For whom or what she plans, she knows no more Than any mother of her unborn child; Yet beautiful forewarnings murmur o'er Her desolations wild. Slowly the clamor and the clash subside: Earth's restlessness her patient hopes subdue: Mild oceans shoreward heave a pulse-like tide: The skies are veined with blue. And life works through the growing quietness To bring some darling mystery into form: Beauty her fairest Possible would dress In colors pure and warm. Within the depths of palpitating seas A tender tint;--anon a line of grace Some lovely thought from its dull atom frees, The coming joy to trace;-- A pencilled moss on tablets of the sand, Such as shall veil the unbudded maiden-blush Of beauty yet to gladden the green land;-- A breathing, through the hush, Of some sealed perfume longing to burst out And give its prisoned rapture to the air;-- A brooding hope, a promise through a doubt Is whispered everywhere. And, every dawn a shade more clear, the skies A flush as from the heart of heaven disclose: Through earth and sea and air a message flies, Prophetic of the Rose. At last a morning comes of sunshine still, When not a dew-drop trembles on the grass; When all winds sleep, and every pool and rill Is like a burnished glass Where a long-looked-for guest may lean to gaze; When day on earth rests royally,--a crown Of molten glory, flashing diamond rays, From heaven let lightly down. In golden silence, breathless, all things stand. What answer meets this questioning repose? A sudden gush of light and odors bland, And, lo! the Rose! the Rose! The birds break into canticles around; The winds lift Jubilate to the skies: For, twin-born with the rose on Eden-ground, Love blooms in human eyes. Life's marvellous queen-flower blossoms only so, In dust of low ideals rooted fast. Ever the Beautiful is moulded slow From truth in errors past. What fiery fields of Chaos must be won, What battling Titans rear themselves a tomb, What births and resurrections greet the sun, Before the rose can bloom! And of some wonder-blossom yet we dream, Whereof the time that is infolds the seed,-- Some flower of light, to which the rose shall seem A fair and fragile weed. A BAG OF MEAL. I often wonder what was the appearance of Saul's mother, when she walked up the narrow aisle of the meeting-house and presented her boy's brow for the mystic drops that sealed him with the name of Saul. Saul isn't a common name. It is well,--for Saul is not an ordinary man,--and--Saul is my husband. We came in the cool of an evening upon the brink of the swift river that flows past the village of Skylight.