ever new and ever strange:
Though all the world might change,
The form they loved they thought their love could keep.

Ah, love, my love is like a cry in the night,
A long, loud cry to the empty sky,
The cry of a man alone in the desert,
With hands uplifted, with parching lips,

Oh, rescue me, rescue me,
Thy form to mine arms,
The dew of thy lips to my mouth,
Dost thou hear me?--my call thro' the night?

Darling, I hear thee and answer,
Thy fountain am I,
All of the love of my soul will I bring to thee,
All of the pains of my being shall wring to thee,
Deep and forever the song of my loving shall sing to thee,

Dost ask me, why I send thee here,
This firstling of the infant year?
Dost ask me, what this primrose shews,
Bepearled thus with morning dews?—

I must whisper to thy ears,
The sweets of love are wash'd with tears.

This lovely native of the dale
Thou seest, how languid, pensive, pale:
Thou seest this bending stalk so weak,
That each way yielding doth not break?

I must tell thee, these reveal,
The doubts and fears that lovers feel.

“Oh, I will put my ship in order,
And I will set her to the sea;
And I will sail to yonder harbour,
To see if my love will marry me.”

He sailed eastward; he sailed westward;
He sailed far, far by sea and land;
By France and Flanders, Spain and Dover,
He sail'd the world all round and round,

Till he came to his love's sweet bower,
It was to hear what she would say.
“Awake, awake, ye lovely sleeper,
The sun is spreading the break of day.”
“Oh, who is this at my bower window,
That speaks so lovingly to me?”
It is your own true constant lover,

As each one knew and loved him best, so each one saw the figure of the Lord.
The great warrior kings have seen him as it were chivalry incarnate.
The demons who in guile assumed the royal guise: to them the Lord appeared as Death.
The dwellers in His city saw the two brothers: their eyes beholding the jewels of mankind were blessed.
The women's hearts were filled with joy, each seeing Him fashioned according to her own desire.
His loveliness, wearing the fairest of all fair forms, bewitched their minds.

Our first young love resembles
That short but brilliant ray,
Which smiles and weeps and trembles
Thro' April's earliest day.
And not all life before us,
Howe'er its lights may play,
Can shed a lustre o'er us
Like that first April ray.

Our summer sun may squander
A blaze serener, grander;
Our autumn beam
May, like a dream
Of heaven, die calm away;
But no—let life before us
Bring all the light it may,
'T will ne'er shed lustre o'er us
Like that first youthful ray.