Yet, on the dull silence breaking
With a lightning flash, a Word,
Bearing endless desolation
On its blighting wings, I heard: 
Earth can forge no keener weapon,
Dealing surer death and pain,
And the cruel echo answered
Through long years again.

I have known one word hang starlike
O’er a dreary waste of years,
And it only shone the brighter
Looked at through a mist of tears;
While a weary wanderer gathered
Hope and heart on Life’s dark way,
By its faithful promise, shining
Clearer day by day.

I have known a spirit, calmer
Than the calmest lake, and clear
As the heavens that gazed upon it,
With no wave of hope or fear;
But a storm had swept across it,
And its deepest depths were stirred,
(Never, never more to slumber,)
Only by a word.

I have known a word more gentle
Than the breath of summer air;
In a listening heart it nestled,
And it lived for ever there. 
Not the beating of its prison
Stirred it ever, night or day;
Only with the heart’s last throbbing
Could it fade away.

Words are mighty, words are living: 
Serpents with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels, crowding round us,
With heaven’s light upon their wings: 
Every word has its own spirit,
True or false, that never dies;
Every word man’s lips have uttered
Echoes in God’s skies.

VERSE:  A LOVE TOKEN

Do you grieve no costly offering
To the Lady you can make? 
One there is, and gifts less worthy
Queens have stooped to take.

Take a Heart of virgin silver,
Fashion it with heavy blows,
Cast it into Love’s hot furnace
When it fiercest glows.

With Pain’s sharpest point transfix it,
And then carve in letters fair,
Tender dreams and quaint devices,
Fancies sweet and rare.

Set within it Hope’s blue sapphire,
Many-changing opal fears,
Blood-red ruby-stones of daring,
Mixed with pearly tears.

And when you have wrought and laboured
Till the gift is all complete,
You may humbly lay your offering
At the Lady’s feet.

Should her mood perchance be gracious—­
With disdainful smiling pride,
She will place it with the trinkets
Glittering at her side.

VERSE:  A TRYST WITH DEATH

I am footsore and very weary,
But I travel to meet a Friend: 
The way is long and dreary,
But I know that it soon must end.

He is travelling fast like the whirlwind,
And though I creep slowly on,
We are drawing nearer, nearer,
And the journey is almost done.

Through the heat of many summers,
Through many a springtime rain,
Through long autumns and weary winters,
I have hoped to meet him, in vain.

I know that he will not fail me,
So I count every hour chime,
Every throb of my own heart’s beating,
That tells of the flight of Time.