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And I would cross the seas, and change my ancient home, my father's name?

In the wild hope, if that might be, to change my own identity!

I know that I was wrong: I know it was not well to be so wild.

But the scorn stung so!... Pity now could wound not! . . . I have seen her child:

It had the selfsame eyes she had; their gazing almost made me mad.

Dark violet eyes whose glances, deep with April-hints of sunny tears,

'Neath long soft lashes laid asleep, seemed all too thoughtful for her years;

As though from mine her gaze had caught the secret of some mournful thought.

But, when she spoke, her father's air broke o'er her . that clear, confident voice!

Some happy souls there are, that wear their nature lightly; these rejoice

The world by living, and receive from all men more than what they give.

One handful of their buoyant chaff exceeds our hoards of careful grain;

Because their love breaks through their laugh, while ours is fraught with tender pain:

The world, that knows itself too sad, is proud to keep some faces glad:

And, so it is! from such an one Misfortune softly steps aside

To let him still walk in the sun. These things must be. I cannot chide.

Had I been she I might have made the selfsame choice. She shunned the shade.

To some men God hath given laughter: but tears to some men he hath given:

He bade us sow in tears, hereafter to harvest holier smiles in heaven:

And tears and smiles, they are his gift: both good, to smite or to uplift.

He knows his sheep: the wind and showers beat not too sharply the shorn lamb:

His wisdom is more wise than ours: he knew my nature, - what I am :

IIe tempers smiles with tears: both good, to bear in time the Christian mood.

O yet,

- in scorn of mean relief, let Sorrow bear her heavenly fruit!

Better the wildest hour of grief than the low pastime of

the brute!

Better to weep, for He wept too, than laugh as

every fool can do!

For sure, 't were best to bear the cross; nor lightly fling the thorns behind;

Lest we grow happy by the loss of what was noblest in

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the mind.

- Here,

in the ruins of my years, - Father, I bless thee through these tears!

It was in the far foreign lands this sickness came upon me first.

Below strange suns, 'mid alien hands this fever of the south was nursed,

Until it reached some vital part. I die not of a broken

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It is not for what fame could give, though that I scorn

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Were noble for its own sake too. I thought that I had

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Against the wild light o'er the fen. How red your little

casement glows!

The night falls fast. How lonely, Dear, this bleak old house will look next year!

So sad a thought?

ah, yes! I know it is not good

to brood on this:

And yet,

- such thoughts will come and go, unbidden. 'Tis that you should miss,

My darling, one familiar tone of this weak voice when I am gone.

And, for what's past, -I will not say in what she did that all was right,

But all's forgiven; and I pray for her heart's welfare, day and night.

All things are changed! This cheek would glow even near hers but faintly now!

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Thou, - God! before whose sleepless eye not even in vain the sparrows fall,

Receive, sustain me! Sanctify my soul. Thou know'st, thou lovest all.

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Saved from the curse of time which throws its baseness on us day by day:

Its wretched joys, and worthless woes; till all the heart is worn away.

I feel thee near. I hold my breath, by the half-open

doors of Death.

And sometimes, glimpses from within of glory (wondrous sight and sound!)

Float near me: faces pure from sin; strange music; saints with splendor crowned:

I seem to feel my native air blow down from some high region there,

And fan my spirit pure: I rise above the sense of loss and pain:

Faint forms that lured my childhood's eyes, long lost, I seem to find again :

I see the end of all: I feel hope, awe, no language can reveal.

Forgive me, Lord, if overmuch I loved that form thou mad'st so fair;

I know that thou didst make her such; and fair but as the flowers were,

Thy work her beauty was but thine; the human less than the divine.

My life hath been one search for thee 'mid thorns found red with thy dear blood :

In many a dark Gethsemane I seemed to stand where thou hadst stood:

And, scorned in this world's judgment-place, at times, through tears, to catch thy face.

Thou sufferedest here, and didst not fail: thy bleeding feet these paths have trod:

But thou wert strong, and I am frail: and I am man, and thou wert God.

Be near me keep me in thy sight: or lay my soul asleep

in light.

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