Keep love for youth, and violets for the spring: 
Of if these bloom when worn-out autumn grieves,
Let them lie hid in double shade of leaves,
Their own, and others dropped down withering;
For violets suit when home birds build and sing,
Not when the outbound bird a passage cleaves;
Not with dry stubble of mown harvest sheaves,
But when the green world buds to blossoming. 
Keep violets for the spring, and love for youth,
Love that should dwell with beauty, mirth, and hope: 
Or if a later sadder love be born,
Let this not look for grace beyond its scope,
But give itself, nor plead for answering truth—­
A grateful Ruth tho’ gleaning scanty corn.

‘THEY DESIRE A BETTER COUNTRY’

(Macmillan’s Magazine, March 1869.)

I

I would not if I could undo my past,
  Tho’ for its sake my future is a blank;
  My past, for which I have myself to thank,
For all its faults and follies first and last. 
I would not cast anew the lot once cast,
  Or launch a second ship for one that sank,
  Or drug with sweets the bitterness I drank,
Or break by feasting my perpetual fast. 
I would not if I could:  for much more dear
  Is one remembrance than a hundred joys, 10
    More than a thousand hopes in jubilee;
  Dearer the music of one tearful voice
    That unforgotten calls and calls to me,
‘Follow me here, rise up, and follow here.’

II

What seekest thou far in the unknown land? 
  In hope I follow joy gone on before,
  In hope and fear persistent more and more,
As the dry desert lengthens out its sand. 
Whilst day and night I carry in my hand
  The golden key to ope the golden door 20
  Of golden home; yet mine eye weepeth sore
For the long journey that must make no stand. 
And who is this that veiled doth walk with thee? 
  Lo, this is Love that walketh at my right;
    One exile holds us both, and we are bound
  To selfsame home-joys in the land of light. 
Weeping thou walkest with him; weepeth he?—­
    Some sobbing weep, some weep and make no sound.

III

A dimness of a glory glimmers here
  Thro’ veils and distance from the space remote, 30
  A faintest far vibration of a note
Reaches to us and seems to bring us near,
Causing our face to glow with braver cheer,
  Making the serried mist to stand afloat,
  Subduing langour with an antidote,
And strengthening love almost to cast out fear,
Till for one moment golden city walls
  Rise looming on us, golden walls of home,
Light of our eyes until the darkness falls;
  Then thro’ the outer darkness burdensome 40
I hear again the tender voice that calls,
  ‘Follow me hither, follow, rise, and come.’