Beside our way the streams are dried,
  And famine mates us side by side. 
  Discouraged and reproachful eyes
  Seek once again the frowning skies. 
  Yet shall there come, spite storm and shock,
  A Moses who shall smite the rock,
  Call manna from the Giver’s hand,
  And lead us to the promised land!

  The way is dark and cold and steep,
  And shapes of horror murder sleep,
  And hard the unrelenting years;
  But ’twixt our sighs and moans and tears,
  We still can smile, we still can sing,
  Despite the arduous journeying. 
  For faith and hope their courage lend,
  And rest and light are at the end.

LOVE’S SEASONS

  When the bees are humming in the honeysuckle vine
    And the summer days are in their bloom,
  Then my love is deepest, oh, dearest heart of mine,
  When the bees are humming in the honeysuckle vine.

  When the winds are moaning o’er the meadows chill and gray,
    And the land is dim with winter gloom,
  Then for thee, my darling, love will have its way,
  When the winds are moaning o’er the meadows chill and gray.

  In the vernal dawning with the starting of the leaf,
    In the merry-chanting time of spring,
  Love steals all my senses, oh, the happy-hearted thief! 
  In the vernal morning with the starting of the leaf.

  Always, ever always, even in the autumn drear,
    When the days are sighing out their grief,
  Thou art still my darling, dearest of the dear,
  Always, ever always, even in the autumn drear.

TO A DEAD FRIEND

  It is as if a silver chord
    Were suddenly grown mute,
  And life’s song with its rhythm warred
    Against a silver lute.

  It is as if a silence fell
    Where bides the garnered sheaf,
  And voices murmuring, “It is well,”
    Are stifled by our grief.

  It is as if the gloom of night
    Had hid a summer’s day,
  And willows, sighing at their plight,
    Bent low beside the way.

  For he was part of all the best
    That Nature loves and gives,
  And ever more on Memory’s breast
    He lies and laughs and lives.

TO THE SOUTH

ON ITS NEW SLAVERY

  Heart of the Southland, heed me pleading now,
  Who bearest, unashamed, upon my brow
  The long kiss of the loving tropic sun,
  And yet, whose veins with thy red current run.

  Borne on the bitter winds from every hand,
  Strange tales are flying over all the land,
  And Condemnation, with his pinions foul,
  Glooms in the place where broods the midnight owl.

  What art thou, that the world should point at thee,
  And vaunt and chide the weakness that they see? 
  There was a time they were not wont to chide;
  Where is thy old, uncompromising pride?