The Household Book of Poetry

IN CHARTRES CATHEDRAL.

We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun, And we run the same course that our fathers have

run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think:

From the death we are shrinking from, they too would shrink;

To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling;

But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but their story we cannot unfold;

They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers

may come;

They joyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died,-ay! they died: and we things that

are now,

Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, Who make in their dwelling a transient abode, Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear and the song and the
dirge

Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

"Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

The organ's dreamy undertone, The murmur while they pray; And I sit here alone, alone,

And have no word to say; Cling closer shadows, darker yet, And heart be happy to forget.

777

And now, the mystic silence - and they kneel, A young priest lifts a star of gold,

And then the sudden organ-peal!

Ave and Ave! and the music rolled
Along the carven wonder of the choir
Thrilled canopy and spire,

Up till the echoes mingled with the song;
And now a boy's flute-note that rings
Shrill, sweet, and long;

Ave and Ave, louder and more loud
Rises the strain he sings

Upon the angel's wings!

Right up to God!

And you that sit there in the lowliest place,
With lips that hardly dare to move,
You with the old, sad, furrowed face
Dream on your dream of love!
For you, glide down the music's swell
The folding arms of peace;

For me, wild thoughts I dare not tell,
Desires that never cease.

For you, the calm, the angel's breast,
Whose dim foreknowledge is at rest;
For me, the beat of broken wings,
The old unanswered questionings.

RENNELL RODD.

WILLIAM KNOX.

In Chartres Cathedral. THROUGH yonder windows stained and old Four level rays of red and gold

Strike down the twilight dim, Four lifted heads are aureoled

Of the sculptured cherubim,

And soft like sounds on faint winds blown, Of voices dying far away,

Hymn of the Churchyard.

AH me! this is a sad and silent city:
Let me walk softly o'er it, and survey
Its grassy streets with melancholy pity!
Where are its children? where their gleesome play?
Alas! their cradled rest is cold and deep,-
Their playthings are thrown by, and they asleep.

This is pale beauty's bower; but where the beautiful,
Whom I have seen come forth at evening's hours,
Leading their aged friends, with feelings dutiful,
Amid the wreaths of spring to gather flowers?

Lines Written in Richmond Churchpard, Yorkshire.

"It is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias."— Matt. xvii. 4.

METHINKS it is good to be here;

If thou wilt, let us build- but for whom?
Nor Elias nor Moses appear,

But the shadows of eve that encompass the gloom.
The abode of the dead and the place of the tomb.

Shall we build to Ambition? ah, no!
Affrighted, he shrinketh away;

For, see! they would pin him below,
In a small narrow cave, and, begirt with cold clay,
To the meanest of reptiles a peer and a prey.

To Beauty? ah, no!- she forgets
The charms which she wielded before-

Nor knows the foul worm that he frets

The skin which but yesterday fools could adore,
For the smoothness it held, or the tint which it

wore.

Shall we build to the purple of Pride-
The trappings which dizen the proud?
Alas! they are all laid aside;

This is a place of gloom: where are the gloomy?
The gloomy are not citizens of death-
Approach and look, where the long grass is And here's neither dress nor adornment allowed
plumy;

See them above! they are not found beneath! For these low denizens, with artful wiles, Nature, in flowers, contrives her mimic smiles.

This is a place of sorrow: friends have met

And mingled tears o'er those who answered not;
And where are they whose eyelids then were wet?
Alas! their griefs, their tears, are all forgot;
They, too, are landed in this silent city,
Where there is neither love, nor tears, nor pity.

This is a place of fear: the firmest eye

Hath quailed to see its shadowy dreariness;
But Christian hope, and heavenly prospects high,
And earthly cares, and nature's weariness,
Have made the timid pilgrim cease to fear,
And long to end his painful journey here.

JOHN BETHUNE.

But the long winding-sheet and the fringe of the shroud.

To Riches? alas! 'tis in vain;
Who hid, in their turn have been hid:

The treasures are squandered again;
And here in the grave are all metals forbid,
But the tinsel that shines on the dark coffin-lid.

To the pleasures which Mirth can afford-
The revel, the laugh, and the jeer?

