Straight from the loves and flowers of sweet midday
My soul has passed. No afternoon
Has intervened, my thought to attune;
With no slow steps the hours have stolen away.

Straight from the sunlit morn
To this most sombre evening-hour
I have been led by some swift Power:—
Is it love that leads, or Fate's resistless scorn?

Something it is to know that in the gloom
A love most sweet abides;
That, when I seek the tomb,
I then shall grasp at once a hand that guides:

That strong and tender aid
Waits in advance. Then, though death's surges swell,
Where thou art, mother, surely it will be well
For me to follow, unafraid.

If day by day I love the dead
With deeper passion, holier power,
May not they likewise feel from hour to hour
Not love's extinction—love's new birth instead?

If I love them the more,
May not they too—if this high gift may be—
Love on, and even purelier than before?
May not they also feel more love for me?

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.