Let me keep on, abiding and unfearing Thy will always, Through a long century's ripening fruition Thou canst not come too soon; and I can wait Sarah Chauncey Woolsey [1845-1905] "EX LIBRIS" IN an old book at even as I read Fast fading words adown my shadowy page, At Arqua, with his books around him, sped And they who found him whispered, “He is dead!" Interpret not the Messenger aright. Arthur Upson [1877–1908] IN EXTREMIS TILL dawn the Winds' insuperable throng By mariner or sentry heard along The star-usurping battlements of night And wafture of immeasurable flight, And high-blown trumpets mutinous and strong. Till louder on the dreadful dark I heard The shrieking of the tempest-tortured tree, And deeper on immensity the call And tumult of the empire-forging sea; Spinning But near the eternal Peace I lay, nor stirred, George Sterling [1869 3253 SPINNING LIKE a blind spinner in the sun, I know that all the threads will run I know each day will bring its task, I do not know the use or name I only know that some one came, My hand the thread, and said, "Since you Sometimes the threads so rough and fast I know wild storms are sweeping past, Shall fall; but dare not try to find I know not why, but I am sure My threads will have; so from the first, I think, perhaps, this trust has sprung Said over me when I was young, So young, I heard It, knowing not that God's name signed But whether this be seal or sign It matters not. The bond divine I know He set me here, and still, But listen, listen, day by day, Who bear the finished web away, And cut the thread, And bring God's message in the sun, "Thou poor blind spinner, work is done.” Helen Hunt Jackson [1831-1885] "SOME TIME AT EVE” SOME time at eve when the tide is low, In the silent hush of the twilight pale, When the night stoops down to embrace the day, And the voices call in the waters' flow Some time at eve when the tide is low, I shall slip my mooring and sail away. Through the purpling shadows that darkly trail Of a lonely voyager, sailing away To the Mystic Isles where at anchor lay The crafts of those who have sailed before O'er the Unknown Sea to the Unseen Shore. A few who have watched me sail away Some friendly barks that were anchored near, Afterwards But I shall have peacefully furled my sail And greeted the friends who have sailed before 3255 NIGHT WHEN the time comes for me to die, O God, Thy world was great and fair; I loved, I toiled, throve ill or well, -Lived certain years and murmured not. For others, Lord, Thy purging fires, The loves reknit, the crown, the palm. For me, the death of all desires In deep, eternal calm. T. W. Rolleston [18 AFTERWARDS I KNOW that these poor rags of womanhood,- What homely neighbors elbow me (hard by On the gray spire, nor mark who come and go. Yet would I lie in some familiar place, Nor share my rest with uncongenial dead,— Somewhere, may be, where friendly feet will tread.As if from out some little chink of space Mine eyes might see them tripping overhead. And though too sweet to deck a sepulcher Seem twinkling daisy-buds and meadow-grass; And so would more than serve me, lest they pass Who fain would know what woman rested there, What her demeanor, or her story was,— For these I would that on a sculptured stone With these words carved, "I hoped, but was not sure." A HUNDRED YEARS TO COME OH, where will be the birds that sing, A hundred years to come? The flowers that now in beauty spring, A hundred years to come? The rosy lip, the lofty brow, The heart that beats so gaily now,- Who'll press for gold this crowded street, A hundred years to come? Who'll tread yon church with willing feet, Pale, trembling age, and fiery youth, A hundred years to come? |