The Singing Heart
Thou
Heart! why dost thou lift thy voice?
The birds are mute; the skies are dark;
Nor doth a living thing rejoice;
Nor doth a living creature hark;
Yet thou art singing in the dark.
How small thou art; how poor and frail;
Thy prime is past; thy friends are chill;
Yet as thou had'st not any ail
Throughout the storm thou liftest still
A praise that winter cannot chill.
Then sang that happy Heart reply:
“God lives, God loves, and hears me sing.
How warm, how safe, how glad am I,
In shelter 'neath his spreading wing!—
And there I cannot choose but sing.”
The Hill
I in my pilgrimmage have climbed a hill
Round which a summer world in verdure lies;
But I, poor simpleton, have only eyes
To note if Love be in my vision still.
This greenest glade that hides a fresh'ning till
May shade him till from slumber he arise;
Or, when the last shower-sprinkled blossom dries
From yonder bloomy tangle, he may fill
This restless air with song that of the sang
In the dear valley we have left behind,
Where once our mingled voices cheer'ly rang.
My Love! I hear thee singing down the wind!
Brief storm may ravine: what is that to me,
Sheltered within thine arms and safe with thee?
Dreams
Run
with me, elves, and lay me on that bed
Bud-strewn beneath my cirque of sister trees,
Wherethrough the young Moon hath embroidered
Faint soothing-spell in silver traceries;
Run with me, for I feel the need of dreams;
Earth palls, and naught is fair but that which seems.
Tinkle the lucent pebbles of the rill;
Fetch me a mating bird to twitter low;
Spin sounds of night, fine-drawn, remote and shrill;
And let that elfin whom I hold most dear
Whisper a certain name within mine ear.
Ne'er dreamed such sport with her Endymion,
Nor any love-rapt mortal, late or soon,
Such snatch of rapture from the Immortals won
As I, that, waking, have become so dull,
But in my dreams, so glad and beautiful.
Silence
Come down from the aerial height,
Spirit of the summer night!
Come softly stepping from the slender Moon,
Where thou dost lie upon her gentle breast,
And bring a boon
Of silence and of solace for our rest.
Where she doth hide her face;
Lap us in light and cooling fleece, and steep
Our hearts in stillness; drench in drowsy dreams;
Grant us the pleasant langour that beseems
And rock our sleep.
Quiet thy thunder-dogs that bay the Moon;
Soothe the day's fretting, like a tender nurse;
Breathe on our spirits 'till they be in tune:
Were it not best
To hush all noises in the universe,
And bless with solemn quietude, that thus
The still, small voice of God might speak to us?
Hope
Ah me! what battles I have fought!
I would I knew the rune that lays
The swarming shades of weary days
That take the lonely House of Thought!
A restless rabble, unsubdued;
A wild and haggard multitude;
Distorted shapes that spring from tears,
And torments born of wedded fears.
A rainbowed figure glides about,
And from her brightness, like the day,
The whimpling shadows slink away.
The seven colors of her wings;
The seven blossoms of her crown; -
There violets twine for amethyst;
Small lilies white as silk-weed down;
There myrtle sprays her locks have kissed;
And pansies that are beryl blue;
And varied roses, rich of hue;
With iridescent loving eyes
Of buds that bloom in Paradise.
New-string thy lyre and sing to me.
Thy voice ecstatic, fresh and wild,
Enthralls each dark-browed phantasy.
To see a Future, dim and dear;
Like children waiting to be kissed;
lovely land that knows not pain;
Atlantis land beyond Life's main,
Where we who love may love again -
Ah me! is this beyond the plan
Of God's beneficence to man?
Poems taken from: http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/dandridge/index2.htm