"
"'Tis dark, 'tis cold, and hung with gloom;
I care not now within to stay;
For thee and me is scarcely room,
I will hence away."
"Not so, not so, thou youthful guest,
Thy foot shall issue forth no more:
Behold the chamber of thy rest,
And the closing door!"
"O, have I 'scaped the whistling ball,
And striven on smoky fields of fight,
And scaled the 'leaguered city's wall
In the dangerous night;
"And borne my life unharmed still
Through foaming gulfs of yeasty spray,
To yield it on a grassy hill
At the noon of day?"
"Peace! Say thy prayers, and go to sleep,
Till _some time_, ONE my seal shall break,
And deep shall answer unto deep,
When He crieth, 'AWAKE!'"
A LILY AND A LUTE.
(_Song of the uncommunicated Ideal._)
I.
I opened the eyes of my soul.
And behold,
A white river-lily: a lily awake, and aware,--
For she set her face upward,--aware how in scarlet and gold
A long wrinkled cloud, left behind of the wandering air,
Lay over with fold upon fold,
With fold upon fold.
And the blushing sweet shame of the cloud made her also ashamed,
The white river-lily, that suddenly knew she was fair;
And over the far-away mountains that no man hath named,
And that no foot hath trod,
Flung down out of heavenly places, there fell, as it were,
A rose-bloom, a token of love, that should make them endure,
Withdrawn in snow silence forever, who keep themselves pure,
And look up to God.
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