Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,

With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,

The army of the dead.
White as the sea-fog, landward bound,

The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,

The river flowed between.

No other voice nor sound was there,

No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air,

As clouds with clouds embrace.
But when the old cathedral bell

Proclaimed the morning prayer, The white pavilions rose and fell

On the alarmèd air.

Down the broad valley fast and far

The troubled army fled;
Up rose the glorious morning star,

The ghastly host was dead.
I have read, in the marvelous heart of man,

That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of Phantoms vast and wan

Beleaguer the human soul.
Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,

In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam

Portentous through the night.
Upon its midnight battle-ground

The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,

Flows the River of Life between.
No other voice nor sound is there,

In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,

But the rushing of Life's wave.

And when the solemn and deep church-bell

Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,

The shadows sweep away.

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar

The spectral camp is fled;
Faith shineth as a morning star,
Our ghastly fears are dead.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882]

A DOUBTING HEART

WHERE are the swallows filed?

Frozen and dead
Perchance upon some bleak and stormy shore.

O doubting heart!
Far over purple seas
They wait, in sunny ease,

The balmy southern breeze,
To bring them to their northern homes once more.

Why must the flowers die?

Prisoned they lie
In the cold tomb, heedless of tears or rain.

O doubting heart!
They only sleep below
The soft white ermine snow

While winter winds shall blow,
To breathe and smile upon you soon again.

The sun has hid its rays

These many days;
Will dreary hours never leave the earth?

O doubting heart!
The stormy clouds on high
Veil the same sunny sky

That soon (for spring is nigh),
Shall wake the summer into golden mirth.

Fair hope is dead, and light

Is quenched in night.
What sound can break the silence of despair?

O doubting heart!
The sky is overcast,
Yet stars shall rise at last,

Brighter for darkness past,
And angels' silver voices stir the air.

Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-1864)

VAIN VIRTUES
From “The House of Life"

WHAT is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?

None of the sins, but this and that fair deed

Which a soul's sin at length could supersede. These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel

Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves

Of anguish, while the pit's pollution leaves
Their refuse maidenhood abominable.
Night sucks them down, the tribute of the pit,
Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,

Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair And

eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit To gaze, but, yearning, waits his destined wife, The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882]

EVOLUTION

Out of the dusk a shadow,

Then, a spark;
Out of the cloud a silence,

Then, a lark;
Out of the heart a rapture,

Then, a pain;
Out of the dead, cold ashes,
Life again.

John Banister Tabb (1845-1909) EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE

A FIRE-MIST and a planet,

A crystal and a cell,
A jellyfish and a saurian,

And caves where the cave-men dwell; Then a sense of law and beauty,

And a face turned from the clod, Some call it Evolution,

And others call it God.

A haze on the far horizon,

The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,

And the wild geese sailing high, -
And all over upland and lowland

The charm of the goldenrod, Some of us call it Autumn,

And others call it God.

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,

When the moon is new and thin, Intɔ our hearts high yearnings

Come welling and surging in, Come from the mystic ocean,

Whose rim no foot has trod, Some of us call it Longing,

And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty,

A mother starved for her brood, Socrates drinking the hemlock,

And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,

The straight, hard pathway plod, -
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.

William Herbert Carruth (1859– INDIRECTION

FAIR are the flowers and the children, but their subtle sug

gestion is fairer; Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it

is rarer; Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it

is sweeter; And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmastered

the meter

Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the grow

ing; Never a river that flows, but a majesty scepters the flowing; Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he

did enfold him, Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath fore

told him.

Back of the canvas that throbs the painter is hinted and

hidden; Into the statue that breathes the soul of the sculptor is bid

den; Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of feeling; Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns the

revealing.

Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled

is greater; Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward creator; Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands

the giving; Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of

receiving.

Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the do

ing; The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the

wooing;