THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES WORKS OF MRS, A. D. T. WHITNEY. A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. Illustrated. i2mo $1.50 REAL FOLKS. Illustrated, iz-no 1.50 WE GIRLS: A HOME STORY. Illustrated. izmo 1.50 THE OTHER GIRLS. Illustrated. i2mo. 500 pages 2.00 SlG.'fTS AND INSIGHTS. 2 vols. i 2 mo 3.00 PANSIES: A Volume rf Poemt. Beautifully bound in Purple and Gold. i6mo 150 " Such books as hers should be in every household, to be read. sucn DOCKS as hers should be in every household, to be read, loaned, re-read and re-loaned, so long as the leaves and cover will hold together. not holiday volumes'for eletjant qu and ag Tess've works, with a mission,' which is. to better than they find it." Boston Common-wealth. For tale by all Booksellers. Sent by mail, fos'-paid, by HOUJHTJN, O They are dedicated to the friends who will read them deepest, and care for them most. 904061 CONTENTS. OF OCCASION. PAGE "UNDER THE CLOUD, AND THROUGH THE SEA" . . 3 THE ARMY OF THE KNITTERS 6 DE PROFUNDIS 9 PER TENEBRAS, LUMINA 12 MY DAPHNE . 16 EXODUS 2I CONSUMMATION 25 NINETY YEARS 28 HYMN FOR THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF REV. RICHARD PIKE 31 OF SUGGESTION. LARWE 35 BEHIND THE MASK 38 NORTHEAST 4' ANTIPHONY 44 RELEASED 5 1 OVERSWEPT -54 BEAUTY FOR ASHES 61 VI CONTENTS. A RHYME OF MONDAY MORNING 64 THE LAST REALITY. A CHILD'S SATIRE . . 67 THE THREE LIGHTS 69 HEARTH-GLOW . . . 72 IRIDESCENCE . 75 SPARROWS 78 OF INTERPRETATION AND HOPE. SUNLIGHT AND STARLIGHT . . . . -83 TWOFOLD 85 "I WILL ABIDE IN THINE HOUSE" . 39 UP IN THE WILD 91 RAIN 94 EQUINOCTIAL 99 THE SECOND MOTHERHOOD 101 CHRISTMAS 103 EASTER . - 107 A VIOLET . 110 OF OCCASION " UNDER THE CLOUD, AND THROUGH THE SEA." 1861. So moved they when false Pharaoh's legions pressed, Chariots and horsemen following furiously, Sons of old Israel, at their God's behest, Under the cloud, and through the swelling sea. So passed they, fearless, where the parted wave With cloven crest uprearing from the sand, A solemn aisle before, behind a grave, Rolled to the beckoning of Jehovah's hand. 4 " UNDER THE CLOUD, So led He them, in desert marches grand, By toils sublime, with test of long delay, On to the borders of that Promised Land Wherein their heritage of glory lay. And Jordan raged along his rocky bed, And Amorite spears flashed keen and angrily ; Still the same pathway must their footsteps tread, Under the cloud, and through the threatening sea. God works no otherwise. No mighty birth But comes by throes of mortal agony : No man-child among nations of the earth But findeth baptism in a stormy sea. AND THROUGH THE SEA." 5 Sons of the saints who faced their Jordan-flood In fierce Atlantic's unretreating wave ; Who, by the Red Sea of their glorious blood, Reached to the freedom that your blood shall save! O countrymen ! God's day is not yet done ! He leaveth not his people utterly. Count it a covenant, that he leads us on Beneath the cloud, and through the crimson THE ARMY OF THE KNITTERS. 1861. FAR away in your camps by the storied Po- tomac, Where your lances are lifted for Liberty's weal, As the north-wind comes down from the hills of the home-land, Say, catch ye the clash of our echoing steel ? Our hands are untrained to the touch of the rifle ; They shrink from the blade that grows red in the fight ; THE ARMY OF THE KNITTERS. 7 But their womanly weapons leap keen from their sheathing, And the work that they find they will do with their might. Your host that stands marshalled in solemn battalions Beneath the dear flag of the Stripes and the Stars, Hath as loyal a counterpart here at our hearth- stones As ever went forth to the front of the wars. Uplift in your strength the bright swords of your fathers ! Repeat for yourselves the brave work they have done! 8 THE ARMY OF THE KNITTERS. We Ve the side-arms our mothers wore proudly before us, And the heart of the field and the fireside is one ! We rouse to the rescue ! We 've mustered in thousands ! We may not march on in the face of the foe ; Yet while ye shall tramp to the music of battle, Foot to foot we '11 keep pace wheresoever ye go ! Ay, soul unto soul are we knitted together ! By link upon link, in one purpose we 're bound ! God mete us the meed of our common endeavor, And our differing deeds with one blessing be crowned ! DE PROFUNDIS. 