A Hidden Life and Other Poems eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 219 pages of information about A Hidden Life and Other Poems.

A Hidden Life and Other Poems eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 219 pages of information about A Hidden Life and Other Poems.

All lovely things from south to north,
  All harmonies that be,
Each will its soul of joy send forth
  To enter into me.

And thus the wide earth I shall hold,
  A perfect gift of thine;
Richer by these, a thousandfold,
  Than if broad lands were mine.

THE HILLS.

Behind my father’s house there lies
  A little grassy brae,
Whose face my childhood’s busy feet
  Ran often up in play,
Whence on the chimneys I looked down
  In wonderment alway.

Around the house, where’er I turned,
  Great hills closed up the view;
The town ’midst their converging roots
  Was clasped by rivers two;
From one hill to another sprang
  The sky’s great arch of blue.

Oh! how I loved to climb their sides,
  And in the heather lie;
The bridle on my arm did hold
  The pony feeding by;
Beneath, the silvery streams; above,
  The white clouds in the sky.

And now, in wandering about,
  Whene’er I see a hill,
A childish feeling of delight
  Springs in my bosom still;
And longings for the high unknown
  Follow and flow and fill.

For I am always climbing hills,
  And ever passing on,
Hoping on some high mountain peak
  To find my Father’s throne;
For hitherto I’ve only found
  His footsteps in the stone.

And in my wanderings I have met
  A spirit child like me,
Who laid a trusting hand in mine,
  So fearlessly and free,
That so together we have gone,
  Climbing continually.

Upfolded in a spirit bud,
  The child appeared in space,
Not born amid the silent hills,
  But in a busy place;
And yet in every hill we see
  A strange, familiar face.

For they are near our common home;
  And so in trust we go,
Climbing and climbing on and on,
  Whither we do not know;
Not waiting for the mournful dark,
  But for the dawning slow.

Clasp my hand closer yet, my child,—­
  A long way we have come! 
Clasp my hand closer yet, my child,—­
  For we have far to roam,
Climbing and climbing, till we reach
  Our Heavenly Father’s home.

I KNOW WHAT BEAUTY IS.

I know what beauty is, for Thou
  Hast set the world within my heart;
  Its glory from me will not part;
I never loved it more than now.

I know the Sabbath afternoon: 
  The light lies sleeping on the graves;
  Against the sky the poplar waves;
The river plays a Sabbath tune.

Ah, know I not the spring’s snow-bell? 
  The summer woods at close of even? 
  Autumn, when earth dies into heaven,
And winter’s storms, I know them well.

I know the rapture music brings,
  The power that dwells in ordered tones,
  A living voice that loves and moans,
And speaks unutterable things.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
A Hidden Life and Other Poems from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.