Labor Is Prayer
LABORARE est orare:
We, black-visaged sons of toil,
From the coal-mine and the anvil
And the delving of the soil,--
From the loom, the wharf, the warehouse,
And the ever-whirling mill,
Out of grim and hungry silence
Raise a weak voice small and shrill;--
Laborare est orare:
Man, dost hear us? God, He will.
We, who just can keep from starving
Sickly wives,--not always mild:
Trying not to curse Heaven's bounty
When it sends another child,--
We who, worn-out, doze on Sundays
O'er the Book we strive to read,
Cannot understand the parson
Or the catechism and creed.
Laborare est orare:--
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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My Christian Name
MY Christian name, my Christian name,
I never hear it now:
None have the right to utter it,
'T is lost, I scare know how.
My worldly name the world speaks loud;
Thank God for well-earned fame!
But silence sits at my cold hearth,--
I have no household name.
My Christian name, my Christian name,
It has an uncouth sound;
My mother chose it out of those
In Bible pages found:
Mother, whose accents made half sweet
What else I held in shame,
Dost thou remember up in heaven
My poor lost Christian name?
Brothers and sisters, mockers oft
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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The Garden-Chair
TWO PORTRAITS.
A PLEASANT picture, full of meanings deep,
Old age, calm sitting in the July sun,
On withered hands half-leaning--feeble hands,
That after their life-labors, light or hard,
Their girlish broideries, their marriage-ringed
Domestic duties, their sweet cradle cares,
Have dropped into the quiet-folded ease
Of fourscore years. How peacefully the eyes
Face us! Contented, unregretful eyes,
That carry in them the whole tale of life
With its one moral--'Thus all was--thus best.'
Eyes now so near unto their closing mild
They seem to pierce direct through all that maze,
As eyes immortal do.
Here--Youth. She stands
Under the roses, with elastic foot
Poised to step forward; eager-eyed, yet grave
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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A Rejected Lover
You 'never loved me,' Ada. These slow words
Dropped softly from your gentle woman-tongue
Out of your true and kindly woman-heart,
Fell, piercing into mine like very swords
The sharper for their kindness. Yet no wrong
Lies to your charge, nor cruelty, nor art,--
Ev'n when you spoke, I saw the tender tear-drop start.
You 'never loved me.' No, you never knew,
You, with youth's morning fresh upon your soul,
What 't is to love: slow, drop by drop, to pour
Our life's whole essence, perfumed through and through
With all the best we have or can control
For the libation--cast it down before
Your feet--then lift the goblet, dry for evermore.
I shall not die as foolish lovers do:
A man's heart beats beneath thid breast of mine,
The breast where--Curse on that fiend-whispering
'It might have been!'--Ada, I will be true
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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The Golden Island: Arran From Ayr
DEEP set in distant seas it lies;
The morning vapors float and fall,
The noonday clouds above it rise,
Then drop as white as virgin's pall.
And sometimes, when that shroud uplifts,
The far green fields show strange and fair;
Mute waterfalls in sliver rifts
Sparkle adown the hillside bare.
But ah! mists gather, more and more;
And though the blue sky has no tears,
And the sea laughs with light all o'er,--
The lovely Island disappears.
O vanished Island of the blest!
O dream of all things pure and high!
Hid in deep seas, as faithful breast
Hides loves that have but seemed to die,--
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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A Winter Walk
WE never had believed, I wis,
At primrose time when west winds stole
Like thoughts of youth across the soul,
In such an altered time as this,
When if one little flower did peep
Up through the brown and sullen grass,
We should just look on it, and pass
As if we saw it in our sleep.
Feeling as sure as that this ray
Which cottage children call the sun,
Colors the pale clouds one by one,--
Our touch would make it drop to clay.
We never could have looked, in prime
Of April, or when July trees
Shook full-leaved in the evening bree
Upon the face of this pale time,
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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The Path Through The Snow
BARE and sunshiny, bright and bleak,
Rounded cold as a dead maid's cheek,
Folded white as a sinner's shroud,
Or wandering angel's robes of cloud.--
Well I know, well I know
Over the fields the path through the snow.
Narrow and rough it lies between
Wastes where the wind sweeps, biting keen:
Every step of the slippery road
Marks where some weary foot has trod;
Who'll go, who'll go
After the rest on the path through the snow?
They who would tread it must walk alone,
Silent and steadfast--one by one:
Dearest to dearest can only say,
'My heart! I'll follow thee all the way,
As we go, as we go
Each after each on this path through the snow.'
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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A Fable
SILENT and sunny was the way
Where Youth and I danced on together:
So winding and embowered o'er,
We could not see one rood before.
Nevertheless all merrily
We bounded onward, Youth and I,
Leashed closely in a silken tether:
(Well-a-day, well-a-day!)
Ah Youth, ah Youth, but I would fain
See thy sweet foolish face again!
It came to pass, one morn of May,
All in a swoon of golden weather,
That I through green leaves fluttering
Saw Joy uprise on Psyche wing:
Eagerly, too eagerly
We followed after,--Youth and I,--
Till suddenly he slipped the tether:
(Well-a-day, well-a-day!)
'Where art thou, Youth?' I cried. In vain;
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Until Her Death
I.
UNTIL her death!' the words read strange yet real,
Like things afar off suddenly brought near:--
Will it be slow or speedy, full of fear,
Or calm as a spent day of peace ideal?
II.
Will her brown locks lie white on coffin pillow?
Will these her eyes, that sometime were called sweet,
Close, after years of dried-up tears, or meet
Death's dust in midst of weeping? And that billow,--
III.
Her restless heart,--will it be stopped, still heaving?
Or softly ebb 'neath age's placid breath?
Will it be lonely, this mysterious death,
Fit close unto her solitary living,--
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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A Stream’s Singing
O HOW beautiful is Morning!
How the sunbeams strike the daisies,
And the kingcups fill the meadow
Like a golden-shielded army
Marching to the uplands fair;--
I am going forth to battle,
And life's uplands rise before me,
And my golden shield is ready,
And I pause a moment, timing
My heart's pæan to the waters,
As with cheerful song incessant
Onwards runs the little stream;
Singing ever, onward ever,
Boldly runs the merry stream.
O how glorious is Noon-day!
With the cool large shadows lying
Underneath the giant forest,
The far hill-tops towering dimly
O'er the conquered plains below;--
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poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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