1862. UP from our anguish look we to Thy face ! From reeling earth to thy sure dwelling-place ! Out of our sin, and strife, and woe, and shame, Our crumbling liberties, and perilled name, Through misty agony of blood and tears, Look we to thee, God of the endless years ! Save thou thy remnant ! Still we trust in thee ! Yea, though thou slay! By thine eternity, By thy great Word, whereon our hope is laid, Thou wilt not crush the work thy hand hath made ! IO DE PROFUNDIS. Lead as Thou wilt ! We follow, though thy breath Call through the valley and the shade of death ! Winnow thy garner, though thy mighty fan Sweep such an arc as counts the age of man ! Though husks of empire into dust are hurled, And burn as chaff, to renovate thy world ! Our souls lie prone upon thy threshing-floor, And joy that God is in their midst once more ! We stand, as chosen spirits might have stood, In the old days that saw the Polar flood Surge from its fastness down the planet-slope, Grinding the mountains ! Grander shows the hope DE PROFUNDIS. I I Born of thine awful change, than shines in days Circling in calm their age-accustomed ways. We see thy kingdom coming ! In the clouds, Yet with great glory ! Though the eclipse that shrouds Our shortened noon shall last till set of sun, Though we grow old before the fight is won, Though day for us be nevermore restored, We will look onward ! God is still the Lord ! PER TENEBRAS, LUMINA. I KNOW how, through the golden hours When summer sunlight floods the deep, The fairest stars of all the heaven Climb up, unseen, the effulgent steep. Orion girds him with a flame ; .And king-like, from the eastward seas Comes Aldebaran, with his train Of Hyades and Pleiades. In far meridian pride, the Twins Build, side by side, their luminous thrones ; PER TENEBRAS, LUMINA. 13 And Sirius and Procyon pour A splendor that the day disowns. And stately Leo, undismayed, With fiery footstep tracks the sun, To plunge adown the western blaze, Sublimely lost in glories won. I know if I were called to keep Pale morning-watch with grief and pain, Mine eyes should see their gathering might Rise grandly through the gloom again. And when the winter Solstice holds In his diminished path the sun ; 14 PER TENEBRAS, LUMINA. When hope and growth and joy are o'er, And all our harvesting is done ; When, stricken like our mortal life, Darkened and chill, the Year lays down The summer beauty that she wore, Her summer stars, of harp and crown ; Thick trooping with their golden tread, They come as nightfall fills the sky, Those stronger, grander sentinels, And mount resplendent guard on high ! Ah, who shall shrink from dark and cold, Or dread the sad and shortening days, PER TENEBRAS, LUMINA. When God doth only so unfold A \vider glory to our gaze ? When loyal truth and holy trust, And kingly strength, defying pain, Stern courage, and sure brotherhood Are born from out the depths again .' Dear country of our love and pride ! So is thy stormy winter given ! So, through the terrors that betide, Look up, and hail thy kindling heaven ! MY DAPHNE. 1864. MY budding Daphne wanted scope To bourgeon all her flowers of hope. She felt a cramp around her root That crippled every outmost shoot. I set me to the kindly task ; I found a trim and tidy cask, Shapely, and painted ; straightway seized The timely waif; and quick released MY DAPHNE. From earthen bound and sordid thrall, My Daphne sat there, proud and tall. Stately and tall like any queen, She spread her farthingale of green, Nor stinted aught with larger fate, So inly strong, so surely great. I learned, in accidental way, A secret on an after day ; A chance that marked the simple change As something curious and strange. And so, therefrom, with anxious care, Almost with underthought of prayer, 1 8 MY DAPHNE. As day by day my listening soul Waited to catch the coming roll Of pealing victory, that