Kate Seymour MacLean

“ Breathe softly, dead marches, so mournfully solemn;
Ye bear from our sight what no morn shall restore
Nevermore, nevermore.
Oh, beloved—oh, wept for!—beyond the dark river
Are the lives incomplete, there made perfect forever?
Oh, wave but a hand through the darkness, to tell
It is well with ye—well.
Profound is the darkness—the silence unbroken—
No glimmer of pale hands comes back as a token:
Yet still in our hearts we have heard the words spoken:—
"He hath overcome death—He hath passed through the grave—
He is able to save." ”

“ Be witness, Ridgway's silent shade,
No foe shall dare our land invade,
While hearts like those that met the foes,
Still beat like theirs,—the undismayed,
The brave, who never will return.
Our Country holds them in her heart,
Shrined with her mountains and her rivers;
And still for them her proud lip quivers,
And tears to her great eyelids start:
But they are tears of love and pride,
And she shall tell to coming years
The story of her Volunteers,
For all their names are hers and fame's—
The brave who live, the brave who died.
NIGHT,—A PHANTASY Night! the horrible wizard Night! ”

“ More radiant than the white gates of the morn—
A human soul, new-born,
Stood with glad wonder in its luminous eyes,
For all the glory of that blessed place
Flowed thence, and made a halo round the face—
gentle, and strong with the rapt faith that waits
And faints not: sweet with hallowing pain
The face was, as a sunset after rain,
with a grave tender brightness. Now it turned
From the white splendours where God's glory burned,
And the long ranks of quiring cherubim—
Each with wing-shaded eyelids, near the throne,
Who sang—and ceased not—the adoring hymn
Of Holy, Holy! ”

“ And enter through the gates the City of Peace,—
Pity me, oh my God!
BEYOND Cloudy argosies are drifting down into the purple dark,
And the long low amber reaches, lying on the horizon's mark,
Shape themselves into the gateways, dim and wonderful unfurled,
Gateways leading through' the sunset, out into the underworld.
How my spirit vainly flutters, like a bird that beats the bars,
To be launched upon that ocean, with its tides of throbbing stars,
To be gone beyond the sunset, and the day's revolving zone,
Out into the primal darkness, and the world of the unknown! ”

“ Who crowneth the year with goodness, who prospereth all thy labour,
Yea, let all flesh bless the Lord, and magnify Him forever!
BY THE SEA-SHORE AT NIGHT. Oh lapping waves!—oh gnawing waves!—
That rest not day nor night,—
I hear ye when the light
Is dim and awful in your hollow caves.—
All day the winds were out, and rode
Their steeds, your tossing crest,—
To-night the fierce winds rest,
And the moon walks above them her bright road.
Yet none the less ye lift your hands,
And your despairing cry
Up to the midnight sky,
And clutch, and trample on the shuddering sands ”

“ My heart lifts up its thankful hymn,
And bids' good-night to night and moan.
I sleep,—I rest,—and I forget
The bridge-the night-lamp's level beams,
Till waking out of happy dreams,
I see her watch-light shining yet.
God comfort those that watch in vain,—
I breathe to Him my voiceless prayer;
Pity their tears and their despair,
And bring the wanderers home again,
NEW YEAR, 1868. ”

“ And still the rain was as a pulse that kept
Time as the slow hours crept.
The plummet of the night
Sank through the hollow dark that closed us round,
A lamp lit globe of space; outside, the sound
Of rain-drops falling from abysmal height
To vast mysterious depths rose faint and far,
Like a dull muffled echo from some star
Swung, like our own, an orb of tears and light
In the unheeding night.
But when the April dawn
Touched the closed lattice softly, and a bird,
Too early wakened from its sleep, was stirred,
And trilled a sudden note broke off, withdrawn,
She heard and woke. ”

“ Fill the air like shaken music, and the very waves rejoice
In the gladness, and the greeting, and the triumph of
their voice.
VI. Under triumphal arches, blazoned with banners and scrolls,
And the sound of a People's exulting, still gathering as it rolls,
Enter the gates of the city, and take the waiting throne,
And make the heart of a Nation, O Royal Pair, your own.
Sons of the old race, we, and heirs of the old and the new;
Our hands are bold and strong, and our hearts are faithful and true ”

“ To endless night, and silence and eclipse.
Even now the soul unfettered may explore
On its swift wing beyond the gates of morn,
(Unravelled all the weary round of years)
And stand, unfenced of time and crowding space,
With love's fond instinct in that primal place,
The distant northern isle where she was born;
She sees the bay, the waves' deep voice she hears,
And babbles of the forms that are no more.
They are the dead, long laid in foreign graves,
One with his sword upon his loyal breast,
And one in tropic lands beneath the palm ”

