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Only when our souls are fed
By the fount which gave them birth,
And by inspiration led
Which they never drew from earth,

We, like parted drops of rain,
Swelling till they meet and run,
Shall be all absorbed again,
Melting, flowing into one.

1 IN THEE, AND THOU IN ME.

I AM but clay in thy hands, but Thou art the all-loving artist. Passive I lie in thy sight, yet in my selfhood I strive

So to embody the life and the love thou ever impartest, That in my sphere of the finite, I may be truly alive.

Knowing thou needest this form, as I thy divine inspiration, Knowing thou shapest the clay with a vision and purpose divine,

So would I answer each touch of thy hand in its loving creation,

Thine, thine only, this warm, dear life, O loving Creator! Thine the invisible future, born of the present, must be.

SOFT, BROWN, SMILING EYES. SOFT, brown, smiling eyes,

Looking back through years,
Smiling through the mist of time,
Filling mine with tears;
On this sunny morn,

In the scented air of June,-
While the grape-blooms swing
Why these memories bring?

Silky rippling curls,

Tresses long ago
Laid beneath the shaded sod
Where the violets blow;
Why across the blue

Of the peerless day
Do ye droop to meet my own,
Now all turned to gray?

That in my conscious life thy pow-Voice whose tender tones

er and beauty may shine,

Reflecting the noble intent thou hast

in forming thy creatures; Waking from sense into life of the soul, and the image of thee; Working with thee in thy work to model humanity's features Into the likeness of God, myself from myself I would free.

One with all human existence, no one above or below me; Lit by thy wisdom and love, as

roses are steeped in the morn; Growing from clay to a statue, from statue to flesh, till thou know

me

Wrought into manhood celestial, and in thine image re-born.

So in thy love will I trust, bringing me sooner or later Past the dark screen that divides these shows of the finite from thee.

Break in sudden mirth,

Heard far back in boyhood's spring, Silent now on earth;

Why so sweet and clear,

While the bird and bee Fill the balmy summer air, Come your tones to me?

Sweet, ah, sweeter far

Than yon thrush's trill, Sadder, sweeter than the wind, Woods, or murmuring rill, Spirit words and songs

O'er my senses creep. Do I breathe the air of dreams? Do I wake or sleep?

WHY?

WHY was I born, and where was I
Before this living mystery
That weds the body to the soul?
What are the laws by whose control

I live and feel and think and know? What the allegiance that I owe

Look on the millions born to blight; The souls that pine for warmth and light:

To tides beyond all time and space?
What form of faith must I embrace? The crushed and stifled swarms that
Why thwarted, starved, and over-
borne

By fate, an exile, driven forlorn
By fitful winds, where each event
Seems but the whirl of accident?
Why feel our wings so incomplete,
Or, flying, but a plumed deceit,
Renewing all our lives to us
The fable old of Icarus ?

Tell me the meaning of the breath That whispers from the house of death.

That chills thought's metaphysic strife,

That dims the dream of After-life.
Why, if we lived not ere our birth,
Hope for a state beyond this earth?
Tell me the secret of the hope
That gathers, as we upwards ope
The skylights of the prisoned soul
Unto the perfect and the whole;
Yet why the loveliest things of earth
Mock in their death their glorious
birth.

Why, when the scarlet sunset floods
The west beyond the hills and woods,
Or June with roses crowds my porch,
Or northern lights with crimson
torch

Illume the snow and veil the stars With streaming bands and wavering bars,

Or music's sensuous, soul-like wine
Intoxicates with trance divine,-
Why then must sadness like a thief
Steal my aromas of belief,
And like a cloud that shuts the day
At sunrise, turn my gold to gray?

Tell me why instincts meant for good
Turn to a madness of the blood;
And, baffling all our morals nice,
Nature seems nearly one with vice;
What sin and misery mean, if blent
With good in one divine intent.
Why from such source must evil
spring.

