Smoothing soft the nestling head
Of a maiden fancy-led,
Thus a grave-eyed woman said:

“Richest gifts are those we make,
Dearer than the love we take
That we give for love's own sake.

“Well I know the heart's unrest;
Mine has been the common quest,
To be loved and therefore blest.

“Favors undeserved were mine;
At my feet as on a shrine
Love has laid its gifts divine.

“Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet
With their sweetness came regret,
And a sense of unpaid debt.

“Heart of mine unsatisfied,

Afloat!—
Ah Love, on the mirror of waters
All the world seems with us afloat,—
All the wide, bright world of the night;
But the mad world of men is remote,
And the prating of tongues is afar.
We have fled from the crowd in our flight,
And beyond the gray rim of the waters
All the turmoil has sunk from our sight.
Turn your head, Love, a little, and note
Low down in the south a pale star.
The mists of the horizon-line drench it,
The beams of the moon all but quench it,
Yet it shines thro' this flood-tide of light.

—I WAS a wandering sheep,
—I did not love the fold;
I did not love my Shepherd's voice,
—I would not be controlled.
—I was a wayward child,
—I did not love my home,
I did not love my Father's voice,
—I loved afar to roam.

—The Shepherd sought his sheep;
—The Father sought his child;
They followed me o'er vale and hill,
—O'er deserts waste and wild.
—They found me night to death,
—Famished, and faint, and lone;
They bound me with the bands of love;
—They saved the wandering one.

—They spoke in tender love,

Come, he said, I love you; I do not know why I love but I love;
Something from you to me, something I feel but do not see,
Prevails on my older self, lifting me clear of the earth,
Not severing the dead from the living,
But making the dead and the living one.

Shall I tell you, O my brother?—shall I offer what today you could not take?
No—no: for the hour, for the day, past this sundown—only silence and love:
Only the hand that reaches, only the hand that takes.

But tomorrow: O the morrow!

Hark! the gentle voice of Jesus falleth
Tenderly upon your ear;
Sweet his cry of love and pity calleth:
Turn and listen, stay and hear.
Take his yoke; for he is meek and lowly:
Bear his burden: of him learn
He who calleth is the Master holy:
He will teach if you will learn.
Then, his loving, tender voice obeying,
Bear his yoke: his burden take.
Find the yoke, his hand is on you laying,
Light and easy for his sake.

Ye that labor and are heavy laden,
Lean upon your dear Lord's breast.
Ye that labor and are heavy laden,

Take what thou wilt and leave me love, oh Fate!
Take all I have—friends, honor and fair fame,
Turn me to laughter in the eye of hate,
Clothe me with scorn and bind my brow with shame,
Give me for bread the bitter fruit of care,
Give me to drink the poison-wine of pain,
Seal me with sleepless sorrow and despair—
Take all, change all, oh Fate! so love remain.

It was not thus in days gone bye
When we as children courted
When with the birds & flowers of spring
Our artless pleasures sported
No pride did cloud thy sunny brow
In ignorant love we doated
The world was strange with me & thou
With pride had near resorted

Fleecy and white the clouds are westward streaming;
On mart and street, as the dank mist retires,
Smiles out the sky: the sun's triumphant fires
Greet the vast world with human labour teeming.

All rose-red stands the great cathedral, seeming
To shout hosannas with its thousand spires
And saints of gold: while the brown-feathered choirs
Of wheeling falcons swoop around it screaming.

E'en so, when love's sweet smile hath set me free
From the dark clouds that weighed on me so long,
My soul expands and suns itself: I see

The union of thy heart and mine,
Ah yes! I know 'tis all a dream:
For I am dark, in life's decline—
Round thee the noon-day splendours beam:
But let this fair tho' flickering gleam
Of fancied love one moment shine;
Thou mayst afford at least to seem
For one brief moment to be mine.

Haste not at once to break the spell—
Before thee is the long long day
With gayer hearts than mine to dwell,
In laughing meads far off to stray:
One little hour beside me stay,
And let the conscious dream go on;
E'en now the tears are on their way

Where Helen sits, the darkness is so deep,
No golden sunbeam strikes athwart the gloom;
No mother's smile, no glance of loving eyes,
Lightens the shadow of that lonely room.

Yet the clear whiteness of her radiant soul
Decks the dim walls, like angel vestments shed.
The lovely light of holy innocence
Shines like a halo round her bended head,
Where Helen sits.

Where Helen sits, the stillness is so deep,
No children's laughter comes, no song of bird.
The great world storms along its noisy way,