The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Die,
If thou wouldst be that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled!-Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move,
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of breath can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beckons from the abode where the eternal are.
So soon my body will have gone
Beyond the sight and sound of men,
And tho' it wakes and suffers now
Its sleep will be unbroken then;
But, oh, my frail immortal soul
That will not sleep forevermore,
A leaf borne onward by the blast,
A wave that never finds the shore!
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that, the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
When he went blundering back to God,
His songs half written, his work half done, Who knows what paths his bruised feet trod, What hills of peace or pain he won?
I hope God smiled and took his hand,
And said, "Poor truant, passionate fool!
Life's book is hard to understand;
Why could'st thou not remain at school?"
Mysterious night! When our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath the curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! Creation widened on man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O sun! or who could find
While fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind.
Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife?—
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?
When on my day of life the night is falling,
And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown,
I hear far voices out of darkness calling
My feet to paths unknown,
Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant,
Leave not its tenant when its walls decay;
O Love Divine, O Helper ever-present,
Be Thou my strength and stay!
Be near me when all else is from me drifting;
Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine, And kindly faces to my own uplifting
The love which answers mine.
I have but Thee, my Father! let Thy spirit
Be with me then to comfort and uphold;
No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit,
Nor street of shining gold.
Suffice it if my good and ill unreckoned,
And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace-
I find myself by hands familiar beckoned
Unto my fitting place.
b. IMPERSONAL IMMORTALITY
When the anxious hearts say "Where?"
He doth answer "In My care."
"Is it life or is it death?"
"Wait," He whispers. "Child, have faith!"
"Did they need love's tenderness?”
"Is there love like Mine to bless?"
"Were they frightened at the last?"
"No, the sting of death is past."
"Did a thought of 'Home-Love' rise?"
"I looked down thro' Mother-eyes."
"Saviour, tell us, where are they?"
"In My keeping, night and day."
"Tell us, tell us, how it stands."
"None shall pluck them from My Hands."
The dead abide with us! Though stark and cold
Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still:
They have forged our chains of being for good or ill
And their invisible hands these hands yet hold.
Our perishable bodies are the mould
In which their strong imperishable will-
Mortality's deep yearning to fulfill-
Hath grown incorporate through dim time untold.
Vibrations infinite of life in death,
As a star's travelling light survives its star!
So may we hold our lives that, when we are
The fate of those who then will draw this breath,
They shall not drag us to their judgment bar,
And curse the heritage that we bequeath.
FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON
Where runs the river? Who can say
Who hath not followed all the way
By alders green and sedges gray
And blossoms blue?
Where runs the river? Hill and wood
Curve round to hem the eager flood;
It cannot straightly as it would
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