Aspects Of The Pines by Paul Hamilton Hayne

Aspects Of The Pines

by Paul Hamilton Hayne

Tall, somber, grim, against the morning sky
They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs,
Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully,
As if from realms of mystical despairs.
–
Tall, somber, grim, they stand with dusky gleams
Brightening to gold within the woodland’s core,
Beneath the gracious noontide’s tranquil beams, –
But the weird winds of morning sigh no more.
–
A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable,
Broods round and o’er them in the wind’s surcease,
And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell
Rests the mute rapture of deep hearted peace.
–
Last, sunset comes – the solemn joy and might
Borne from the West when cloudless day declines –
Low, flute-like breezes sweep the waves of light,
And, lifting dark green tresses of the pines,
–
Till every lock is luminous, gently float,
Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar,
To faint when twilight on her virginal throat
Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star.

Vigil of the Immaculate Conception by Maurice Francis Egan

Vigil of the Immaculate Conception

by Maurice Francis Egan

A sword of silver cuts the fields asunder—
A silver sword to-night, a lake in June—
And plains of snow reflect, the maples under,
The silver arrows of a wintry moon.

The trees are white with moonlight and with ice-pearls;
The trees are white, like ghosts we see in dreams;
The air is still: there are no moaning wind-whirls;
And one sees silence in the quivering beams.

December night, December night, how warming
Is all thy coldness to the Christian soul:
Thy very peace at each true heart is storming
In potent waves of love that surging roll.

December night, December night, how glowing
Thy frozen rains upon our warm hearts lie:
Our God upon this vigil is bestowing
A thousand graces from the silver sky.

O moon, O symbol of our Lady’s whiteness;
O snow, O symbol of our Lady’s heart;
O night, chaste night, bejewelled with argent brightness,
How sweet, how bright, how loving, kind thou art.

O miracle: to-morrow and to-morrow,
In tender reverence shall no praise abate;
For from all seasons shall we new jewels borrow
To deck the Mother born Immaculate.

The Vigil at Arms by Louise Imogen Guiney

The Vigil at Arms

by Louise Imogen Guiney

Keep holy watch with silence, prayer, and fasting
Till morning break, and all the bugles play;
Unto the One aware from everlasting
Dear are the winners: thou art more than they.
–
Forth from this peace on manhood’s way thou goest,
Flushed with resolve, and radiant in mail;
Blessing supreme for men unborn thou sowest,
O knight elect! O soul ordained to fail!

The Wild Ride by Louise Imogen Guiney

The Wild Ride

by Louise Imogen Guiney

I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.
–
Let cowards and laggards fall back! But alert to the saddle
Weatherworn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.
–
The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:
What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.
–
Thought’s self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam:
Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.
–
A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle,
A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty;
We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.
–
I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.
–
We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All’s well with Thy troopers that follow.

Borderlands by Louise Imogen Guiney

Borderlands

by Louise Imogen Guiney

Through all the evening,
All the virginal long evening,
Down the blossomed aisle of April it is dread to walk alone;
For there the intangible is nigh, the lost is ever-during;
And who would suffer again beneath a too divine alluring,
Keen as the ancient drift of sleep on dying faces blown?
–
Yet in the valley,
At a turn of the orchard alley,
When a wild aroma touched me in the moist and moveless air,
Like breath indeed from out Thee, or as airy vesture round
Thee,
Then was it I went faintly, for fear I had nearly found Thee,
O Hidden, O Perfect, O Desired! O first and final Fair!

Columbus by Joaquin Miller

Columbus

by Joaquin Miller

Behind him lay the gray Azores,  Behind the Gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores,  Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said: “Now we must pray,  For lo! the very stars are gone. Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?”  “Why, say, ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’ “ – “My men grow mutinous day by day;  My men grow ghastly wan and weak.” The stout mate thought of home; a spray  Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. “What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,  If we sight naught but seas at dawn?” “Why, you shall say at break of day,  ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’ “ – They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,  Until at last the blanched mate said: “Why, now not even God would know  Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way,  For God from these dead seas is gone. Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say” —  He said, “Sail on! sail on! and on!” – They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:  “This mad sea shows his teeth tonight. He curls his lip, he lies in wait,  With lifted teeth, as if to bite! Brave Admiral, say but one good word:  What shall we do when hope is gone?” The words leapt like a leaping sword:  “Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!” – Then pale and worn, he kept his deck,  And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck —  A light! a light! at last a light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!  It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world  Its grandest lesson: “On! sail on!”

 

Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres by Henry Adams

Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres

by Henry Adams

Gracious Lady:–

Simple as when I asked your aid before;
Humble as when I prayed for grace in vain
Seven hundred years ago; weak, weary, sore
In heart and hope, I ask your help again.

You, who remember all, remember me;
An English scholar of a Norman name,
I was a thousand who then crossed the sea
To wrangle in the Paris schools for fame.

When your Byzantine portal was still young
I prayed there with my master Abailard;
When Ave Maris Stella was first sung,
I helped to sing it here with Saint Bernard.

When Blanche set up your gorgeous Rose of France
I stood among the servants of the Queen;
And when Saint Louis made his penitence,
I followed barefoot where the King had been.

For centuries I brought you all my cares,
And vexed you with the murmurs of a child;
You heard the tedious burden of my prayers;
You could not grant them, but at least you smiled

If then I left you, it was not my crime,
Or if a crime, it was not mine alone.
All children wander with the truant Time.
Pardon me too! You pardoned once your Son!

For He said to you:–“Wist ye not that I
Must be about my Father’s business?” So,
Seeking his Father he pursued his way
Straight to the Cross towards which we all must go.

So I too wandered off among the host
That racked the earth to find the father’s clue.
I did not find the Father, but I lost
What now I value more, the Mother,–You!

I thought the fault was yours that foiled my search;
I turned and broke your image on its throne,
Cast down my idol, and resumed my march
To claim the father’s empire for my own.

Crossing the hostile sea, our greedy band
Saw rising hills and forests in the blue;
Our father’s kingdom in the promised land!
–We seized it, and dethroned the father too.

And now we are the Father, with our brood,
Ruling the Infinite, not Three but One;
We made our world and saw that it was good;
Ourselves we worship, and we have no Son.

Yet we have Gods, for even our strong nerve
Falters before the Energy we own.
Which shall be master? Which of us shall serve?
Which wears the fetters? Which shall bear the crown?

Brave though we be, we dread to face the Sphinx,
Or answer the old riddle she still asks.
Strong as we are, our reckless courage shrinks
To look beyond the piece-work of our tasks.

But when we must, we pray, as in the past
Before the Cross on which your Son was nailed.
Listen, dear lady! You shall hear the last
Of the strange prayers Humanity has wailed.

Stars by Sara Teasdale

Stars

by Sara Teasdale

Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,
–
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head,
White and topaz
And misty red;
–
Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
That aeons
Cannot vex or tire;
–
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill,
I watch them marching
Stately and still,
–
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.

By Chivalries As Tiny

By Chivalries as tiny,

A Blossom, or a Book,

The seeds of smiles are planted —

Which blossom in the dark.

Emily Dickinson

The Fool’s Prayer by Edward Rowland Sill

The Fool’s Prayer

by Edward Rowland Sill

The royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: ‘Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!’
–
The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.
–
He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch’s silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: ‘O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
–
‘No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin; but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
–
‘ ‘Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
‘Tis by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.
–
‘These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.
–
‘The ill-timed truth we might have kept-
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say-
Who knows how grandly it had rung?
–
‘Our faults no tenderness should ask,
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders-oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.
–
‘Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!’
–
The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
‘Be merciful to me, a fool!’