Poems

"Heard are the voices, Heard are the sages, The worlds and the ages: Choose well, your choice is Brief and yet endless. Here eyes do regard you, In Eternity's stillness; Here is all fulness, Ye brave, to reward you; Work and despair not.

When cares fall on me like a pall, And boding fears and sorrows, all Infold me in their gloomy arms, Or fill me with their dread alarms, 'Tis then like healing unction shed As soothing balm, about my head, Or calming oil on tossing waves, Or incense on foul, dismal graves, Or salt thrown on a raging fire, 'Tis then that you have power to save, And teach reflection to a knave. When spirits fail and hearts grow sick, And gloom is gnawing to the quick, No glimmering of hope appears, And no kind friend or beacon cheers The soul, just sinking 'neath its load, Lost and beweary, on the road.

Immortal Love!— thou Christ that was, Thou Christ that is to be! Thou spirit shining down through time, From the shores of Galilee. We place our hearts on things of Earth.

Isle of beauty, thou art singing      To my sense a sweet refrain; To my busy mem'ry bringing      Forms that I would see again. Glows the charm of thy reflecting      In the moral that it brings? Nature with the mind connecting,      Gave the artist's fancy, wings.

"Allah! Allah!" cried the sick man, racked with pain the long night through, Till with prayer his heart grew tender, till his lips like honey grew! But with morning came the tempter, said, "Call louder, child of pain! See if Allah ever hears or answers, 'Here am I,' again. " Like a stab the cruel cavil through his brain and pulses went— To his heart an icy coldness, to his brain a darkness, sent.

'Tis borne on the zephyr at eventide's hour, And falls on the heart like the dew on the flower— An infinite essence from tropic to pole, The substance, the home and the heaven of Soul. Love reigns over all—at the altar or bower— It binds with sweet fetters in strange pride of power, And comes through our tears as the soft summer rain To beautify, bless and make happy again.

Tell me, ye winged winds, That round my pathway soar, Do ye not know some spot Where mortals weep no more? Some lone and pleasant dell, Some valley in the west, Where, free from toil and pain, The weary soul may rest? The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low, And sighed for pity, as it answered, "No. " Tell me, thou mighty deep, Whose billows round me play, Knowest thou some favored spot, Some island far away, Where weary man may find The bliss for which he sighs, Where sorrow never lives, And friendship never dies? The loud waves, rolling in perpetual flow, Stopped for awhile, and sighed, to answer, "No.

"Exquisite solvent of the gods, and dear, That goads man's sluggish nature into deeds! The heart is waste and barren till it bleeds; Poor, shrinking soul! Hope's fruitful half is— Fear; The fire-emboweled Earth, in tost career, Knows all thy inarticulate needs; Begets and buries races, nurtures, feeds; The blood would rot in Pleasure's atmosphere; Old Chaos' self crept into Beauty's shape Through feeling, sense, blind Impulse at the wheel; To think were devilish, severed from to feel; Man, reft of heart, were but a chattering ape! Wine issues only from the trodden grape, And iron must be blistered into steel! ".

I wish the heart that's hungry      For better things in store, Would find within its portals      An item on the floor. That melancholy mortals      Could count their mercies o'er, And ask of truth and wisdom      One little item more.

"Whether the tempests lull or blow, Whether the currents ebb or flow, Whether the future smile or no, Whether the harvests blight or grow, Whether the years are swift or slow, In days of joy or days of woe, In fortune high or fortune low, This be my creed for friend or foe— Gather the roses as you go. ".