class="smcap">Love, out of the depth of things,
As a dewfall felt from above,
From the heaven whence only springs
   Love,

Love, heard from the heights thereof,
The clouds and the watersprings,
Draws close as the clouds remove.

And the soul in it speaks and sings,
A swan sweet-souled as a dove,
An echo that only rings
   Love.

II.
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE.

Fate, out of the deep sea’s gloom,
When a man’s heart’s pride grows great,
And nought seems now to foredoom
   Fate,

Fate, laden with fears in wait,
Draws close through the clouds that loom,
Till the soul see, all too late,

More dark than a dead world’s tomb,
More high than the sheer dawn’s gate,
More deep than the wide sea’s womb,
   Fate.

THE LUTE AND THE LYRE.

Deep desire, that pierces heart and spirit to the root,
Finds reluctant voice in verse that yearns like soaring fire,
Takes exultant voice when music holds in high pursuit
   Deep desire.

Keen as burns the passion of the rose whose buds respire,
Strong as grows the yearning of the blossom toward the fruit,
Sounds the secret half unspoken ere the deep tones tire.

Slow subsides the rapture that possessed love’s flower-soft lute,
Slow the palpitation of the triumph of the lyre:
Still the soul feels burn, a flame unslaked though these be mute,
   Deep desire.

PLUS INTRA.

Soul within sense, immeasurable, obscure,
Insepulchred and deathless, through the dense
Deep elements may scarce be felt as pure
   Soul within sense.

From depth and height by measurers left immense,
Through sound and shape and colour, comes the unsure
Vague utterance, fitful with supreme suspense.

All that may pass, and all that must endure,
Song speaks not, painting shews not: more intense
And keen than these, art wakes with music’s lure
      Soul within sense.

CHANGE.

But now life’s face beholden
   Seemed bright as heaven’s bare brow
With hope of gifts withholden
   But now.

   From time’s full-flowering bough
Each bud spake bloom to embolden
   Love’s heart, and seal his vow.

Joy’s eyes grew deep with olden
   Dreams, born he wist not how;
Thought’s meanest garb was golden;
   But now!

A BABY’S DEATH.

I.

A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
   A little soul.

Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,
Not knowing beyond this blind world’s girth
What things are writ in heaven’s full scroll.

Our fruitfulness is there but dearth,
And all things held in time’s control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
   A little soul.

II.

The little feet that never trod
Earth, never strayed in field or street,
What hand leads upward back to God
   The little feet?

A rose in June’s most honied heat,
When life makes keen the kindling sod,
Was not so soft and warm and sweet.

Their pilgrimage’s period
A few swift moons have seen complete
Since mother’s hands first clasped and shod
   The little feet.

III.

The little hands that never sought
Earth’s prizes, worthless all as sands,
What gift has death, God’s servant, brought
   The little hands?

We ask: but love’s self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings to thought
To search where death’s dim heaven expands.

Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
   The little hands.

IV.

The little eyes that never knew
Light other than of dawning skies,
What new life now lights up anew
   The little eyes?

Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?

No storm, we know, may change the blue
Soft heaven that haply death descries
No tears, like these in ours, bedew
   The little eyes.

V.

Was life so strange, so sad the sky,
   So strait the wide world’s range,
He would not stay to wonder why
   Was life so strange?

Was earth’s fair house a joyless grange
   Beside that house on high
Whence Time that bore him failed to estrange?

That here at once his soul put by
   All gifts of time and change,
And left us heavier hearts to sigh
   ‘Was life so strange?’

VI.

Angel by name love called him, seeing so fair
   The sweet small frame;
Meet to be called, if ever man’s child were,
   Angel by name.

Rose-bright and warm from heaven’s own heart he came,
   And might not bear
The cloud that covers earth’s wan face with shame.

His little light of life was all too rare
   And soft a flame:
Heaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there
   Angel by name.

VII.

The song that smiled upon his birthday here
Weeps on the grave that holds him undefiled
Whose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear
   The song that smiled.

His name crowned once the mightiest ever styled
Sovereign of arts, and angel: fate and fear
Knew then their master, and were reconciled.

But we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere
Michael, an angel and a little child,
Whose loss bows down to weep upon his bier
   The song that smiled.