should bear My country's triumph on the air, I tended gently all the more The plant whose life a portent bore. The weary winter wore away, And still we waited, day by day, And still, in full and leafy pride, My Daphne strengthened at my side, Till her fair buds outburst their bars, And whitened gloriously to stars ! MY DAPHNE. Above each stalwart, loyal stem Rested their heavenly diadem ; And flooded forth their incense rare, A breathing joy upon the air! Well might my backward thought recall The cramp, the hindrance, and the thrall ; The strange release to larger space ; The issue into growth and grace ; And joyous hail the homely sign That spelled an augury divine. For all this life, and light, and bloom, This breath of peace that blessed the room, 20 MY DAPHNE. Was born from out the banded rim Once crowded close, and black, and grim With grains that feed the cannon's breath, And boom his sentences of death ! EXODUS. HEAR ye not how, from all high points of time, From peak to peak, adown the mighty chain That links the ages, echoing sublime A voice almighty, leaps one grand refrain ? Wakening the generations with a shout And trumpet-call of thunder, come ye out ! Out from old forms, and dead idolatries ! From fading myths and superstitious dreams ; From Pharisaic rituals and lies, And all the bondage of your shows and seems ; 22 EXODUS. Out, on the pilgrim path, of heroes trod, Over earth's wastes to reach forth after God ! The Lord hath bowed his heavens and come down ! Now, in this latter century of time, Once more his tent is pitched on Sinai's crown ; Once more in clouds must Faith to meet Him climb ; Once more his thunder crashes on our doubt And fear and sin, " My people ! come ye out ! " From false ambitions and vain luxuries ; From puny aims and indolent self-ends ; From cant of faith, and shams of liberties, And mist of ill, that truth's pure day-beam bends; EXODUS. 23 Out, from all darkness of the Egypt land, Into my sun-blaze on the desert sand ! " Leave ye your flesh-pots ! Turn from filthy greed Of gain that doth the hungry spirit mock ; And heaven shall drop sweet manna for your need, And rain clear rivers from the unhewn rock. Thus saith the Lord!" And Moses, meek, unshod, Within the cloud stands hearkening to his God! Show us our Aaron, with his rod in flower! Our Miriam, with her timbrel-soul in tune ! 24 EXODUS. And call some Joshua, in the Spirit's power, To poise our sun of strength at point of noon ! God of our fathers ! over sand and sea, Still keep our struggling footsteps close to thee ! CONSUMMATION. THE ATLANTIC CABLE, 1858. WHEN the old mountains, o'er the flood, Raised' their great foreheads solemnly, Sending their first bewildered look Each unto each, across the sea ; From peak to peak the rainbow flame Sprang with its telegraph of light, And all the dark, dividing chasm Was compassed by an arch of might. The smile that broke upon their brows, A gleaming joy through giant tears, Was God's own silent prophecy And promise for the coming years. 26 CONSUMMATION. The deep receded to his bounds; The lands lay severed ; but on high Already shone the nuptial ring, Held as a presage in the sky ! With vision awed we read to-day The glowing augury of time, And stretch our half-believing hands To grasp the accomplishment sublime. A quiet word is sped along : " God has been with us ; it is done." The marriage blessing has been given, And the two continents are one ! O wedded worlds ! what God hath joined Let never passion dare to part! CONSUMMATION. 2/ But, down the golden-blossoming age. Go hand in hand, and heart with heart ! The slender thread beneath the sea That throbs through all its living length With common joy, still may it be A deathless bond of peace and strength ! So the great promise, sealed in light, And gift that doth the grace fulfil, The band on earth, the bow in heaven, From deep to deep shall answer still ; Till the last angel's mighty stride Shall span the ocean and the shore, And floods shrink silent, while his voice Proclaims that time shall be no more! NINETY YEARS. A MISSIONARY'S BIRTHDAY.