Yet yearning still to reach to those dim heights, Each dream remembered is a burning-glass, Where through to darkness from the light of lights Its rays in splendour pass. --September 15, 1893 To A Poet Oh, be not led away. Lured by the colour of the sun-rich day. The gay romances of song Unto the spirit-life doth not belong. Though far-between the hours In which the Master of Angelic Powers Lightens the dusk within The Holy of Holies; be it thine to win Rare vistas of white light, Half-parted lips, through which the Infinite Murmurs her ancient story; Hearkening to whom the wandering planets hoary Waken primeval fires, With deeper rapture in celestial choirs Breathe, and with fleeter motion Wheel in their orbits through the surgeless ocean. So, hearken thou like these, Intent on her, mounting by slow degrees, Until thy song's elation Echoes her multitudinous meditation. --November 15, 1893 The Place of Rest --The soul is its own witness and its own refuge. Unto the deep the deep heart goes. It lays its sadness nigh the breast: Only the mighty mother knows The wounds that quiver unconfessed. It seeks a deeper silence still; It folds itself around with peace, Where thoughts alike of good or ill In quietness unfostered, cease. It feels in the unwounding vast For comfort for its hopes and fears: The mighty mother bows at last; She listens to her children's tears. Where the last anguish deepens--there-- The fire of beauty smites through pain, A glory moves amid despair, The Mother takes her child again. --December 15, 1893 Comfort Dark head by the fireside brooding, Sad upon your ears Whirlwinds of the earth intruding Sound in wrath and tears: Tender-hearted, in your lonely Sorrow I would fain Comfort you, and say that only Gods could feel such pain. Only spirits know such longing For the far away; And the fiery fancies thronging Rise not out of clay. Keep the secret sense celestial Of the starry birth; Though about you call the bestial Voices of the earth. If a thousand ages since Hurled us from the throne: Then a thousand ages wins Back again our own. Sad one, dry away your tears: Sceptred you shall rise, Equal mid the crystal spheres With seraphs kingly wise. --February, 1894 H. P. B. (In Memoriam.) Though swift the days flow from her day, No one has left her day unnamed: We know what light broke from her ray On us, who in the truth proclaimed Grew brother with the stars and powers That stretch away--away to light, And fade within the primal hours, And in the wondrous First unite.