A LOVING Master, and a good and kind,
My master seemeth evermore to me;
One that my soul — meseemeth — still should find
A-wandering on the lea:
Still seems it, I should see, —
Betwixt the dusk and darkness on this wold, —
That sorrow-mantled figure — as of old
That life might end in nothing would be gone;
This whirling earth no longer should appear
Too fleeting and infirm to rest upon,
And every glimmering branch and leaf would seem

A fret-work of lost hopes returned to view,
Wrought in the shining fabric of a dream
That I had thought too happy to be true:
A dream that I had kept
To feed the longing fancies of my soul,
But deemed it transient — like the glistening dew,
When morning's foot-steps rest upon some knoll
On which the night hath wept.

What if that rustling sound
Which stirs beyond the bushes where the breeze
Runs hurrying on its fitful course to meet
The patient outstretched welcome of the trees —
Should be the echoes of His sandaled feet
That waked the conscious ground
And stayed the shadows in their silent creeping;
Would not this life be found
A narrow brook that quick the souls wild leaping
Would cross with one swift bound?

And straight the great aims of this life should be
Like half-seen pebbles in a twilight stream;
Fame and men's praise or hate would seem to me
The trivial memories of a troubled dream.
And should He come and speak and I should see
The soul's great immortality unfurled,
Then might I change and rise,
A god-like creature, clothed in majesty,
Whose onward strides should be from world to world,
Upon the untrod skies.

Some woodland voice invites me and I turn
To where the sloping ground bends to the dell:
What if the rippling of the hidden burn
Whose every note my spirit loves so well,
Should be His voice — what if my seeking soul,
Should find at once the rapture and the rest
That truth alone can bring,
Would not joy's quickening wing
Soon brush aside this life's unmeaning scroll?
In-writ with riddles — all unread — unguessed:
And painted Hope would fling.

Her weary anchor in oblivion's sea,
Like one whose work is done;
No more to fire the heart for fruitless quest
With feverish visions of the far-off goal,
That never soul hath won:
And this slight path — if here His feet had pressed,
Would seem the pathway of the golden sun,
Set with celestial gems — paved with the stars —
Laid with the fragments of the bended bars
That frame the rainbow's arch — and I, like one
Who on the summer's dewy threshold stands,
And sees a day uplift that shall not fade;
Who breathes the air from undiscovered lands
Where night's wide wing hath cast no darkening shade.

Light! light!! unclouded and eternal day;
No more of shadows nor of doubt within.
For these in bitterness of soul I pray,
For these I strive and have not strength to win.

Close down beside the whispering stream I kneel;
The liquid accents murmuring go by
And as they pass, the darkling waves reveal
Smooth wavering glimmers from the far-off sky.

Pale rays that wander down the dewy slopes,
Along the glancing highway of the leaves
And glide away, like half remembered hopes,
For which the burdened heart no longer grieves.

Along the cool and crinkled marge they creep,
And lose themselves beneath the shadowed brae
Where-on the long ferns nod in heavy sleep
And touch the wave, in silence, as they sway.

Amidst the whirling circles, one white star
Appears and disappears, in ceaseless play,
Yet still remains — the moving waters mar
The gleaming image of that world afar,
And it doth change, but doth not pass away.

So still, so endless, nothing can derange
The noiseless march of infinite decree;
And in the sinister approach of change,
I read the doom that shall encompass me.

Here then the spirit is alone and blind —
The world is lost — I am myself no more;
And this loved body grows to me unkind,
And thrusts me forth upon an alien shore.

Thus to recall what life did seem to be,
When first the picture rose before our eyes;
When shining mists, that left the flowering lea,
Hung on the gateway where the sun did rise.

To think on what it is, when that the bale
Of noon-tide suns have laid the waste world bare;
When laughs no more the brook within the vale,
And dreary highways stretch through dust and glare.

To paint the shall be — when dull clouds shall fence
The weary portals of the closing day
With twilight bars — and on the drowsing sense
The dusking scene dissolves and melts away.

All is but profitless; I will not dwell
In mournful musings on a fruitless theme:
Fain would I hear the trumpet — not the knell,
And find no more the shadow but the beam.

Close, close, my soul — forget thy yesterdays;
Forbear to paint the canvas of the morrow:
Regret no more the dreams that fade always,
Remember not the longing and the sorrow:
These too, at last, shall fade;
And if some spirit in the after years
Shall seek this quiet glade,
He will not marvel that no trace appears,
Left by some vanished shade.
Along my unchanged path, back to the hill,
I turn again — perhaps I have not sought
With humble patience and with bended will
For comfort as I ought.
And if I have not caught
A nearer view
Of that veiled province in the realm beyond,
What then — it matters not —
If only I have closer knit the bond
That holds me heart and soul
To that loved spirit, which doth make divine
The breathing beauty of this passing hour.
It must be true
That Love alone can wield unhindered power
To beauty of control.
I will no more repine,
If haply I may come, at last, to stand
Upon the gracious floor of granted hope;
If I shall gain the outskirts of that land,
Wherein my spirit might find strength and scope
To win an heritage of field and flower,
That ever shall be mine.

Here on the tangle of this upland lea,
Which stretches all about me, wild and wide,
The winging west wind comes, and brings to me,
Sweet floating fancies of the eventide.

Here do I gird me for the savage world —
A part of which I am — the fellest foe
Is my half-self — that I could wish were hurled
Sheer down the dreadest abyss black night doth know.

And here betimes I find regretful balm
In wildernesses, and from sorrow's hold,
Anon my soul steals out, along the calm
Of hills that gird wide sunset seas of gold.

But these fill not the hunger of the heart;
Nor soothe to rest the spirit's fierce complaining;
Life is not bounded by fixed rules of art;
If Love hath vanished, what is worth the gaining?

If aught in Nature else can bind the soul
And master life — that will I find and keep;
If not — all else I spurn — and wait the goal
Of dull contentment and uncareful sleep.

The last note of the field lark thrills the air,
The star-light mingles with the dying flush
That tints the pallid sky — no ghost of care
Doth seem to haunt the evening's deepening hush.
The boughs are wet with dew;
I scent the sweet breath of contented kine,
And hear the music of a bell's faint ringing;
The far fields fade from view;
The breathing Night her forest harp is stringing,
And in the grass her living jewels shine.
The songs of Nature's singing
Are still the best;
If now no pang could reach the spirit, bringing
Grief and unrest,
The rapture of this scene were then divine:
At such a time methinks, in such a spot,
The soul should find — if never found before —
Her fettered wings set free:
If only for an instant — whiles a thought
Might journey and return — till she had caught
One moment's glance out from her prison's door;
One jot of time, till her swift flight had brought,
The sealed assurance of eternity.
Here should my Master be,
If ever He doth visit this dull shore;
Here will I seek Him — if I find him not,
Here will I lose myself and seek no more.