Verses. Coolidge Susan

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      Verses

      TO J. H. AND E. W. H

        Nourished by peaceful suns and gracious dew,

        Your sweet youth budded and your sweet lives grew,

        And all the world seemed rose-beset for you.

        The rose of beauty was your mutual dower,

        The stainless rose of love, an early flower,

        The stately blooms of ease and wealth and power.

        And treading thus on pathways flower-bestrewn,

        It well might be, that, cold and careless grown,

        You both had lived for your own joys alone.

        But, holding all these fair things as in trust.

        Gently you walked, still scattering on the dust

        Of harder roads, which others tread, and must,—

        Your heritage of brightness, not a ray

        Of noontide sought you out, but straight away

        You caught and halved it with some darker day:

        And as the sweet saint's loaves were turned, it is said,

        To roses, so your roses turned to bread,

        That hungering souls and weary might be fed.

        Dear friends, my poor words do but paint you wrong,

        Nor can I utter, in one trivial song,

        The goodness I have honored for so long.

        Only this leaf, a single petal flung,

        One chord from a full harmony unsung,

        May speak the life-long love that lacks a tongue.

      PRELUDE

        Poems are heavenly things,

        And only souls with wings

        May reach them where they grow,

        May pluck and bear below,

        Feeding the nations thus

        With food all glorious.

        Verses are not of these;

        They bloom on earthly trees,

        Poised on a low-hung stem,

        And those may gather them

        Who cannot fly to where

        The heavenly gardens are.

        So I by devious ways

        Have pulled some easy sprays

        From the down-dropping bough

        Which all may reach, and now

        I knot them, bud and leaf,

        Into a rhymed sheaf.

        Not mine the pinion strong

        To win the nobler song;

        I only cull and bring

        A hedge-row offering

        Of berry, flower, and brake,

        If haply some may take.

      COMMISSIONED

      "Do their errands; enter into the sacrifice with them; be a link yourself in the divine chain, and feel the joy and life of it."—ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY

        What can I do for thee, Beloved,

          Whose feet so little while ago

          Trod the same way-side dust with mine,

        And now up paths I do not know

          Speed, without sound or sign?

        What can I do? The perfect life

          All fresh and fair and beautiful

          Has opened its wide arms to thee;

        Thy cup is over-brimmed and full;

          Nothing remains for me.

        I used to do so many things,—

          Love thee and chide thee and caress;

          Brush little straws from off thy way,

        Tempering with my poor tenderness

          The heat of thy short day.

        Not much, but very sweet to give;

          And it is grief of griefs to bear

          That all these ministries are o'er,

        And thou, so happy, Love, elsewhere,

          Never can need me more:—

        And I can do for thee but this

          (Working on blindly, knowing not

          If I may give thee pleasure so):

        Out of my own dull, burdened lot

          I can arise, and go

        To sadder lives and darker homes,

          A messenger, dear heart, from thee

          Who wast on earth a comforter,

        And say to those who welcome me,

          I am sent forth by her.

        Feeling the while how good it is

          To do thy errands thus, and think

          It may be, in the blue, far space,

        Thou watchest from the heaven's brink,—

          A smile upon my face.

        And when the day's work ends with day,

          And star-eyed evening, stealing in,

          Waves a cool hand to flying noon,

        And restless, surging thoughts begin,

          Like sad bells out of tune,

        I'll pray: "Dear Lord, to whose great love

          Nor bound nor limit line is set,

          Give to my darling, I implore,

        Some new sweet joy not tasted yet,

          For I can give no more."

        And with the words my thoughts shall climb

          With following feet the heavenly stair

          Up which thy steps so lately sped,

        And, seeing thee so happy there,

          Come back half comforted.

      THE CRADLE TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY

        A little, rudely sculptured bed,

          With shadowing folds of marble lace,

        And quilt of marble, primly spread

          And folded round a baby's face.

        Smoothly the mimic coverlet,

          With royal blazonries bedight,

        Hangs, as by tender fingers set

          And straightened for the last good-night.

        And traced upon the pillowing stone

          A dent is seen, as if to bless

        The quiet sleep some grieving one

          Had