blinding sleet?
Honor and Truth, though buried to their chins,
Look up and smile; for, though the storms still beat,
The poets show 'tis Spring, not Winter, wins.

THE SOUL'S ASCENSION

Not mine the night that creeps beneath Life's sea,
Or lurks within Hope's ruins, sunk below
The desert, or the stagnant pool--oh, no!
But night that mounts the heavens, till it is free
Where stars, prefiguring all things that be
Obscure on earth, catch sight of God and glow,
And golden shadows large and larger grow,
Cast by Gift-bearers to Humanity.

Oh, once the cold of all the unsunn'd space
Was in my reptile life of soul, wing-bound;
But now, soul-free, what warmth from stars all round!
'Tis not by strength of mine, Lord, but thy grace,
My soul soars from the depths of sea, or ground,
Till, at star-heights, it meets Thee, face to face!

LYRIC TRANSPORT

What but the spirit's ladder to God's throne
Is beauty? Oh, from rung to rung to climb,
Till faint becomes the azure's anthem chime
Of planets, multitudinous, or lone,
And Inspiration, drunk with fragrance, blown
From God's rare, inmost garden, wall'd from Time,
Sets free the Sonnet with is wings of rhyme
To carry down the transport, upward known!

Mine is no swaying ladder, like he sea's,
Whose rounds of rollers, raised above Sun-rise,
Lean not on Heaven, hence shattered lie at noon;
For 'tis set firmly on the verities,
Which form God's throne. Ah, there, what joy, my prize!
Would that I had a dove for every boon!

THE SUNRISE

The Sun is God's great joy to Human sight.
Oh, up and off in chariots, Sea! and ride,
All generations, up, till mountain-eyed,
To welcome earth-ward, God's Supreme delight.
Imagination swirls in swallow flight,
Giddy with Beauty, deepening--Oh, how glide
From star to star, to the haloes, season-dyed
And countless! Its wings shrivel up like night.

Oh, yea, the Sun in one subliming rise
From Wisdom's infinite mind! This Reason knows.
It has no set. There, Sense, with weals or woes
For beads, or fingers, count our shuts of eyes,
Excluding Knowledge. What! God's joy to close
And all its goodness break and drift cloud-wise?

TWO DARKNESSES

There are two darknesses; one where the Lord
Hides beauty--that by which men know His