Seems a peal of thunder, caught
By the mountain pines and tuned
To a marvellous gentle sound;
Wailings where despair is not,—

Hearts self-hushing some heart wound.

Still what winds there blow soever,
Wet or shine, by sun or star,
When white horses plunge afar,
When the palsied froth-lines shiver,
When the waters quiet are;

On the sand-hills where waves boom,
Or with ripples scarce at all
Tumble not so much as crawl,
Ever do we know of whom

Cometh up the rise and fall.

Need is none to see the ships,
None to mark the mid-sea jet
Softening into violet,

While those old pre-Adamite lips

To those boundary heaps are set.

Ah! we see not the great foam
That beyond us strangely rolls,
Whose white-winged ships are souls
Sailing from the port called Home,
When the signal bell, Death, tolls.

And we catch not the broad shimmer,
Catch not yet the hue divine,

Of the purpling hyaline;

Of the heaving and the glimmer

Life's sands cheat our straining eyne.

But by wondrous sounds not shut From those sand-hills, we may be Sure that a diviner sea

Than earth's keels have ever cut

Floweth from eternity.

HIS NAME.

O WONDERFUL! round whose birth hour Prophetic song, miraculous power, Cluster and burn, like star and flower,

Those marvellous rays that at Thy will, From the closed Heaven which is so still, So passionless, stream'd round Thee still,

Are but as broken lights that start,
O Light of Light, from Thy deep heart;
Thyself, Thyself, the wonder art!

O Counsellor! four thousand years,
One question tremulous with tears,
One awful question vex'd our peers.

They asked the vault-but no one spoke; They asked the depth-no answer woke; They ask'd their hearts that only broke.

They look'd, and sometimes on the height Far off they saw a haze of white,

That was a storm, but look'd like light.

The secret of the years is read,

The enigma of the quick and dead,
By the Child voice interpreted.

O everlasting Father, God!

Sun after sun went down, and trod
Race after race the green earth's sod,

Till generations seem'd to be

But dead waves of an endless sea,

But dead leaves of a deathless tree.

But Thou hast come, and now we know
Each wave hath an eternal flow,

Each leaf a lifetime after snow

O Prince of Peace! crown'd and discrown'd, They say no war nor battle's sound

Was heard the tired world around.

They say the hour that Thou did'st come,
The trumpet's voice was stricken dumb,
And no one beat the battle-drum.

Yea, still as life to them that mark
Its poor adventure, seems a bark

Whose track is pale, whose sail is dark :

Thou, who art Wonderful, dost fling
One ray, till, like the sea-bird's wing,
The canvas is a snowy thing-

Till the dark boat is turn'd to gold,
And all the great green ocean roll'd
With anthems that are new and old,

With noble path of luminous ray
From the boat slanting all the way
To the Island of undying day.

And still as clouding questions swarm
Around our hearts, and dimly form
Their problems of the mist and storm :

As fleeting years seem poorly fraught
With broken words, wherefrom is wrought
Nathless of love the loveliest thought,

Mere meaningless syllables chance met,
Though in one perfect poem yet
Uninterrupted to be set;

And when not yet in God's sunshine,
The smoke drifts from the embattled line
And shows the Captain's full design;

We bid our doubts and passions cease,
Our restless fears be still'd with these-
Counsellor, Father, Prince of Peace!