Footprints, that perhaps another, Let us, then, be up and doing, THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS. THERE is a Reaper, whose name is Death, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, "Shall I have nought that is fair?" saith he; "Have nought but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again." He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, It was for the Lord of Paradise 66 He bound them in his sheaves. My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," The Reaper said, and smiled; "Dear tokens of the earth are they, Where he was once a child. "They shall all bloom in fields of light, And saints upon their garments white, And the mother gave, in tears and pain, She knew she should find them all again D Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath, THE LIGHT OF STARS. THE night is come, but not too soon; And sinking silently, All silently, the little moon Drops down behind the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven, And the first watch of night is given Is it the tender star of love? The star of love and dreams? And earnest thoughts within me rise, The shield of that red star. O star of strength! I see thee stand Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand, Within my breast there is no light, The star of the unconquered will, And calm, and self-possessed. And thou too, whosoe'er thou art, Oh, fear not in a world like this, FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS. WHEN the hours of Day are numbered, Ere the evening lamps are lighted, Then the forms of the departed He, the young and strong, who cherished By the road-side fell and perished, They, the holy ones and weakly, And with them the Being Beauteous, With a slow and noiseless footstep And she sits and gazes at me With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies. Uttered not, yet comprehended, Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died. FLOWERS. SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. Stars they are, wherein we read our history, Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, Bright and glorious is that revelation, In these stars of earth,-these golden flowers. And the poet, faithful and far-seeing, Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues, These in flowers and men are more than seeming; Workings are they of the self-same powers, Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming, Seeth in himself and in the flowers. Every where about us are they glowing, Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing, Not alone in meadows and green alleys, Not alone in her vast dome of glory, In the cottage of the rudest peasant, In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers, Speaking of the Past unto the Present, Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers; |