There are sounds of joy from the years gone by, There's a pale red light in the forward sky,

And a star looks down through the mist on high.

Hush! for the light falls clear from that star,
Hush for the day-dawn kindles afar,

Hush! for the gate of the sky is ajar.

What is the voice of the boundless sea

As it clasps the lands excitedly?

Not the voice of the dead, but of what shall be—

Of what shall be when the world shall cease,

And oceans die in the reign of peace,
When God grants pardon and release.

O sweetest taste of Jesus' Blood!
Joy bursts upon her like a flood;
The spirit kisseth Holy Rood.

A low wind moaneth evermore,
The nuns still kneel upon the floor,
But Jesus trod this way before.

She lifts the sacred emblem up:
This was His drink, His bitter cup;
And all His loved with Him must sup.

Beneath its arms she bows her head, Those arms so rudely fashionèd, Which Jesus made His dying bed.

She bends beneath the cross's weight,

But now no longer desolate,

She stands before the convent gate.

Sweeter and sweeter the sisters sing,

From arch and roof the echoes ring,
While God above is listening.

"Ave Maria, Virgin blest,

Help the sin-stained and distrest,
Grant the weary-hearted rest!"

The altar-lights are shining fair,
And Jesus' cross is standing there;
The darkness brightens everywhere.

In silent bliss the spirit kneels,

For mortal utterance half conceals
The deepest joy the bosom feels.

She bears her burden day by day;
It wakens her at morning grey,
And calms her at eve's setting ray.

She bears it through the length of years;
The rough wood drives away her fears,
The blood-stains check all earthly tears.

Through daily round of deed and psalm,
She moves in silent strength and calm,
The cross her solace and her balm.

She bears it round from door to door,
And lonely hearts that ached before,
Find joy and peace for evermore.

So in the present, people say,
Of holy deed and prayer alway,
She finds to-morrow and yesterday.

COGGESHALL, ESSEX,

November 12, 1886.

JUSTIN.

“ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος . . . καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο.”

DEDICATION.

O POOR, sad hearts that struggle on and wait,
Like shipwrecked sailors on a spar at sea,
Through deepening glooms, if haply, soon or late,
Some day-dawn glimmer of what is to be,
Not knowing Christ, nor gladdened by His Love
And Life indwelling-to you I dedicate

These humble musings, praying that from above,
On you, being faithful found, the light may shine
Of Life incarnate and of Love divine.

Take, then, these thoughts, in loving memory
Of those dead hearts that brought it first to me.

Down by the sea, in infinite solitude

And wrapt in darkness, save when gleams of light
Broke from the moon aslant the hurrying clouds
That fled the wind, lay Justin, worn with grief,
And heart-sick with vain searching after God.
He heeded not the cold white foam that crept
In silence round his feet, nor the tall sedge
That sighed like lonely forest round his head;
His heart was weary of this weight of being,
Weary of all the mystery of life,

Weary of all the littleness of men,

And the dark riddle that he could not solve

Why men should be, why pain and sin and death,

And where were hid the lineaments of God.

No voice was near.

Behind, a lofty cape,

Whose iron face was scarred by many a storm,

Loomed threatening in the dark, and cleft the main,

And laid its giant hand upon the deep.

One grizzled oak tree crowned it, and the surf

Broke ever at its base, with ceaseless voice