* TELL us, O seer, that dost serenely, stand Upon the Pisgah of thy ninety years, What lies about thee in the landscape grand Where the pure light from -out the Promised Land Spans with its peace the valley-mist of tears ! Read us the vision, with its backward reach O'er the long wayfare in the wilderness, And onward to the farther Jordan -beach * Rev. Father Cleveland, Boston, June, 1862. NINETY YEARS. 2Q That marks the bound where endeth mortal speech, Where thought is life, and life grows measure- less! Still toiling on along the middle plain, With the hot dust of noon upon the brow, On that calm height we hail thee, *and would fain Catch through thine eyes a glimpse to soothe our pain, Rest from our future, for the restless now! How shall it look when we too come to gaze Forth from that mountain of expectancy Where culminates the trending of these ways, 30 NINETY YEARS. And all the gathered gleams of earthly days Pour their full flood in one fair sunset sea ? Ah, useless asking ! None but Moses might Look from his own life-ending ; and the path Each soul doth tread may lapse in heavenly light, Or wind away into 1 ' the hopeless night Red only with the evening clouds of wrath ! We give thee solemn joy, then, that hast come, By daily access of thy faithful deed, By steps whereof God's mercy keeps the sum, Safely to stand where human praise is dumb, And Christ's " Well done " is thine eternal meed ! HYMN FOR THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF REV. RICHARD PIKE, FEBRUARY 2O, 1863. FATHER ! our faith grasps upward through the gloom, Even from out these tears ! Not in the shadow of a hopeless tomb Lose we our friend of years. A dear and holy presence seemeth- still Within our midst to stand, \ And such a silent priesthood to fulfil As maketh parting grand. We will bespeak each other words of cheer ! In this our saddened shrine, Above the darkened altar and the bier See we a light divine ! Bid thou the life that passeth from our sight Visit our souls with grace ! So may we also, through this mortal night, Reach to thy Holy Place. OF SUGGESTION LARV.E. MY little maiden of four years old No myth, but a genuine child is she, With her bronze-brown eyes and her curls of gold Came, quite in disgust, one day, to me. Rubbing her shoulder with rosy palm, As the loathsome touch seemed yet to thrill her, She cried, " O mother ! I found on my arm A horrible, crawling caterpillar ! " 36 LARV/E. And with mischievous smile she could scarcely smother, Yet a glance in its daring half awed and shy, She added, " While they were about it, mother, I wish they'd just finished the butterfly!" They were words to the thought of the soul that turns From the coarser form of a partial growth, Reproaching the infinite patience that yearns With an unknown glory to crown them both. Ah, look thou largely, with lenient eyes, On whatso beside thee may creep and cling, For the possible glory that underlies The passing phase of the meanest thing ! LARVAE. 37 What if God's great angels, whose waiting love Beholdeth our pitiful life below From the holy height of their heaven -above, Could n't bear with the worm till the wings should grow? BEHIND THE MASK. IT was an old, distorted face, An uncouth visage, rough and wild,- Yet, from behind, with laughing grace, Peeped the fresh beauty of a child. And so, contrasting strange to-day, My heart of youth doth inly ask If half earth's wrinkled grimness may Be but the baby in the mask. Behind gray hairs and furrowed brow And withered look that life puts on, BEHIND THE MASK. 39 Each, as he wears it, comes to know How the child hides, and is not gone. For while the inexorable years To saddened features fit their mould, Beneath the work of time and tears Waits something that will not grow old ! The rifted pine upon the hill, Scarred by the lightning and the wind, Through bolt and blight doth nurture still Young fibres underneath the rind ; And many a storm-blast, fiercely sent, And wasted hope, and sinful stain, Roughen the strange integument The struggling soul must wear in pain ; 4O BEHIND THE MASK. Yet when she comes to claim her own, Heaven's