“ Speak to us across the darkness,—-wave to us a glimmering hand,—
Tell us but that ye remember, dwellers in the silent land!
But the sunset clouds have faded, arch and capital are gone,
And the regal night is glorious, with the starlight overblown;—
Life is labor and not dreaming, and I have my work to do,
Ere within those happy valleys I shall wear the lilies too.
THE SABBATH OF THE WOODS Sundown—and silence—and deep peace,—
Night's benediction and release;—
The tints of day die out and cease. ”

“ The children of night;
So Thou who of old did'st create us,
Among the high gods the Most High,
Strike us with Thy brightness, and let us
Behold Thee, and die.
Grown old in blind anguish and travail,
Thy world thou mad'st sinless and free
Gropes on, with no power to unravel
The clue back to Thee:
Since his feet from Thy ways torn and bleeding
The long march of ages began,
And the gates of Thy sword-guarded Eden
Were closed upon man.
Fates thicken, and prophecies darken,
Grown up into blossom and fruit ”

“ Whose gladness has no need of spoken words.
In the deep woods there is a voice, which saith
"The Lord is risen—there shall be no more death!
Listen, Oh Man! and thy dull ears shall hear
The Easter Anthem of the awakened year."
Past isles of emerald moss the brooklet flows
Melodious, and rejoicing as it goes;
Past drooping ferns, and through the mazy whir
Of insect wings of gold and gossamer.
Praise God!—they whisper softly each to each;
Waves have a voice, and trees and stones a speech;
Day unto day the chant of birds and breeze,
And man alone is dumb, nor hears, nor sees. ”

“ THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. Out of the west a voice—a shudder of horror and pity;
Quivers along the pulses of all the winds that blow;—
Woe for the fallen queen, for the proud and beautiful city.
Out of the North a cry—lamentation and mourning and woe.
Dust and ashes and darkness her splendour and brightness cover,
Like clouds above the glory of purple mountain peaks;
She sits with her proud head bowed, and a mantle of blackness over—
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. ”

“ Have lain beneath them—can it be?—a whole day and a night.
The autumn winds will sigh and moan; the dreary, dreary rain
Will drench thy lowly pillow, sweet, with tears like mine in vain;
And weary, weary months drag on, and long years stretch before,
Whilst thou to me, my beautiful, returnest nevermore.
Beyond our earthly vision—beyond the burial sod,
Where the palm trees and the amaranths grow on the hills of God,
Oh, golden gates, that stand within the holy, heavenly place,
Open for me but a little, that I may behold her face. ”

“ Is to these as morn to midnight, or as silence is to sound.
Sweeter than the trees of Eden, dropping purple blooms, and balm,
Are the odors wafted toward me from its isles of windless calm,—
And the gold of all our sunsets, with their sapphire all impearled,
Would not match the fused and glowing heaven of that under world.
Pale sea-buds there weep forever, water lilies damp and cool,
And the mystic lotus shining through its white waves beautiful,
In those dusk and sunless valleys, where no steps of mortals tread,
Bind the white brows of the living, whom we blindly call the dead. ”

“ And hear her sing the hymn she loved about "The Promised Land."
Oh, my blossom! Oh, my darling! though it be but in a dream,
Speak to me,—I watch—I listen,—speak to me across the stream.
Kneeling—praying at the threshold—day and night, and night and day,
When I rise with heavy eyelids—when I kneel at night to pray—
Still I wait to catch the far-off music of the starry hymn,
Till I hear the voice that called thee bid me rise and enter in. ”

“ And heard through mute farewells the funeral psalm,
The "nevermore" of the dividing waves.
The record of a life is writ between;
The new world's story supplements the old;
The heathery hills, the rapture of the morn,
The fishers' huts, the chieftain's castle gray,
And the smooth crescent of the land-locked bay,—
These, the long hunger of the heart outworn,
New scenes replace, and the once strange and cold,
Become like those kept in the memory green. ”

“ Are the pictures I see in the fire to night.
Still the wind pipes under the serried spears
Of frozen boughs a desolate rhyme,
But I hear the rustle of golden ears,
And in my heart it is summer time.
A MADRIGAL The lily-bells ring underground,
Their music small I hear
When globes of dew that shine pearl round
Hang in the cowslip's ear
And all the summer blooms and sprays
Are sheathed from the sun,
And yet I feel in many ways
Their living pulses run. ”

