Volume I Part 92 (2/2)
Heigh-ho! daisies and b.u.t.tercups!
Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall!
A suns.h.i.+ny world full of laughter and leisure, And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall!
Send down on their pleasure smiles pa.s.sing its measure, G.o.d that is over us all!
Seven Times Five.--WIDOWHOOD
I sleep and rest, my heart makes moan Before I am well awake; ”Let me bleed! O let me alone, Since I must not break!”
For children wake, though fathers sleep With a stone at foot and at head: O sleepless G.o.d, forever keep, Keep both living and dead!
I lift mine eyes, and what to see But a world happy and fair!
I have not wished it to mourn with me,-- Comfort is not there.
Oh, what anear but golden brooms, But a waste of reedy rills!
Oh, what afar but the fine glooms On the rare blue hills!
I shall not die, but live forlore,-- How bitter it is to part!
Oh, to meet thee, my love, once more!
O my heart, my heart!
No more to hear, no more to see!
Oh, that an echo might wake And waft one note of thy psalm to me Ere my heart-strings break!
I should know it how faint soe'er, And with angel voices blent; Oh, once to feel thy spirit anear; I could be content!
Or once between the gates of gold, While an entering angel trod, But once,--thee sitting to behold On the hills of G.o.d!
Seven Times Six.--GIVING IN MARRIAGE
To bear, to nurse, to rear, To watch, and then to lose: To see my bright ones disappear, Drawn up like morning dews,-- To bear, to nurse, to rear, To watch and then to lose: This have I done when G.o.d drew near Among his own to choose.
To hear, to heed, to wed, And with thy lord depart In tears, that he, as soon as shed, Will let no longer smart,-- To hear, to heed, to wed, This while thou didst I smiled, For now it was not G.o.d who said, ”Mother, give ME thy child.”
O fond, O fool, and blind!
To G.o.d I gave with tears; But when a man like grace would find, My soul put by her fears,-- O fond, O fool, and blind!
G.o.d guards in happier spheres; That man will guard where he did bind Is hope for unknown years.
To hear, to heed, to wed, Fair lot that maidens choose, Thy mother's tenderest words are said, Thy face no more she views; Thy mother's lot, my dear, She doth in naught accuse; Her lot to bear, to nurse, to rear, To love,--and then to lose.
Seven Times Seven.--LONGING FOR HOME
A song of a boat:-- There was once a boat on a billow: Lightly she rocked to her port remote, And the foam was white in her wake like snow, And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow, And bent like a wand of willow.
I shaded mine eyes one day when a boat Went curtsying over the billow, I marked her course till a dancing mote, She faded out on the moonlit foam, And I stayed behind in the dear-loved home; And my thoughts all day were about the boat, And my dreams upon the pillow.
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