Does darkness give man brighter rays To find the God, in sunshine lost? Must shadows wrap the trysting-place Where God meets hearts with gentlest grace? Who knoweth it? God hath His ways For every soul here sorrow-tossed. The hours of day are like the waves That fret against the shores of sin: They touch the human everywhere, The Bright-Divine fades in their glare; And God's sweet voice the spirit craves Is heard too faintly in the din. When all the senses are awake, The mortal presses overmuch Upon the great immortal part -- And God seems further from the heart. Must souls, like skies, when day-dawns break, Lose star by star at sunlight's touch? But when the sun kneels in the west, And grandly sinks as great hearts sink; And in his sinking flings adown Bright blessings from his fading crown, The stars begin their song of rest, And shadows make the thoughtless think. The human seems to fade away; And down the starred and shadowed skies The heavenly comes -- as memories come Of home to hearts afar from home; And thro' the darkness after day Many a winged angel flies. And somehow, tho' the eyes see less, Our spirits seem to see the more; When we look thro' night's shadow-bars The soul sees more than shining stars, Yea -- sees the very loveliness That rests upon the "Golden Shore". Strange reveries steal o'er us then, Like keyless chords of instruments, With music's soul without the notes; And subtle, sad, and sweet there floats A melody not made by men, Nor ever heard by outer sense. And "what has been", and "what will be", And "what is not", but "might have been", The dim "to be", the "mournful gone", The little things life rested on In "Long-ago's", give tone, not key, To reveries beyond our ken. Sunless Days They come to ev'ry life -- sad, sunless days, With not a light all o'er their clouded skies; And thro' the dark we grope along our ways With hearts fear-filled, and lips low-breathing sighs. What is the dark? Why cometh it? and whence? Why does it banish all the bright away? How does it weave a spell o'er soul and sense? Why falls the shadow where'er gleams the ray? Hast felt it? I have felt it, and I know How oft and suddenly the shadows roll From out the depths of some dim realm of woe, To wrap their darkness round the human soul. Those days are darker than the very night; For nights have stars, and sleep, and happy dreams; But these days bring unto the spirit-sight The mysteries of gloom, until it seems The light is gone forever, and the dark Hangs like a pall of death above the soul, Which rocks amid the gloom like storm-swept bark, And sinks beneath a sea where tempests roll. ____ Winter on the Atlantic. A Reverie ["Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?"]