Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies;
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.

By your truth she shall be true —
Ever true, as wives of yore;
And her Yes once said to you,
Shall be Yes for evermore.

TRUTH.

ARTH outgrows the mythic fancies

EA

Sung beside her in her youth;

And those debonair romances
Sound but dull beside the truth.
Phoebus' chariot-course is run!
Look up, poets, to the sun!

Christ hath sent us down the angels;
And the whole earth and the skies
Are illumed by altar-candles

TRUTH.

Lit for blessed mysteries;

And a Priest's Hand, through creation,
Waveth calm and consecration.

Truth is fair; should we forego it?

Can we sigh right for a wrong?
God Himself is the best Poet,
And the Real is His song.

Sing His Truth out fair and full,
And secure His beautiful.

Truth is large. Our aspiration
Scarce embraces half we be.
Shame! to stand in His creation
And doubt Truth's sufficiency!
To think God's song unexcelling
The poor tales of our own telling.

What is true and just and honest,
What is lovely, what is pure,
All of praise that hath admonish'd,
All of virtue, shall endure,
These are themes for poets' uses,
Stirring nobler than the Muses.

O brave poets, keep back nothing;
Nor mix falsehood with the whole!
Look up Godward! speak the truth in
Worthy song from earnest soul !
Hold, in high poetic duty,

Truest Truth the fairest Beauty!

35

THE

A CHANGED WORLD.

HE face of all the world is changed, I think, Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul Move still, oh, still, beside me; as they stole Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink Of obvious death, where I who thought to sink Was caught up into love and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,

And praise its sweetness, sweet, with thee anear. The names of country, heaven, are changed away, For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;

And this this lute and song - loved yesterday, (The singing angels know) are only dear, Because thy name moves right in what they say.

LOVE.

LOVE, mere love, is beautiful indeed

And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright, Let temple burn, or flax! An equal light Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed. And love is fire; and when I say at need I love thee - mark! — I love thee!

I stand transfigured, glorified aright,

- in thy sight

With conscience of the new rays that proceed

Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low In love, when love the lowest : meanest creatures

ONLY A CURL.

Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.

THE PROSPECT.

METHINKS we do as fretful children do,

Leaning their faces on the window-pane

To sigh the glass dim with their own breaths' stain,
And shut the sky and landscape from their view.
And thus, alas! since God the maker drew
A mystic separation 'twixt those twain,

The life beyond us, and our souls in pain,

We miss the prospect which we 're called unto,
By grief we 're fools to use. Be still and strong,
O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath,
And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong,
That so, as life's appointment issueth

Thy vision may be clear to watch along
The sunset consummation-lights of death.

ONLY A CURL.

I.

FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land

Unvisited over the sea,

Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me,

37

II.

While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do,
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the violets press nearer than you.

III.

Shall I speak like a poet, or run
Into weak woman's tears for relief?
Oh children! - I never lost one,

Yet my arm's round my own little son,
And Love knows the secret of Grief.

IV.

And I feel what it must be and is,
When God draws a new angel so
Through the house of a man up to His,
With a murmur of music, you miss,
And a rapture of light, you forego.

V.

How you think, staring on at the door,
Where the face of your angel flashed in,

That its brightness, familiar before,
Burns off from you ever the more

For the dark of your sorrow and sin.