VI.

And so my Hope were slain,

Had it not been that THOU wast standing near
Oh Thou who saidest 'live,' to creatures lying
In their own blood and dying!

For Thou her forehead to Thine heart didst rear
And make its silent pulses sing again,
Pouring a new light o'er her darkened eyne
With tender tears from Thine.

VII.

Therefore my Hope arose

From out her swound and gazed upon Thy face,
And, meeting there that soft subduing look
Which Peter's spirit shook,

Sank downward in a rapture to embrace
Thy pierced hands and feet with kisses close,
And prayed Thee to assist her evermore

To reach the things before.'

VIII.

Then gavest Thou the smile

Whence angel-wings thrill quick like summerlightning,
Vouchsafing rest beside Thee, where she never
From Love and Faith may sever:—

Whereat the Eden crown she saw not whitening
A time ago, though whitening all the while,
Reddened with life to hear the Voice which talked
To Adam as he walked.

HUMAN LIFE'S MYSTERY.

I.

WE Sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly

We look up to the great wide sky,
Inquiring wherefore we were born,
For earnest or for jest?

II.

The senses folding thick and dark
About the stifled soul within,

We guess diviner things beyond,
And yearn to them with yearning fond;
We strike out blindly to a mark

Believed in, but not seen.

III.

We vibrate to the pant and thrill
Wherewith Eternity has curled
In serpent-twine about God's seat;
While, freshening upward to His feet,
In gradual growth His full-leaved will
Expands from world to world.

IV.

And, in the tumult and excess
Of act and passion under sun,
We sometimes hear-oh, soft and far,
As silver star did touch with star,
The kiss of Peace and Righteousness
Through all things that are done.

God keeps His holy mysteries

Just on the outside of man's dream; In diapason slow, we think

To hear their pinions rise and sink, While they float pure beneath His eyes, Like swans adown a stream.

VI.

Abstractions, are they, from the forms
Of His great beauty ?-exaltations
From His great glory ?-strong previsions
Of what we shall be ?-intuitions

Of what we are-in calms and storms
Beyond our peace and passions?

VII.

Things nameless! which, in passing so,
Do stroke us with a subtle grace;
We say, 'Who passes?'-they are dumb;
We cannot see them go or come,

Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow

Upon a blind man's face.

VIII.

Yet, touching so they draw above

Our common thoughts to Heaven's unknown;

Our daily joy and pain advance

To a divine significance,

Our human love—O mortal love,

That light is not its own!

IX.

And sometimes horror chills our blood
To be so near such mystic Things,
And we wrap round us for defence
Our purple manners, moods of sense—
As angels from the face of God

Stand hidden in their wings.

X.

And sometimes through life's heavy swound
We grope for them, with strangled breath

We stretch our hands abroad and try
To reach them in our agony;

And widen, so, the broad life-wound

Soon large enough for death.

THEY say that God lives very high;
But if you look above the pines
You cannot see our God; and why?

II.

And if you dig down in the mines
You never see Him in the gold;
Though from Him all that's glory shines.

III.

God is so good, He wears a fold

Of heaven and earth across His faceLike secrets kept, for love, untold.

IV.

But still I feel that His embrace

Slides down by thrills, through all things made, Through sight and sound of every place.