Ah! here is a plentiful board!
But the guests are all mute as their pitiful cheer,
And none but the worm is a reveller here.

Shall we build to Affection and Love?
Ah, no! they have withered and died,
Or fled with the spirit above;
Friends, brothers, and sisters, are laid side by side,
Yet none have saluted, and none have replied.

THANATOPSIS.

Unto Sorrow?-The dead cannot grieve; Not a sob, not a sigh meets mine ear,

Which compassion itself could relieve! Ah! sweetly they slumber, nor hope, love, nor fear

Peace, peace is the watchword, the only one here!

Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow?

Ah no! for his empire is known,

And here there are trophies enow!

779

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish

Beneath, the cold dead, and around, the dark Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down

stone,

Are the signs of a sceptre that none may disown.

The first tabernacle to Hope we will build, And look for the sleepers around us to rise;

The second to Faith, that insures it fulfilled; And the third to the Lamb of the great sacrifice, Who bequeathed us them both when he rose to the skies.

HERBERT KNOWLES.

Thanatopsis.

To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart-
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To nature's teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice: Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist
Thy image.

claim

Earth, that nourished thee, shall

Thy growth to be resolved to earth again;

With patriarchs of the infant world- with kings,
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good —
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,- the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between –
The venerable woods - rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round
all,

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.- Take the wings
Of morning; traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings- yet, the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-- the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall

And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves

To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and
soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible !

Он, may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
Of miserable aims that end with self,

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,

And with their mild persistence urge men's minds

To vaster issues. So to live is heaven;
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing a beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity

For which we struggled, failed, and agonized,
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child,
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burden of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better,- saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude,

Divinely human, raising worship so

To higher reverence more mixed with love,—
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb,
Unread forever. This is life to come,-
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us, who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven,- be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion evermore intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible,
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

GEORGE ELIOT.

Meditations of a Hindoo Prince and Skeptic.

ALL the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod,

Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and the steps of a God?

Westward across the ocean and northward ayont the snow,

Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know?

Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and

swarm,

Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops or the gusts of a gathering storm.

In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen,

Yet we all say: "Whence is the message, and what

may the wonders mean?"

A million shrines stand open and ever the censer swings,

As they bow to a mystic symbol or the figures of ancient kings;

And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry

Of those who are heavy laden, and of cowards loath to die.

OVER THE RIVER.

781

For the Destiny drives us together, like deer in a pass of the hills;

It is naught but the wide-world story, how the earth and the heavens began,

Above is the sky, and around us the sound and the How the gods are glad and angry, and Deity once shot that kills.

Pushed by a Power we see not, and struck by a

hand unknown,

We pray to the trees for shelter and press our lips

to a stone.

was man.

I had thought: "Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell,

Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell,

The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock They have fathomed the depths we float on, or frowns hollow and grim, measured the unknown main."

And the form and the nod of a demon are caught Sadly they turn from the venture and say that the

The path, ah! who has shown it, and which is the Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that faithful guide? is gathered and gone The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at mountain-side.

Forever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath

Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death.

Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the first of an ancient name,

Chiefs who were slain on the war-field and women who died in flame:

They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who guard our race;

Ever I watch and worship, they sit with a marble face.

And the myriad idols around me and the legion of muttering priests,

The revels and riots unholy, the dark, unspeakable feasts,

What have they wrung from the silence? Hath

even a whisper come

Of the secret-Whence and Whither? Alas! for the gods are dumb.

Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the uttermost sea?

"The secret, hath it been told you, and what is your message to me?"

morning are level and lone?

Is there naught in the heaven above, whence the rain and the levin are hurled,

But the wind that is swept round us by the rush of the rolling world?

The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep,

With the dirge and sounds of lamenting, and voices of women who weep.

SIR ALFRED COMYNS LYALL.

Over the River.

OVER the river they beckon to me,

Loved ones who've crossed to the farther side; The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are lost in the rushing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue; He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view. We saw not the angels who met him there, The gates of the city we could not see: Over the river, over the river,

My brother stands waiting to welcome me.

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