Poems (1899) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MORNING. ENTERED once, at break of day, A chapel, lichen - stained and gray, Where a congregation dozed and heard An old monk read from a written Word. No light through the window-panes could pass, For shutters were closed on the rich stained-glass, And in a gloom like the nether night The monk read on by a taper's light. Ghostly with shadows, that shrank and grew As the dim light flared, were aisle and And the congregation that dozed around, Listened without a stir or sound ? 26 Morning Save one, who rose with wistful face, And shifted a shutter from its place. Then light flashed in like a flashing gem? For dawn had come unknown to them ? And a slender beam, like a lance of gold, Shot to the crimson curtain-fold, Over the bended head of him Who pored and pored by the taper dim; And it kindled over his wrinkled brow Such words ? "The law which was till now;" And I wondered that, under that morning ray, When night and shadow were scattered away, The monk should bow his locks of white By a taper's feebly flickering light ? Should pore, and pore, and never seem To notice the golden morning-beam. LIFE. FORENOON and afternoon and night, ? Forenoon, And afternoon, and night, ? Forenoon, and ? what! The empty song repeats itself. No more ? Yea, that is Life: make this forenoon sublime, This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer, And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won. FAITH. HE tree-top, high above the barren field, Rising beyond the night's gray folds of mist, Rests stirless where the upper air is sealed To perfect silence, by the faint moon kiss'd. But the low branches, drooping to the ground, Sway to and fro, as sways funereal plume, While from their restless depths low whispers soun...