mild,
How I shall love you, sweet hands of my child,
Whose task shall be to close our eyes one day!

"SON, THOU MUST LOVE ME! SEE--" MY SAVIOUR SAID

"Son, thou must love me! See--" my Saviour said,
"My heart that glows and bleeds, my wounded side,
My hurt feet that the Magdalene, wet-eyed,
Clasps kneeling, and my tortured arms outspread

"To bear thy sins. Look on the cross, stained red!
The nails, the sponge, that, all, thy soul shall guide
To love on earth where flesh thrones in its pride,
My Body and Blood alone, thy Wine and Bread.

"Have I not loved thee even unto death,
O brother mine, son in the Holy Ghost?
Have I not suffered, as was writ I must,

"And with thine agony sobbed out my breath?
Hath not thy nightly sweat bedewed my brow,
O lamentable friend that seek'st me now?"

[Illustration: "Mon Dieu M'a Dit."]

HOPE SHINES--AS IN A STABLE A WISP OF STRAW

Hope shines--as in a stable a wisp of straw.
Fear not the wasp drunk with his crazy flight!
Through some chink always, see, the moted light!
Propped on your hand, you dozed--But let me draw

Cool water from the well for you, at least,
Poor soul! There, drink! Then sleep. See, I remain,
And I will sing a slumberous refrain,
And you shall murmur like a child appeased.

Noon strikes. Approach not, Madam, pray, or call....
He sleeps. Strange how a woman's light footfall
Re-echoes through the brains of grief-worn men!

Noon strikes. I bade them sprinkle in the room.
Sleep on! Hope shines--a pebble in the gloom.
--When shall the Autumn rose re-blossom,--when?

SLEEP, DARKSOME, DEEP

Sleep, darksome, deep,
Doth on me fall:
Vain hopes all, sleep,
Sleep, yearnings all!

Lo, I grow blind!
Lo, right and wrong
Fade to my mind....
O sorry song!

A cradle, I,
Rocked in a grave:
Speak low, pass by,
Silence I crave!

[Illustration: Le Ciel et Les Toits.]

THE SKY-BLUE SMILES ABOVE THE ROOF

The sky-blue smiles above the roof
Its tenderest;
A green tree rears above the roof
Its waving crest.

The church-bell in the windless sky
Peaceably rings,
A skylark soaring in the sky
Endlessly sings.

My God, my God, a