She gazed away where shadows were covering The whole cold ocean's healing indifference. No ship was coming. When the darkness Fell, she was there, and alone, still gazing. An Evangelist's Wife "Why am I not myself these many days, You ask? And have you nothing more to ask? I do you wrong? I do not hear your praise To God for giving you me to share your task? "Jealous -- of Her? Because her cheeks are pink, And she has eyes? No, not if she had seven. If you should only steal an hour to think, Sometime, there might be less to be forgiven. "No, you are never cruel. If once or twice I found you so, I could applaud and sing. Jealous of -- What? You are not very wise. Does not the good Book tell you anything? "In David's time poor Michal had to go. Jealous of God? Well, if you like it so." The Old King's New Jester You that in vain would front the coming order With eyes that meet forlornly what they must, And only with a furtive recognition See dust where there is dust, -- Be sure you like it always in your faces, Obscuring your best graces, Blinding your speech and sight, Before you seek again your dusty places Where the old wrong seems right. Longer ago than cave-men had their changes Our fathers may have slain a son or two, Discouraging a further dialectic Regarding what was new; And after their unstudied admonition Occasional contrition For their old-fashioned ways May have reduced their doubts, and in addition Softened their final days. Farther away than feet shall ever travel Are the vague towers of our unbuilded State; But there are mightier things than we to lead us, That will not let us wait. And we go on with none to tell us whether Or not we've each a tether Determining how fast or far we go; And it is well, since we must go together, That we are not to know. If the old wrong and all its injured glamour Haunts you by day and gives your night no peace, You may as well, agreeably and serenely, Give the new wrong its lease; For should you nourish a too fervid yearning For what is not returning, The vicious and unfused ingredient May give you qualms -- and one or two concerning The last of your content. Lazarus "No, Mary, there was nothing -- not a word. Nothing, and always nothing. Go again Yourself, and he may listen -- or at least Look up at you, and let you see his eyes. I might as well have been the sound of rain, A wind among the cedars, or a bird; Or nothing. Mary, make him look at you; And even if he should say that we are nothing, To know that you have heard him will be something. And yet he loved us, and it was for love The Master gave him back. Why did He wait So long before He came? Why did He weep? I thought He would be glad -- and Lazarus -- To see us all again as He had left us -- All as it was, all as it was before."