But we, who in the shadow sit, Know also when the day is nigh, Seeing thy shining forehead lit With his inspiring prophecy. Thou hast thine office; we have ours; God lacks not early service here, But what are thine eleventh hours He counts with us for morning cheer; Our day, for Him, is long enough, And when He giveth work to do, The bruised reed is amply tough To pierce the shield of error through. But not the less do thou aspire Light's earlier messages to preach; Keep back no syllable of fire, Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. Yet God deems not thine aëried sight More worthy than our twilight dim, For meek Obedience, too, is Light, And following that is finding Him. THE CAPTIVE. It was past the hour of trysting, Like a child, the eager streamlet Leaped and laughed adown the hill, Happy to be free at twilight From its toiling at the mill. Then the great moon on a sudden, Startling as a new creation, O'er the eastern hill-top stood, Casting deep and deeper shadows Through the mystery of the wood. Dread closed huge and vague about her, Yet he came not, and the stillness Suddenly the silence wavered Like a light mist in the wind, For a voice broke gently through it, Felt like sunshine by the blind, And the dread, like mist in sunshine, "Once my love, my love for ever, If I missed the hour of trysting, I, alas, was made a captive, As from Holy Land I came. "On a green spot in the desert, Gleaming like an emerald star, Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, Yearning for its mate afar, Droops above a silver runnel, Slender as a scymitar, "There thou 'lt find the humble postern To the castle of my foe; If thy love burn clear and faithful, Strike the gateway, green and low, Ask to enter, and the warder Slept again the aspen silence, But her loneliness was o'er; Round her heart a motherly patience Wrapt its arms for evermore; From her soul ebbed back the sorrow, Leaving smooth the golden shore. Donned she now the pilgrim scallop, Took the pilgrim staff in hand; Like a cloud-shade, flitting eastward, Wandered she o'er sea and land; Her soft footsteps in the desert Fell like cool rain on the sand. Soon, beneath the palm-tree's shadow, Fearing much the warder's no; |