All vain the roses' rapturous breath;
A chill blast, as from wintry wing,
Smites on my heart, and, shuddering,
I see the beauty changed to death.

Afar I see it loom and rise,
That pitiless and icy shape.
It blots the blue, it dims the skies;
Amid the summer land it cries,
"I come, and there is no escape!"

O, bitter drop in bloom and sweet!
O, canker on the smiling day!
Have we but climbed the hill to meet
Thy fronting fare, thy eyes of sleet?
To hate, yet dare not turn away?

II.

I sit beneath a leaden sky,
Amid the piled and drifted snow;
My feet are on the graves where lie
The roses which made haste to die
So long, so very long ago.

The sobbing wind is fierce and strong,
Its cry is like a human wail,
But in my heart it sings this song:
"Not long, O Lord! O Lord, not long!
Surely thy spring-time shall prevail."

Out of the darkness and the cold,
Out of the wintry depths I lean,
And lovingly I clasp and hold
The promises, and see unrolled
A vision of the summer green.

O, life in death, sweet plucked from pain!
O, distant vision fair to see!
Up the long hill we press and strain;
We can bear all things and attain,
If once our faces turn to Thee!

IN THE MIST.

Sitting all day in a silver mist,
In silver silence all the day,
Save for the low, soft kiss of spray,
And the lisp of sands by waters kissed,
As the tide draws up the bay.

Little I hear and nothing I see,
Wrapped in that veil by fairies spun;
The solid earth is vanished for me,
And the shining hours speed noiselessly,
A web of shadow and sun.

Suddenly out of the shifting veil
A magical bark, by the sunbeams lit,
Flits like a dream,--or seems to flit,--
With a golden prow and a gossamer sail,
And the waves make room for it.

A fair, swift bark from some radiant realm,
Its diamond cordage cuts the sky
In glittering lines; all silently
A seeming spirit holds the helm
And steers: will he pass me by?

Ah, not for me is the vessel here!
Noiseless and fast as a sea-bird's, flight,
She swerves and vanishes from my sight;
No flap of sail, no parting cheer,--
She has passed into the light.

Sitting some day in a deeper mist,
Silent, alone, some other day,
An unknown bark from an unknown bay,
By unknown waters lapped and kissed,
Shall n