And finite still mean suffering?

pack

The foul streets and the alleys black, The miserable lives that crawl Outside the grim partition wall 'Twixt rich and poor, 'twixt foul and fair,

'Twixt vaulting hope and lame despair.

On that wall's sunny side, within, Hang ripening fruits and tendrils

green,

O'er garden-beds of bloom and spice,
And perfume as of paradise.
There happy children run and talk
Along the shade-flecked gravel-walk,
And lovers sit in rosy bowers,
And music overflows the hours,
And wealth and health and mirth
and books

Make pictures in Arcadian nooks.
But on that wall's grim outer stones
The fierce north-wind of winter

groans;

Through blinding dust, o'er bleak highway,

The slant sun's melancholy ray Sees stagnant pool and poisonous weed,

The hearts that faint, the feet that bleed,

The grovelling aim, the flagging faith,

The starving curse, the drowning death!

O wise philosopher! you soothe Our troubles with a touch too smooth.

Too plausibly your reasonings come.
They will not guide me to my home;
They lead me on a little way
Through meadows, groves, and gar-
dens gay,

Until a wall shuts out my day,-
A screen whose top is hid in clouds,
Whose base is deep on dead men's
shrouds.

Could I dive under pain and death, Or mount and breathe the whole heaven's breath,

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And in blossomed vale and grove
Every shepherd knelt to love.
Then a rosy, dimpled cheek,
And a blue eye, fond and meek;
And a ringlet-wreathen brow,
Like hyacinths on a bed of snow:
And a low voice, silver sweet,
From a lip without deceit;
Only these the hearts could move
Of the simple swains to love.

But that time is gone and past, Can the summer always last? And the swains are wiser grown, And the heart is turned to stone,

And the maiden's rose may wither;
Cupid's fled, no man knows whither.
But another Cupid's come,
With a brow of care and gloom:
Fixed upon the earthly mould,
Thinking of the sullen gold;
In his hand the bow no more,
At his back the household store,
That the bridal gold must buy:
Useless now the smile and sigh;
But he wears the pinion still,
Flying at the sight of ill.

Oh, for the old true-love time,
When the world was in its prime!

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THOU hast sworn by thy God, my Jeanie,

Then foul fa' the hands that wad loose sic bands,

An' the heart that wad part sic luve;

band,

By that pretty white hand o' thine, But there's nae hand can loose my And by a' the lowing stars in heaven, That thou wad aye be mine; And I hae sworn by my God, my Jeanie,

And by that kind heart o' thine, By a' the stars sown thick owre heaven,

That thou shalt aye be mine.

But the finger o' God abuve. Though the wee, wee cot maun be my bield,

And my claithing e'er so mean,

I wad lap me up rich i' the faulds o'

luve,

Heaven's armfu' o' my Jean.

Her white arm wad be a pillow for me Fu' soon I'll follow thee, my lassie,
Far safter than the down;
And luve wad winnow owre us his
kind, kind wings,

An' sweetly I'd sleep, an' soun'. Come here to me, thou lass o' my luve,

Come here, and kneel wi' me!
The morn is fu' o' the presence o'
God,

An' I canna pray without thee.

The morn-wind is sweet 'mang the beds o' new flowers,

The wee birds sing kindlie an' hie; Our gudeman leans owre his kaleyard dyke,

And a blithe auld bodie is he.

Fu' soon I'll follow thee;
Thou left me naught to covet ahin'
But took gudeness sel' wi' thee.

I looked on thy death-cold face, my
lassie,

I looked on thy death-cold face; Thou seemed a lily new cut i' the bud, An' fading in its place.

I looked on thy death-shut eye, my lassie,

I looked on thy death-shut eye; An' a lovelier light in the brow o' heaven

Fell time shall ne'er destroy.

The beuk maun be taen when the Thy lips were ruddy and calm, my

carle comes hame,

Wi' the holie psalmodie;

lassie,

Thy lips were ruddy and calm;

And thou maun speak o' me to thy But gane was the holy breath o' heav

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O, what'll she do in heaven, my las- A WET sheet and a flowing sea,

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