The Home Book of Verse
Chapter 226 : She has struggled and yearned and aspired, grown purer and wiser each year: The stars

She has struggled and yearned and aspired, grown purer and wiser each year: The stars are not farther above you in yon luminous atmosphere!

For she whom you crowned with fresh roses, down yonder, five summers ago, Has learned that the first of our duties to G.o.d and ourselves is to grow.

Her eyes they are sweeter and calmer: but their vision is clearer as well; Her voice has a tender cadence, but is pure as a silver bell.

Her face has the look worn by those who with G.o.d and his angels have talked: The white robes she wears are less white than the spirits with whom she has walked.

And you? Have you aimed at the highest? Have you, too, aspired and prayed?

Have you looked upon evil unsullied? Have you conquered it undismayed?

Have you, too, grown purer and wiser, as the months and the years have rolled on?

Did you meet her this morning rejoicing in the triumph of victory won?

Nay, hear me! The truth cannot harm you. When to-day in her presence you stood Was the hand that you gave her as white and clean as that of her womanhood?

Go measure yourself by her standard; look back on the years that have fled: Then ask, if you need, why she tells you that the love of her girlhood is dead.

She cannot look down to her lover: her love, like her soul, aspires; He must stand by her side, or above her, who would kindle its holy fires.

Now farewell! For the sake of old friends.h.i.+p I have ventured to tell you the truth, As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly as I might in our earlier youth.

Julia C. R. Dorr [1825-1913]

A TRAGEDY

Among his books he sits all day To think and read and write; He does not smell the new-mown hay, The roses red and white.

I walk among them all alone, His silly, stupid wife; The world seems tasteless, dead and done-- An empty thing is life.

At night his window casts a square Of light upon the lawn; I sometimes walk and watch it there Until the chill of dawn.

I have no brain to understand The books he loves to read; I only have a heart and hand He does not seem to need.

He calls me "Child"--lays on my hair Thin fingers, cold and mild; Oh! G.o.d of Love, who answers prayer, I wish I were a child!

And no one sees and no one knows (He least would know or see), That ere Love gathers next year's rose Death will have gathered me.

Edith Nesbit [1858-1924]

LEFT BEHIND

It was the autumn of the year; The strawberry-leaves were red and sere; October's airs were fresh and chill, When, pausing on the windy hill, The hill that overlooks the sea, You talked confidingly to me,-- Me whom your keen, artistic sight Has not yet learned to read aright, Since I have veiled my heart from you, And loved you better than you knew.

You told me of your toilsome past; The tardy honors won at last, The trials borne, the conquests gained, The longed-for boon of Fame attained; I knew that every victory But lifted you away from me, That every step of high emprise But left me lowlier in your eyes; I watched the distance as it grew, And loved you better than you knew.

You did not see the bitter trace Of anguish sweep across my face; You did not hear my proud heart beat, Heavy and slow, beneath your feet; You thought of triumphs still unwon, Of glorious deeds as yet undone; And I, the while you talked to me, I watched the gulls float lonesomely, Till lost amid the hungry blue, And loved you better than you knew.

You walk the sunny side of fate; The wise world smiles, and calls you great; The golden fruitage of success Drops at your feet in plenteousness; And you have blessings manifold:-- Renown and power and friends and gold,-- They build a wall between us twain, Which may not be thrown down again, Alas! for I, the long years through, Have loved you better than you knew.

Your life's proud aim, your art's high truth, Have kept the promise of your youth; And while you won the crown, which now Breaks into bloom upon your brow, My soul cried strongly out to you Across the ocean's yearning blue, While, unremembered and afar, I watched you, as I watch a star Through darkness struggling into view, And loved you better than you knew.

I used to dream in all these years Of patient faith and silent tears, That Love's strong hand would put aside The barriers of place and pride, Would reach the pathless darkness through, And draw me softly up to you; But that is past. If you should stray Beside my grave, some future day, Perchance the violets o'er my dust Will half betray their buried trust, And say, their blue eyes full of dew, "She loved you better than you knew."

Elizabeth Akers [1832-1911]

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN

Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below!

Now my brothers call from the bay, Now the great winds sh.o.r.eward blow, Now the salt tides seaward flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.

Children dear, let us away!

This way, this way!

Call her once before you go.-- Call once yet!

In a voice that she will know: "Margaret! Margaret!"

Children's voices should be dear (Call once more) to a mother's ear; Children's voices, wild with pain,-- Surely she will come again!

Call her once and come away; This way, this way!

"Mother dear, we cannot stay!

The wild white horses foam and fret."

Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down; Call no more!

One last look at the white-walled town, And the little gray church on the windy sh.o.r.e; Then come down!

She will not come, though you call all day; Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday We heard the sweet bells over the bay?

In the caverns where we lay, Through the surf and through the swell, The far-off sound of a silver bell?

Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep; Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, Where the salt weed sways in the stream, Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round, Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, Dry their mail and bask in the brine; Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye?

When did music come this way?

Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away?

Once she sate with you and me, On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee.

She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.

She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea; She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray In the little gray church on the sh.o.r.e to-day.

'Twill he Easter-time in the world,--ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee."

I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves: Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"

She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.

Children dear, was it yesterday?