So, cruel hand which could such joyaunce slay,
Lay down your pen for aye,

For you will never write those deep-ton'd songs
Of Love and Truth, to live on human tongues,
That human hearts may beat more quick and pure.

But how shall I endure

When One, with sadder eyes than his I griev'd,
Shall look on me whose garden is dead-leav'd?

O ghost of that sweet rose I kill'd,

Wilt thou for ever haunt me night and day?
Must all my life for aye

With breath of thy dead leaves be fill'd,
And golden dust defil'd cling to the feet
That on thy quivering heart unpitying trod,
And evermore that still, sad voice repeat
That whoso wrongeth Nature wrongeth God?

A DEAD WORKER.

CROSS her hands upon her breast:
Hands she never rais'd for pray'r

In her toil; but, in her rest,

Let them lie, cross-folden fair As they had won prayer's reward:

Poor dead hands all seam'd and hard.

What was she who lieth there,

Little past her early youth;
Eyes coin-shut that else would stare,
Bandage closing up the mouth;

No one having car'd to dress

Death away from ghastliness?

Young? Nay, she was dull and old,
Thinking but of market-price,
Just its copper, not its gold;

With no glory in her eyes.

At the rising of the sun
Wishing weary day-time done.

Just a mere bald life was hers,
Missing our deep questioning,
What the outer universe

To the inner world may bring?
Stagnant soul that, all without

Faith or hope, could know no doubt.

Missing Love, and so, with it,
Missing all of Love that grew :
Missing too the exquisite

Morn-flusht skies and early dew.
Ah, of Love and Beauty reft,
What worth having is there left?

Silence kept without the pain
Speech denied brings bitterly :
Silence kept without the gain
Of a larger speech thereby :
Silence always was there naught
She could tell us of her thought?

Did God hold her just as dear (Hard, if so, to realize)

As our saint whose soul shone clear

Through her pure, pathetic eyes; Whom we gaz'd on dead as though Love itself lay still and low?

In the framing of our chart,
For the unexplored land
We must leave an unfill'd part
Till, some day, we understand
All the good things life may yield
In the country new-reveal'd.

But we fancy streams and trees,
Rock and moss and vale and hill;
Till the new land clad in these
Seems not unfamiliar still.

There must be, whene'er we come,
Something in it like our home.

Oh, the home we love must be

That strong Heart which loveth best :

In that other country He

Still is Home, so let it rest.

Cross her hands and leave her so,

Only He who loves can know.

Ah, and if she miss'd indeed
Blessings which the life receives

In the sowing of the seed,

In the binding of the sheaves, Greater lessons God can teach In some other kind of speech.

When her life shall take the grace Of His life that naught can dim, And the light is on her face,

Caught from looking up at Him, Shall we meet as equals then? Sister, child of His, Amen.