First came the red-eyed sun as I did wake;

Wert thou in heaven, and busy with thy hymnWhen those poor hands convulsed that held thy pen?Art thou a phantom that deceives! menTo their undoing? or dost thou watch himPale, cold, and silent in his dungeon dim?And wilt thou ever speak to him again?‘It moves, it moves! Alas, my flesh was weak!That was a hideous…

I would I were just come awake,A child outbursting from night’s dusky brake!Or lark whose inward, upward fateMocks every wall that masks the heavenly gate!Or hopeful cock whose clarion clearShrills ten times ere a film of dawn appear!Or but a glowworm: even thenMy light would come straight from the Light of Men!I am a dead…

To take away what once is givenCannot then be the way of heaven!But human hearts are crumbly stuff,And never, never love enough,Therefore God takes and, with a smile,Puts our best things away a while.Thereon some weep, some rave, some scorn,Some wish they never had been born;Some humble grow at last and still,And then God gives…

Ambition, even in mother’s breast,Before him stood in doubt.‘What is it?’ ‘Grant thy promise now,My sons on thy right handAnd on thy left shall sit when thouArt king, Lord, in the land.’‘Ye know not what ye ask.’ There layA baptism and a cupShe understood not, in the wayBy which he must go up.Her mother-love would…

Have patience, sister, to be blest,Wait patiently for Him.Thou knowest love, much love hast had,Great things of love mayst tell,Ought’st never to be very sadFor thou too hast lov’d well.His house thou know’st, who on the brinkOf death loved more than thou,Loved more than thy great heart can think,And just as then loves now-In that…

But spring is floating up the southern skies,And darkling the pale snowdrop waits below.Let me persuade: in dull December’s dayWe scarce believe there is a month of June;But up the stairs of April and of MayThe hot sun climbeth to the summer’s noon.Yet hear me: I love God, and half I rest.O better! God loves…