VI.  MY LADY’S GLORY.

Strong in the regal strength of love,
   Enthroned by native worth
   Her sway is held on earth: 
Whose soul looks downward from above
   Exalted stars, whose power
   Brightens the brightest flower.

Her beauty walks in happier grace
   Than lightly moving fawns
   O’er old elm-shadowed lawns. 
A tenderness shows through her face,
   And like the morning’s glow,
   Hints a full day below.

When site looks wide around the skies
   On the sun’s dazzling track,
   And when shines softly back
Its glory to her open eyes,
   She fills our hearts and sight
   With wonder and delight.

And when tired thought my sense benumbs,
   Or when past shadows roll
   Their memories on my soul,
Oft breaking through the darkness comes
   A solace and surprise,
   Her wonder-lighted eyes.

How grand and beautiful the love
   She silently conceals,
   Nor save in act reveals! 
She broods o’er kindness; as a dove
   Sits musing in the nest
   Of the life beneath her breast.

The ready freshness that was known
   In man’s authentic prime,
   The earliest breath of time,
Throughout her household ways is shown;
   Mild greatness subtly wrought
   With quaint and childlike thought.

She sits to music:  fingers fall,
   Air shakes; her lifted voice
   Makes flattered hope rejoice,
And shivering through Time’s phantom pall,
   Its wavering rents display
   Dim splendour, far away;

Where her perfection, glory-crowned,
   Shall rest in love for ever;
   When mortal systems sever,
And the orbed universe is drowned,
   Leaving the empty skies
   The blank of death-closed eyes.

Deep in this truth I root my trust;
   And know the dear One’s praise,
   Her mutely gracious ways,
When all her loveliness is dust
   And mosses rase her name,
   Will bless our world the same.

As scent of flowers her worth was born
   Her joyous goodness spread
   Like music over head,
Smiles now as smiles a plain of corn
   When in the winds of June,
   Lit by a shining noon.

A gap of sunlight in the storm;
   A blossom ere the spring;
   Immortal whispering;
A spirit manifest through form
   Which we can touch and kiss,—­
   To life such beauty is.

Ah! who can doubt, though he may doubt
   Our solid earth will run
   A future round the sun,
That gentle impulse given out
   Can never fail or die,
   But throbs eternally!

VII.  HER SHADOW.

At matin time where creepers interlace
We sauntered slowly, for we loved the place,
And talked of passing things; I, pleased to trace
Through leafy mimicry the true leaves made,
The stateliness and beauty of her shade;