wondrous things thou, wonder, showest,
Yet dost not any mark.

For all the world is woven by thee,
Besides this fleshly dress;
With earth and sky thou clothest me,
Form, distance, loftiness;
A globe of glory spouting free
Around the visionless.

For when thy busy efforts fail,
And thy shuttle moveless lies,
They will fall from me, like a veil
From before a lady's eyes;
As a night-perused, just-finished tale
In the new daylight dies.

But not alone dost thou unroll
The mountains, fields, and seas,
A mighty, wonder-painted scroll,
Like the Patmos mysteries;
Thou mediator 'twixt my soul
And higher things than these.

In holy ephod clothing me
Thou makest me a seer;
In all the lovely things I see,
The inner truths appear;
And the deaf spirit without thee
No spirit-word could hear.

Yet though so high thy mission is,
And thought to spirit brings,
Thy web is but the chrysalis,
Where lie the future wings,
Now growing into perfectness
By thy inwoven things.

Then thou, God's pulse, wilt cease to beat;
But His heart will still beat on,
Weaving another garment meet,
If needful for his son;
And sights more glorious, to complete
The web thou hast begun.

O DO NOT LEAVE ME.

O do not leave me, mother, till I sleep;
Be near me until I forget; sit there.
And the child having prayed lest she should weep,
Sleeps in the strength of prayer.

O do not leave me, lover, brother, friends,
Till I am dead, and resting in my place.
And the girl, having prayed, in silence bends
Down to the earth's embrace.

Leave me not, God, until--nay, until when?
Not till I have with thee one heart, one mind;
Not till the Life is Light in me, and then
Leaving is left behind.

THE HOLY SNOWDROPS.

Of old, with goodwill from the skies,
The holy angels came;
They walked the earth with human eyes,
And passed away in flame.

But now the angels are withdrawn,
Because the flowers can speak;
With Christ, we see the dayspring dawn
In every snowdrop meek.

God sends them forth; to God they tend;
Not less with love they burn,
That to the earth they lowly bend,
And unto dust return.

No miracle in them hath place,
For this world is their home;
An utterance of essential grace
The angel-snowdrops come.

TO MY SISTER.

O sister, God is very good--
Thou art a woman now:
O sister, be thy womanhood
A baptism on thy brow!

For what?--Do ancient