What is the moon but a lamp of fire
    That God shall relume in His season? the Sun,
    Like a giant, rejoices his race to run
  With flaming feet that never tire
  On the azure path of the starry choir.

  The lark has sung ere I left my bed: 
    And hark! far aloft from those ladders of light
    Many songs, not one only, the morn delight. 
  Then, sad heart, dream not that Nature is dead,
  But seek from her strength and comfort instead.

SNOW-STAINS

  The snow had fallen and fallen from heaven,
    Unnoticed in the night,
  As o’er the sleeping sons of God
    Floated the manna white;
  And still, though small flowers crystalline
    Blanched all the earth beneath,
  Angels with busy hands above
    Renewed the airy wreath;
  When, white amid the falling flakes,
    And fairer far than they,
  Beside her wintry casement hoar
    A dying woman lay. 
  “More pure than yonder virgin snow
    From God comes gently down,
  I left my happy country home,”
    She sighed, “to seek the town,
  More foul than yonder drift shall turn,
    Before the sun is high,
  Downtrodden and defiled of men,
    More foul,” she wept, “am I.”

  “Yet, as in midday might confessed,
    Thy good sun’s face of fire
  Draws the chaste spirit of the snow
    To meet him from the mire,
  Lord, from this leprous life in death
    Lift me, Thy Magdalene,
  That rapt into Redeeming Light
    I may once more be clean.”

REMEMBRANCE

(To music)

  The fairest blooming flower
    Before the sun must fade;
  Each leaf that lights the bower
    Must fall at last decayed! 
  Like these we too must wither,
    Like these in earth lie low,
  None answering whence or whither
    We come, alas! or go.

  None answering thee? thou sayest,
    Nay, mourner, from thy heart,
  If but in faith thou prayest,
    The Voice Divine shall start;
  “I gave and I have taken,
    If thou wouldst comfort win
  To cheer thy life forsaken,
    I knock, O, let me in!

  “Thy loved ones have but folden
    Their earthly garments by,
  And through Heaven’s gateway golden
    Gone gladly up on high. 
  O, if thou wouldst be worthy
    To share their joy anon,
  Cast off, cast off the earthy,
    And put the heavenly on!”

SANDS OF GOLD

  Hope gave into my trembling hands
  An hour-glass running golden sands,
  And Love’s immortal joys and pains
  I measured by its glancing grains. 
  But Evil Fortune swooped, alas! 
  Remorseless on the magic glass,
  And shivered into idle dust
  The radiant record of my trust.

  Long I mated with Despair
  And craved for Death with ceaseless prayer;
  Till unto my sick-bed side
  There stole a Presence angel-eyed.