SPEAK to us out of midnight's heart,
Thou who forever sleepless art!
The thoughts of Night are still and deep;
She doth Thy holiest secrets keep.
The voices of the Day perplex;
Her crossing lights mislead and vex:
We trust ourselves to find Thy way,
Or, proudly free, prefer to stray.
The Night brings dewfall, still and sweet;
Soft shadows fold us to Thy feet;
Thy whisper in the dark we hear:
แ "Soul, cling to Me! none else is near."
Speak to us by white winter's breath,
Thou Life behind the mask of death,
That makest the snowfall eloquent
As summer's stir in earth's green tent!
Close unto Winter's quiet breast,
Summer, a sleeping babe, is pressed:
Till waking-time she safe will hold
His bloom and freshness manifold.
O Night and Winter! cold and gloom!
O marble mystery of the tomb !
God's hieroglyphs to man are ye;
Sealed visions of what yet shall be.
Better is blessedness concealed
From sight, than joy to sense revealed.
Thanks for this happy mortal breath!
Praise for the life wrapped up in death!
STILL the hard frost griped all things bitterly,
And who of folk might now say when or why
The earth should change and spring come back
- Spring clean forgotten, as amidst his pain
Some hapless lover's chance unmeaning kiss
Given unto lips that never shall be his
In time long passed, ere bitter knowledge came,
And cherished love was grown a wrong and shame.
Yet 'mid the dead swoon of the earth, the days
'Gan lengthen now, and on the hard-beat ways
No more the snow drave down; and, spite of all,
The goodman's thoughts must needs begin to fall
Upon the seed hid in the dying year,
And he must busy him about his gear;
And in the city, at the high noon, when
The faint sun glimmered, sat the ancient men,
With young folk gathered round about once more,
Who heeded not the east wind's smothered roar,
Since unto most of them for mere delight
Were most things made, the dull days and the bright;
And change was life to them, and death a tale
Little believed, that chiefly did avail
To quicken love and make a story sweet.
WILLIAM MORRIS.
The Earthly Paradise.
THE white hath overspread the brown,
Beneath the blue has crept the gray;
The frozen air is drifting round
In eddies dashed with blinding spray.
Upon so wild a winter scene
But thou and I have chanced to meet.
What words were fit to pass between
A traveller rough and one so sweet?
Poor dying songster, full of woes,
With stiffening pinions loosely furled,
That graspest with thy thorny toes
The wire that runs around the world!
Thou knowest not the grief and mirth
With which the iron thread is fraught, As one may grasp, but miss the worth Of some far-reaching line of thought.
Thou scannest not our human things,
Thine eyelids close upon the world,
The snow sifts downward through thy wi
And upward to thy heart is whirled.
Beneath its inches cold and white
Thy mate lies frozen near the hedge, And nevermore in tuneful flight
Shall cross the morning's crimson edge
Recallest how, one dewy dawn,
Ere yet the sun had kissed thy throat,
The music from thy heart had gone
That won her shy, responsive note?
How fond ye whispered, breast to breast,
That day within the covert green,
Or sought the brook with mosses drest,
Your hot and dusty wings to preen.
Then, in the hush of coming night,
Thou led'st her to the fragrant bed
Of apple-blossoms, pink and white,
With canopy of green o'erhead.
All summer long how true thy zest
To note her flight o'er many a rood,
To build with her the secret nest,
To mourn with her the stolen brood.
Now, thou art dying; dead is thine.
In some bright clime are all thy kin.
Let thy true life pass into mine,
And make it what it hath not been.
Bequeath to me thy lover's heart,
And touch my spirit with thy fate,
That I from one may never part,
Nor even in death be separate.
LANDWARD the white-winged gulls are flying,
Skimming the dark waves as they go;
The evening's mellow flush is dying,
And gloomy night comes, soft and slow.
Lashed by the surges, blow on blow,
The storm-worn cliffs are sadly sighing;
Landward the white-winged gulls are flying,
Skimming the dark waves as they go.
Each blustering breeze his way is hieing
To kiss the sunset's golden glow;
This fades away, their suit denying,
While, as in flight from some dread foe,
Landward the white-winged gulls are flying,
Skimming the dark waves as they go.
ALANSON BIGELOW HOUGHTON.
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