A Letter in Black

A-floating on the fragrant flood
Of Summer — fuller hour by hour;
All the Spring-sweetness of the bud
Crowned by the glory of the flower, —
My spirits with the season flowed,
The air was all a breathing balm;
The lake a flame of sapphire glowed;
The mountains lay in cloudless calm:

Green leaves were lusty; roses blushed
For pleasure in the golden time;
The birds through all their feathers flushed
For gladness of their marriage-prime:
Listless among the lilies I threw
Me down, for coolness, 'mid the sheen:
Heaven, one large smile of brooding blue;
Earth, one large smile of basking green.

A rich suspended shower of gold
Laburnum o'er me hung its crown:
You look up heavenward and behold
It glowing, coming in glory down!
There, as my thoughts of greenness grew
To fruitage of a leafy dream, —
There, friend, your letter thrilled me through,
And all the summer lost its gleam.

The world, so pleasant to the sight,
So full of voices blithe and brave,
And all her lamps of beauty alight
With life! I had forgot the Grave:
And there it opened at my feet,
Reveding a familiar face
Upturned, my whitened look to meet,
And very patient in its place.

My poor bereaven friend! I know
Not how to word it, but would bring
A little solace for your woe, —
A little love for comforting:
And yet the best that I can say
Will only help to sum your loss;
I can but look and long, and pray
God help my friend to bear his Cri

I have felt something of your smart,
And lost the dearest things e'er wound
In love about a human heart:
I. too, have life-roots underground.
From out my soul hath leaped a cry
For help! Nor God Himself could save:
And tears yet start that naught will dry
Save Death's hand with the dust o' the "rave.

God knows, and we may one day know,
These hidden secrets of His love;
But now the stillness stuns us so;
Darkly, as in a dream, we move.
The glad life-pulses come and go,
Over our head and at our feet;
Soft airs are sighing something low;
The flowers are saying something swe t j

And 'tis a merry world. The lark
Is singing over the green corn;
Only the house and heart are dark, —
Only the human world forlorn.
There, in the bridal-chamber, lies
A dear bedfellow all in white;
That purple shadow under the eyes,
Where star-fire swam in liquid night.

Sweet, slippery silver of her talk;
The music of her laugh so dear,
Heard in home-ways, and wedded walk,
For many and many a goldeu year;
The singing soul and shining face,
Daisy -like glad by roughest road;
Gone! with a thousand dearnesses
That hid themselves for us and glowed.

The waiting Angel, patient Wife,
All through the battle at our side,
That smiled her sweetness on our strife
For gain, and it was sanctified!
When waves of trouble beat breast-high
And the heart sank, she poured a balm
That stilled them; and the saddest sky
Made clear and starry with her calm.

And when the world with harvest ripe
In all its golden fulness lay;
And God, it seemed, saw fit to wipe,
Even on earth, all tears away;
The good true heart that bravely won,
Must smile up in our face and fall;
And all our happy days are done,
And this the end. And is this all!

The bloom of bliss, the secret glow,
That clothed without, and inly curled,
All gone. "We are left shivering now,
Naked to the wide open world!
A shrivelled, withered world it is,
So sad and miserably cold;
Where be its vaunted braveries!
'Tis gray, and miserably old,

Our joy was all a drunken dream;
This is the truth at waking! we
Are swept out rootless by the stream
And current of calamity —
Out on some lone and shoreless sea
Of solitude so vast and deep,
As 'twere the wrong Eternity,
Where God is not, or gone to sleep.

It seems as though our darling dead,
Startled at Death's so sudden call,
With falling hands and dear bowed head
Had, like a flower-filled lap, let fall
A hoard of treasures we have found
Too late! so slow doth wisdom come!
We for the first time look around
Remembering this is not our Home.

My friend, I see you with your cup
Of tears and trembling — see you sit;
And long to help you drink it up,
With useless longings infinite! —
Sit rocking the old mournful thought,
That on the heart' s-blood will be nursed,
Unless the blessed tears be brought;
Unless the cloudy sorrows burst.

The little ones are gone to rest,
And for a while they will not miss
The Mother-wings above the nest;
But through their slumber slides her kiss,
And, dreaming she has come, they start,
And toss wild arms for her caress,
With moanings that must thrill a heart
In heaven with divine distress.

And Sorrow on your threshold stands,
The Dark Ladye in glooming pall:
I see her take you by the hands;
I feel her shadow over all.
Hers is no warm and tender clasp;
With silence solemn as the Night's,
And veiled face, and spirit-grasp,
She leads her Chosen up the heights:

The cloudy crags are cold and gray,
You cannot scale them without scars:
So many Martyrs by the way,
Who never reached her tower of stars;
But there her beauty shall be seen,
Her glittering face so proudly pure;
And all her majesty of mien;
And all her guerdon shall be sure.

Well. 'Tis not written, God will give
To His Beloved only rest!
The hard life of the cross they live,
They strive, and suffer, and are blest.
The feet must bleed to reach their throne,
The brow must burn before it bear
One of the crowns that may be won,
By workers for immortal wear.

Dear friend, life beats though buried 'neath
A vast black vault of night! and see
There trembles through this dark of death,
Starlight of immortality!
And yet shall dawn the eternal day
To kiss the eyes of them that sleep;
And He shall wipe all tears away
From tired eyes of them that weep.

'Tis something for the poor bereaven,
In such a weary world of care,
To think that we have friends in heaven;
Who helped us here, may aid us there.
These yearnings for them set our Arc
Of being widening more and more,
In circling sweep through outer dark
To day more perfect than before.

So much was left unsaid. The soul
Must live in other worlds to be;
On earth we cannot grasp the whole,
For that Love has eternity.
Love deep as death, and rich as rest;
Love that was love with all Love's might j
Level to needs the lowliest!
Cannot be less Love at full-height.

Though earthly forms be far apart,
Spirit to spirit nestles nigher;
The music chords the same at heart,
Though one voice range an octave higher.
Eyes watch us that we cannot see;
Lips warn us which we may not kiss;
They wait for us, and starrily,
Lean toward us from heaven's lattices.

"We cannot see them face to face,
But love is nearness; and they love
Us yet, nor change, with change of place,
In more than Iranian worlds above,
Where love, once leal, hath never ceased,
And dear eyes never lose their shine,
And there shall be a marriage feast,
That turns Earth's water to Heaven's Wine.