"Or, baby, wilt thou think it fitter To be eloquent and wise, One upon whose lips the air Turns to solemn verities For men to breathe anew, and win A deeper-seated life within? Wilt be a philosopher, By whose voice the earth and skies Shall speak to the unborn? Or a poet, broadly spreading The golden immortalities Of thy soul on natures lorn And poor of such, them all to guard From their decay,--beneath thy treading, Earth's flowers recovering hues of Eden,-- And stars, drawn downward by thy looks, To shine ascendant in thy books?"
The tame hawk in the castle-yard, How it screams to the lightning, with its wet Jagged plumes overhanging the parapet! And at the lady's door the hound Scratches with a crying sound.
"But, O my babe, thy lids are laid Close, fast upon thy cheek, And not a dream of power and sheen Can make a passage up between; Thy heart is of thy mother's made, Thy looks are very meek, And it will be their chosen place To rest on some beloved face, As these on thine, and let the noise Of the whole world go on nor drown The tender silence of thy joys: Or when that silence shall have grown Too tender for itself, the same Yearning for sound,--to look above And utter its one meaning, LOVE, That _He_ may hear His name."
No wind, no rain, no thunder! The waters had trickled not slowly, The thunder was not spent Nor the wind near finishing; Who would have said that the storm was diminishing? No wind, no rain, no thunder! Their noises dropped asunder From the earth and the firmament, From the towers and the lattices, Abrupt and echoless As ripe fruits on the ground unshaken wholly As life in death. And sudden and solemn the silence fell, Startling the heart of Isobel As the tempest could not: Against the door went panting the breath Of the lady's hound whose cry was still, And she, constrained howe'er she would not, Lifted her eyes and saw the moon Looking out of heaven alone Upon the poplared hill,-- A calm of God, made visible That men might bless it at their will.
The moonshine on the baby's face Falleth clear and cold: The mother's looks have fallen back To the same place: Because no moon with silver rack, Nor broad sunrise in jasper skies Has power to hold Our loving eyes, Which still revert, as ever must Wonder and Hope, to gaze on the dust.