O do not leave me, lover, brother, friends,
Till I am dead, and resting in my place. 
And the girl, having prayed, in silence bends
Down to the earth’s embrace.

Leave me not, God, until—­nay, until when? 
Not till I have with thee one heart, one mind;
Not till the Life is Light in me, and then
Leaving is left behind.

THE HOLY SNOWDROPS.

Of old, with goodwill from the skies,
  The holy angels came;
They walked the earth with human eyes,
  And passed away in flame.

But now the angels are withdrawn,
  Because the flowers can speak;
With Christ, we see the dayspring dawn
  In every snowdrop meek.

God sends them forth; to God they tend;
  Not less with love they burn,
That to the earth they lowly bend,
  And unto dust return.

No miracle in them hath place,
  For this world is their home;
An utterance of essential grace
  The angel-snowdrops come.

TO MY SISTER.

O sister, God is very good—­
  Thou art a woman now: 
O sister, be thy womanhood
  A baptism on thy brow!

For what?—­Do ancient stories lie
  Of Titans long ago,
The children of the lofty sky
  And mother earth below?

Nay, walk not now upon the ground
  Some sons of heavenly mould? 
Some daughters of the Holy, found
  In earthly garments’ fold?

He said, who did and spoke the truth: 
  “Gods are the sons of God.” 
And so the world’s Titanic youth
  Strives homeward by one road.

Then live thou, sister, day and night,
  An earth-child of the sky,
For ever climbing up the height
  Of thy divinity.

Still in thy mother’s heart-embrace,
  Waiting thy hour of birth,
Thou growest by the genial grace
  Of the child-bearing earth.

Through griefs and joys, each sad and sweet,
  Thou shalt attain the end;
Till then a goddess incomplete—­
  O evermore my friend!

Nor is it pride that striveth so: 
  The height of the Divine
Is to be lowly ’mid the low;
  No towering cloud—­a mine;

A mine of wealth and warmth and song,
  An ever-open door;
For when divinely born ere long,
  A woman thou the more.

For at the heart of womanhood
  The child’s great heart doth lie;
At childhood’s heart, the germ of good,
  Lies God’s simplicity.

So, sister, be thy womanhood
  A baptism on thy brow
For something dimly understood,
  And which thou art not now;

But which within thee, all the time,
  Maketh thee what thou art;
Maketh thee long and strive and climb—­
  The God-life at thy heart.

OH THOU OF LITTLE FAITH!

Sad-hearted, be at peace:  the snowdrop lies
  Under the cold, sad earth-clods and the snow;
But spring is floating up the southern skies,
  And the pale snowdrop silent waits below.