“ The world shall hear thy voice
Singing above the noise of war and strife,
And therefore I rejoice!
THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS I. Break dull November skies, and make
Sunshine over wood and lake,
And fill your cells of frosty air
With thousand, thousand welcomes to the Princely pair!
The land and the sea are alight for them;
The wrinkled face of old Winter is bright for them;
The honour and pride of a race
Secure in their dwelling place,
Steadfast and stern as the rocks that guard her,
Tremble and thrill and leap in their veins,
As the blood of one man through the beacon-lit border! ”

“ Keep ye, oh waves!—your mystery:—
The time draws on apace,
When from before His face,
The heavens and the earth shall flee,
And evermore there shall be no more sea!
RESURGAM Into the darkness and the deeps
My thoughts have strayed, where silence dwells,
Where the old world encrypted sleeps,—
Myriads of forms, in myriad cells,
Of dead and inorganic things,
That neither live, nor move, nor grow,
Nor any change of atoms know ”

“ I see the white barques of the clouds drift by,
With prows of rosy flame.
Fantastical and strange,
Their purple sails go floating o'er the deep,
Like shadows through the summer land of sleep,
In never ending change.
The wild shy things which roam
The woods, and live in bough and tree and grot,
Flutter and chirp unscared, they fear me not,
For I too am at home.
And feel my heart in tune
With the great heart of Nature, and the voice
Of all the glad bright creatures that rejoice
In the green woods of June. ”

“ Again, that never grows old!
For under the year's broad shadow,
Along the upward way,
Our footsteps often falter,
And often wander astray.
Weary and weak and erring,
In sorrow and doubt and tears,
Shine through the mist and the darkness
Star of a thousand years!
Awhile from the dusty marches
Of life let us find release,
And pitch our tents in the shadow
Of the white-walled City of Peace,
Let us hear through the blessed starlight. ”

“ Peak above peak, fixed, dazzling, ice and stones.
Down your steep sides quick torrents leap and roar,
And disappear, in gloomy gorges sunk,
Fringed with black pines on dizzy verges high—
Poised, trembling to the thunder and the cry
Of the lost waters, through each giant trunk,
And farthest twig and tassel evermore.
Behold far down the mountain herdsman's ranche,
The rough road winding past his lonely door,
And in his ears, by day and night, the sound
Of mad waves plunging down the gulfs profound,
The tempest's gathering cry, the dull deep roar. ”

“ The notes of that divinest hymn,—
Glory to God in highest strain,
And peace on earth, good will to men.
Oh, diamond days, so royally set
In winter's stern and rugged breast,
Like jewels in an amulet,—
Your light has cheered, and soothed, and blest,
The want and toil, the sighs and tears,
And sorrows-of a thousand years!
The bells ring in the merry morn,
The poor forget their poverty,
The saddest face grows bright with glee,
And smiles for joy that he is born ”

“ Brooding along the valleys with shut wings
That fold all sentient and inanimate things
In their entrenched calm for evermore,
Save only the unquiet human soul;
Hear'st thou the far-off sound of waves that roll
In sighing cadence, like a soul in pain,
Hopeless of heaven or peace, beating in vain
The shores implacable for some replies
To the dumb anguish of eternal doubt,
(As I, for the sad thoughts that rise in me) :
Feel'st thou upon thy heavy-lidded eyes
The salt and bitter kisses of the sea ”

“ And high shall His throne be, and glorious
The place of His feet!
Set thy lips to the trumpet, awaken
The isles of the South and the North,
As the trees of the forest are shaken
When whirlwinds go forth:
Like the waves of the sea, like the thunder
Of armies, with jubilant voice,
A multitude no man can number
Shall sing and rejoice.
The kingdoms beyond the great river,
The uttermost isles of the sea,
And peoples and tribes shall deliver
Thy children to thee. ”

“ In country places, and the ox-eyed daisy
Blooms in the meadow grass, and brooks are lazy,
And scarcely murmur in the twinkling heat;
When sound of babbling water is so sweet,
Blue asters, and the purple orchis tall,
Bend o'er the wimpling wave together;—
The pansy blooms through all the summer weather,
The sweetest flower of all!
The sweetest flower that blows!
When all the rest are scattered and departed,
The symbol of the brave and faithful-hearted,
Her bright corolla glows.
When leaves hang pendant on their withered stalks,
Through all the half-deserted garden walks ”