THE grace of the bending grasses,
The flush of the dawn-lit sky,
The scent that lingers and passes
When the loitering wind goes by,
Are gushes and hints of sweetness,
From the unseen deeps afar, —
The foam-edge of heaven's completeness
Swept outward through flower and star.

For the cloud, and the leaf, and the blossom,
The shadow, the flickering beam,
Are waifs on the sea-like bosom
Of beauty beyond our dream:
Its glow to our earth is given;
It freshens this lower air:
Oh, the fathomless wells of heaven, —
The springs of the earth rise there!

THE curtain of the dark
Is pierced by many a rent:
Out of the star-wells, spark on spark
Trickles through night's torn tent.
Grief is a tattered tent
Wherethrough God's light doth shine:
Who glances up, at every rent
Shall catch a ray divine.

DESPAIR not thou of any fallen soul's fate,
Till thou hast knelt beside it in the mire,
And mingled with its mornings desolate
The heavenward whisper of thy heart's desire;
Till thou hast felt it thrill with thine own faith
In Him who looks not on us as we are,
But wakes the immortal in us by His breath,
And puts remembrance of our sins afar.

The noblest creature of a mortal birth
Rose to its beauteous dignity of place
Not without many a lingering stain of earth,
Wherein all souls are set, a little space;
And thou into the haunts of shame and crime
Like an awakening breeze of Heaven mayest go,
Knowing that out of blackest depths of slime
May spring up lilies whiter than the snow.

FROM the reek of the pond the lily
Has risen, in raiment white,
A spirit of air and water,
A form of incarnate light.
Yet, except for the rooted stem
That steadies her diadem,
Except for the earth she is nourished by,
Could the soul of the lily have climbed to the sky?

WHERE does the snow go,
So white on the ground?
Under May's azure
No flake can be found.
Look into the lily
Some sweet summer hour;
There blooms the snow
In the heart of the flower.

Where does the love go,
Frozen to grief?
Along the heart's fibres
Its cold thrill is brief.
The snow-fall of sorrow
Turns not to dry dust;
It lives in white blossoms
Of patience and trust.