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celestial benedictions

       Assume this dark disguise.

      We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;

       Amid these earthly damps

      What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers

       May be heaven's distant lamps.

      There is no Death! What seems so is transition;

       This life of mortal breath

      Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

       Whose portal we call Death.

      She is not dead—the child of our affection—

       But gone unto that school

      Where she no longer needs our poor protection,

       And Christ himself doth rule.

      In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,

       By guardian angels led,

      Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,

       She lives, whom we call dead.

      Day after day we think what she is doing

       In those bright realms of air;

      Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,

       Behold her grown more fair.

      Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken

       The bond which nature gives,

      Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,

       May reach her where she lives.

      Not as a child shall we again behold her;

       For when with raptures wild

      In our embraces we again enfold her,

       She will not be a child;

      But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,

       Clothed with celestial grace;

      And beautiful with all the soul's expansion

       Shall we behold her face.

      And though at times impetuous with emotion

       And anguish long suppressed,

      The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,

       That cannot be at rest—

      We will be patient, and assuage the feeling

       We may not wholly stay;

      By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

       The grief that must have way.

THE BUILDERS

       Table of Contents

      All are architects of Fate,

       Working in these walls of Time;

      Some with massive deeds and great,

       Some with ornaments of rhyme.

      Nothing useless is, or low;

       Each thing in its place is best;

      And what seems but idle show

       Strengthens and supports the rest.

      For the structure that we raise,

       Time is with materials filled;

      Our to-days and yesterdays

       Are the blocks with which we build.

      Truly shape and fashion these;

       Leave no yawning gaps between;

      Think not, because no man sees,

       Such things will remain unseen.

      In the elder days of Art,

       Builders wrought with greatest care

      Each minute and unseen part;

       For the Gods see everywhere.

      Let us do our work as well,

       Both the unseen and the seen;

      Make the house, where Gods may dwell,

       Beautiful, entire, and clean.

      Else our lives are incomplete,

       Standing in these walls of Time,

      Broken stairways, where the feet

       Stumble as they seek to climb.

      Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

       With a firm and ample base;

      And ascending and secure

       Shall to-morrow find its place.

      Thus alone can we attain

       To those turrets, where the eye

      Sees the world as one vast plain,

       And one boundless reach of sky.

SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR-GLASS

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      A handful of red sand, from the hot clime

       Of Arab deserts brought,

      Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,

       The minister of Thought.

      How many weary centuries has it been

       About those deserts blown!

      How many strange vicissitudes has seen,

       How many histories known!

      Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite

       Trampled and passed it o'er,

      When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight

       His favorite son they bore.

      Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare,

       Crushed it beneath their tread;

      Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air

       Scattered it as they sped;

      Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth

       Held close in her caress,

      Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith

       Illumed the wilderness;

      Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms

       Pacing the Dead Sea beach,

      And singing slow their old Armenian psalms

       In half-articulate speech;

      Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate

       With westward steps depart;

      Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate,

       And resolute in heart!

      These have passed over it, or may have passed!

       Now in this crystal tower

      Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,

       It counts the passing hour,

      And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;

       Before my dreamy eye

      Stretches the desert with its shifting sand,

       Its unimpeded sky.

      And borne aloft by the sustaining blast,

       This little golden thread

      Dilates into a column high and vast,

       A form of fear and dread.

      And onward,

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