Heaven, which man's generations draws, Nor deviates into replicas, Must of as deep diversity In judgement as creation be. There is no expeditious road To pack and label men for God, And save them by the barrel-load. Some may perchance, with strange surprise, Have blundered into Paradise. In vasty dusk of life abroad, They fondly thought to err from God, Nor knew the circle that they trod; And, wandering all the night about, Found them at morn where they set out. Death dawned; Heaven lay in prospect wide:-- Lo! they were standing by His side! GRACE OF THE WAY The windy trammel of her dress, Her blown locks, took my soul in mesh. God's breath they spake, with visibleness That stirred the raiment of her flesh: And sensible, as her blown locks were, Beyond the precincts of her form I felt the woman flow from her-- A calm of intempestuous storm. I failed against the affluent tide; Out of this abject earth of me I was translated and enskied Into the heavenly-regioned She. Now of that vision I bereaven This knowledge keep, that may not dim:-- Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him; Which sets, to measure of man's feet, No alien Tree for trysting-place; And who can read, may read the sweet Direction in his Lady's face. TO A SNOW-FLAKE What heart could have thought you?-- Past our devisal (O filigree petal!) Fashioned so purely, Fragilely, surely, From what Paradisal Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost? Who hammered you, wrought you, From argentine vapour?-- "God was my shaper. Passing surmisal, He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapour, To lust of His mind:-- Thou could'st not have thought me! So purely, so palely, Tinily, surely, Mightily, frailly, Insculped and embossed, With His hammer of wind, And His graver of frost." ORIENT ODE Lo, in the sanctuaried East, Day, a dedicated priest In all his robes pontifical exprest, Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly, From out its Orient tabernacle drawn, Yon orbèd sacrament confest Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn; And when the grave procession 's ceased, The earth with due illustrious rite Blessed,--ere the frail fingers featly Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte, His sacerdotal stoles unvest-- Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast, The sun in august exposition meetly Within the flaming monstrance of the West.