IV.

Now is winter and now is sorrow,
No roses but only thorns to-day:
Thorns will put on roses to-morrow,
Winter and sorrow scudding away.
No more winter and no more sorrow
To-morrow.

THROUGH coldness and through keenness,
Dear hearts, take comfort so;
Somewhere or other doubtless,

These make the blackthorn blow.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

HOME by different ways. Yet all

Homeward bound through prayer and praise,

Young with old and great with small,

Home by different ways.

Many nights and many days

Wind must blow and rain must fall,
Quake the quicksand, shift the haze.

Life hath called and death will call
Saints who praying kneel at gaze,
Ford the flood or leap the wall,

Home by different ways.

AN IMMURATA" SISTER.

155

AN IMMURATA" SISTER.

LIFE flows down to death; we cannot bind

That current that it should not flee;

Life flows down to death, as rivers find
The inevitable sea.

Men work and think, but women feel;
And so (for I 'm a woman, I)

And so I should be glad to die

And cease from impotence of zeal,
And cease from hope, and cease from dread,
And cease from yearnings without gain,
And cease from all this world of pain,

And be at peace among the dead.

Hearts that die, by death renew their youth,
Lightened of this life that doubts and dies,
Silent and contented, while the Truth
Unveiled makes them wise.

Why should I seek and never find

That something which I have not had?
Fair and unutterably sad

The world hath sought time out of mind;
The world hath sought and I have sought,

Ah, empty world and empty I!

For we have spent our strength for nought, And soon it will be time to die.

Sparks fly upward toward their fount of fire,

Kindling, flashing, hovering:

Kindle, flash, my soul; mount higher and higher, Thou whole burnt-offering!

A TIME to suffer, and a time to do,

And then the time is past.

Heaven's chimes are slow, but sure to strike at last.

"LIFT up your hearts" "We lift them up "—ah me! I cannot, Lord, lift up my heart to Thee;

Stoop, lift it up, that where Thou art I too may be.

HEARTSEASE.

HEARTSEASE I found, where Love-lies-bleeding

Empurpled all the ground;

Whatever flowers I missed unheeding,

Heartsease I found.

Yet still my garden mound
Stood sore in need of watering, weeding,
And binding things unbound.

Ah, when shades fell to light succeeding,
I scarcely dared look round:

"Love-lies-bleeding" was all my pleading,
Heartsease I found.

TEMPUS FUGIT.

WH

WHERE LOVE IS.

HERE love is, there comes sorrow
To-day or else to-morrow;

Endure the mood,

Love only means our good.

Where love is, there comes pleasure,

With or withouten measure

Early or late

Cheering the sorriest state.

Where love is, all perfection
Is stored for heart's delection;
For where love is

Dwells every sort of bliss.

Who would not choose a sorrow

Love's self will cheer to-morrow?

One day of sorrow

Then such a long to-morrow!

LOVE recognizes love's own cry,
And stoops to take love's offering.

TEMPUS FUGIT.

LOVELY Spring,

A brief sweet thing,
Is swift on the wing;
Gracious Summer,

157

TO-MORROW BLOTS OUT SORROW.

PARTING after parting,

Sore loss and gnawing pain;

Meeting grows half a sorrow,
Because of parting again.

When shall the day break

That these things shall not be?

When shall the new earth be ours

Without a sea,

And time that is not time,

But eternity?

SAINTS are like roses when they flush rarest,

Saints are like lilies when they bloom fairest,