Was he not kind to you, this dead old year? 
  Did he not give enough of earthly store? 
  Enough of love, and laughter, and good cheer? 
  Have not the skies you scanned sometimes been clear? 
  How, then, of him who dies, could you ask more?

  It is not well to hate him for the pain
  He brought you, and the sorrows manifold. 
  To pardon him these hurts still I am fain;
  For in the panting period of his reign,
  He brought me new wounds, but he healed the old.

  One little sigh for thee, my poor, dead friend—­
  One little sigh while my companions sing. 
  Thou art so soon forgotten in the end;
  We cry e’en as thy footsteps downward tend: 
  “The king is dead! long live the king!”

THEOLOGY

  There is a heaven, for ever, day by day,
  The upward longing of my soul doth tell me so. 
  There is a hell, I ’m quite as sure; for pray,
  If there were not, where would my neighbours go?

RESIGNATION

  Long had I grieved at what I deemed abuse;
    But now I am as grain within the mill. 
  If so be thou must crush me for thy use,
    Grind on, O potent God, and do thy will!

LOVE’S HUMILITY

  As some rapt gazer on the lowly earth,
    Looks up to radiant planets, ranging far,
  So I, whose soul doth know thy wondrous worth
    Look longing up to thee as to a star.

PRECEDENT

  The poor man went to the rich man’s doors,
  “I come as Lazarus came,” he said. 
  The rich man turned with humble head,—­
  “I will send my dogs to lick your sores!”

SHE TOLD HER BEADS

  She told her beads with down-cast eyes,
    Within the ancient chapel dim;
    And ever as her fingers slim
  Slipt o’er th’ insensate ivories,
  My rapt soul followed, spaniel-wise. 
  Ah, many were the beads she wore;
    But as she told them o’er and o’er,
  They did not number all my sighs. 
  My heart was filled with unvoiced cries
    And prayers and pleadings unexpressed;
    But while I burned with Love’s unrest,
  She told her beads with down-cast eyes.

LITTLE LUCY LANDMAN

  Oh, the day has set me dreaming
    In a strange, half solemn way
  Of the feelings I experienced
    On another long past day,—­
  Of the way my heart made music
    When the buds began to blow,
  And o’ little Lucy Landman
    Whom I loved long years ago.

  It ’s in spring, the poet tells us,
    That we turn to thoughts of love,
  And our hearts go out a-wooing
    With the lapwing and the dove. 
  But whene’er the soul goes seeking
    Its twin-soul, upon the wing,
  I ’ve a notion, backed by mem’ry,
    That it’s love that makes the spring.