angels, haply, shall not ask For that last look the world hath known, But for the face behind the mask ! NORTHEAST. WE had a week of rainy days ; The heaven was gray, the earth was grim And through a sea of hopeless haze The dreamy daylight wandered dim. The saddened trees, with weary boughs, Drooped heavily, or sullen swayed Slow answer to the sobs and soughs The jaded east-wind, whimpering, made. Faint as the dawn the noonday seemed, With hardly more of stir or sound ; 42 NORTHEAST. The only noise or motion seemed That dull, cold dropping on the ground. Vainly the Soul her frame ignores ; Deep answereth unto deep apart ; And the great weeping out of doors Touched the tear fountains in the heart. So life looked drear, and heaven was dim ; And though the Sun still strode the sky, Through the thick gloom that shrouded him Scarce trusted we the joy on high. But, sudden, from the leafy dark, The close green covert rain-bestirred, NORTHEAST. 43 Outbursting tremulously, hark, The carol of a little bird ! Ah, long the storm ; yet none the less, Hid from the utmost reach of ill, And singing in the wilderness, Some small, sweet hope waits blithely still ! ANTIPHONY. HANGING where the May-tide splendor, pouring down the arches blue, Pierces, flooding with its fulness all the chamber through and through, Swings a cage, atilt and vibrant with the rest- less feet and wings Of three glancing, golden-feathered, wonder- throated little things. Little bits of living glory with a melody in- breathed ; Pulses of a mighty music in the sunlight caught and seethed, ANTIPHONY. 45 Till it grew concrete about them, shaped a body and a bound For the throbbing soul of sweetness striving ceaseless into sound. Scanted in their glimpse of heaven, peering with their witless eyes Outward, where the unmeasured answer to their untaught yearning lies ; Fluttering with a secret impulse kindred to the summer breeze, Springing to an unknown motion of the far-off forest trees. So God plumeth many a spirit, still withholding space to soar; 46 ANTIPHONY. Bids it wait with folded pinion till He openeth the door : Seals a sense that still respondeth dimly to some distant good, Stirring all the mortal nature with an unborn angelhood. Sitting in the quiet chamber, where that magic of the May Glorified each dull surrounding with the over- flow of day, Only their soft song and flutter moved the silence of the room, And the clock upon the mantel telling out the strokes of doom. ANTIPHONY 47 Saying sternly, and repeating, with a cadence sure and slow, While with onward march the minutes, pauseless and returnless, go, " Speeding, speeding, ever speeding, ebbing, ebbing, still away ! Minutes, hours, and breath, and being! life, and death, and night, and day ! " Still I heard as one unheeding, listening but the softened strain Of the prisoned joy that smote me with a strange rebuke of pain ; So its semblance did interpret hindered hopes my life had known, Waiting God's divine releasing, as these waited for mine own. 48 ANTIPHONY. Rising up, with ready finger straight I set the door avvide ; Swift they claimed the offered franchise, with its compass satisfied. Back and forth throughout the chamber, in their joy they went and came ; Then, as in a still assurance, settled o'er the window-frame. Presently a clear, triumphant paean cleft the startled air ; Notes that flashed like falling rain-drops, bright and sudden, everywhere ; Slender breaths of piercing sweetness, like keen needleshafts of sound, Then a tender, tremulous rapture, and a quiet closing round. ANTIPHONY. 49 Quiet. Yet from o'er the mantel came those urgent strokes of time, Meting the unmeasured stillness as a thought is pulsed with rhyme ; With their deep insistance uttering self-same syllables alway, " Minutes, hours, and breath, and being ! life, and death, and night, and day ! " While the birds above the casement, like souls stricken into shame, All their sudden burst of joyance quivered out, like taper-flame, Side by side sat hushed and awestruck, hearken- ing as with holden breath ; Every little heart-beat merging in those cadences of death ! 5