Can ne’er disturb the perfect rest
Wherein he lieth—­being blest,
With chill hands cross’d on silent breast.

Oh mourning heart! whose heavy plaint
Drifts down the deathly shadows faint,
Why weep ye for this risen saint?

His life’s pale ashes, under foot
That cling about the daisies’ root
Will bear at last most glorious fruit!

’Tis but the casket hid away
Neath roof of stone and burial clay;
The jewel shines in endless day!

And thus I gather for my tears
Sweet hope from faith in after years;
And far across the glimmering spheres

Height over height the heavens expand—­
I see him in God’s Eden land,
With palms of vict’ry in his hand;

O’er brows of solemn breadth profound,
With fadeless wreaths of glory wound,
He stands a seraph, robed and crowned.

Aye! in a vision, see I now;
Christ’s symbol written on his brow—­
Found worthy unto death art thou!

And ever in this heart of mine,
So won to glorious peace, divine
This vision of our lost shall shine;

Not with pale forehead in eclipse
With close-sealed lids and silent lips,
But grand in Life’s Apocalypse!

For very truly hath been said—­
For the pale living—­not the dead—­
Should mourning’s bitterest tears be shed!

MISSIVE TO ——.

Purple shafts of sunset fire
  Glory-crown the passionate sea,
Throbbing with a fierce desire
  For the blue immensity.

Floods of pale and scarlet flame
  Sweep the bases of the hills,
With a blushing unto shame
  Thro’ their rosy bridal-thrills.

Slowly to the gorgeous West
  Twilight paces from the East,
Like a dark, unbidden guest
  Going to a marriage feast.

Dian—­palaced in the blue—­
  O’er the eve-star, newly born,
Shakes a sweet baptismal dew
  From her pearly drinking-horn.

Not the Ocean’s fiery soul
  Throbbing up thro’ all his deeps—­
Not the sunset tides that roll
  Gloriously against the steeps

Of the hills, that to the stars
  Lift their regal wedded brows,
Glittering, through the golden bars
  Clasping close their nuptial snows.

Not the palace lights of Hesper
  In the Queendom of the Moon,
Win me from that lovely vesper—­
  The last one of our last June.

Oh the golden-tressed minutes! 
  Oh the silver-footed hours! 
Oh the thoughts that sang like linnets,
  In a woodland full of flowers!

When my wild heart beat so lightly
  It forgot its mortal shroud;
And an Angel trembled brightly
  In the fold of every cloud.

Wo!  That storms of sorrow-strife
  Hold the pitying light apart,
And the golden waves of life
  Beat against a breaking heart.

Saddest fate that e’er has been
  Woven in the loom of years,
Our sworn faith has come between,
  Heavy with the wine of tears.