Chapters 64
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1 01 - Proem 0:47
Proem. Dear, is the distance vast? I cross it here. The chasm fathomless, I span it thus. The silence dread, I break it. What is fear, when only our own hearts can sever us? The golden frankincense I should have given. Envy the myrrh I lay within your hand. Dearer to me than fame of earth or heaven it is to know that you will understand.
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2 02 - Afterward 1:43
Afterward.
There is no vacant chair. The loving meet, a group unbroken, smitten, who knows how. One sitters silent only in his usual seat. We gave him once that freedom. Why not now? Perhaps he is too weary and needs rest. He needed it too often. Nor could we bestow. God gave it, knowing how to do so best. Which of us would disturb him? Let him be. There is no vacant chair. If he will take the mood to listen mutely, be it done. By his least mood we crossed, for which the heart must ache, plead not nor question. Let him have this one. Death is a mood of life. It is no whim by which life's giver mocks a broken heart. Death is life's reticence. Still audible to him, the hushed voice, happy, speaketh on apart.
There is no vacant chair. To love is still to have. Nearer to memory than to eye, and dearer yet to anguish than to comfort, will we hold him by our love that shall not die. For while it doth not, thus he cannot. Try, who can put out the motion or the smile? The old ways of being noble, all with him laid by. Because we love, he is, then trust a while.
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3 03 - Released 0:53
Released. O joy of the dying, at last thou art mine, And leaping to meet thee, impatient to greet thee, A rapid and rapturous, sensitive, fine gaiety Steals through my pulses to-day, daring and doubting, Like pleasure forbidden, O winter, looking at may. O sorrow of living, make way for the thrill of the soul that is starting, onlooking, departing across the threshold of clay. Bend, bow to the will of the soul that is up and away.
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4 04 - The Room's Width 0:52
The Room's Width by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. The Room's Width. I think if I should cross the room, Far as fear, should stand beside you like a thought, Touch you, dear. Like a fancy, to your sad heart it would seem That my vision passed and prayed you, or my dream. Then you would look with lonely eyes, lift your head, And you would stir and sigh and say, She is dead. Baffled by death and love, I lean through the gloom. O Lord of life, am I forbid to cross the room?
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5 05 - The First Christmas Apart 2:17
The First Christmas Apart The shadows watch about the house, silent as they I come. Oh, it is true that life is deaf, and not that deaf is dumb. The Christmas thrill is on the earth. The stars throb in the sky. Love listens in a thousand homes. The Christmas bells ring by. I cross the old familiar door, and take the dear old chair. You look with desolate eyes upon me sitting there. You gaze and see not through the tears. In gazing, burn and start. Believe the living are the blind, and not the dead depart. A year ago some words we said, kept sacred twist us twain. T is you, poor love, who answer not, the while I speak again. I lean above you as before, faithful my arms enfold. Oh, could you know that life is numb?
Nor think that death is cold. Senses of earth, how weak ye are! Joys, joys of heaven, how strong! Loves of the earth, how short and sad! Of heaven, how glad and long! Heart of my heart, if earth or heaven, Had speech or language fine, Enough or death or life could give Me symbol, sound, or sign. To reach you, thought, or touch, or I, body or soul, I die. Again to make you understand, my darling, this is I.
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6 06 - The Angel Joy 2:17
The Angel Joy by Elizabeth Stewart Phelps by Larry Johnson City, Tennessee. Oh, was it a death dream, not dream, though, that I'd her like a foe, or only a sorrow left over from life, half-finished years ago? How long was it since she died? Who told? Or yet, what was death? Who knew? She said, I am come to heaven at last, and I'll do as the blessed do. But the custom of earth was stronger than heaven, and the habit of life than death. How should an anguish as old as thought be healed by the end of breath?
and pulse of her soul had absorbed the disease of woe. The strangest of all angels there was joy. Oh, the wretch, no! I am too tired with earth, she said, to rest me in paradise. Give me a spot to creep away and close my heavy eyes. I must learn to be happy in heaven, she said, as we Learned to suffer below. Our ways are not your ways, he said, and our ways the ways you go. As love to wise for a word puts by all a woman's weak alarms, Joy hushed her lips and gathered her into his mighty arms. He took her to his holy heart, the angel Joy, And there, for he held her fast, the saddest spirit in the world came to herself at last.
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7 07 - Absent! 2:58
Absent. Absent. Absent. You do not lift your eyes to watch. You pass the conscience door. Your startled ear perceiveth not our footfall on the floor. No eager word your lips betray. To greet us When we stand, we thong to meet you, but you hold to us no beckoning hand. Faint as the years in which we breathed, far as the death we died, dim as the faded battle smoke, we wander at your side. Cold as the cause outlived or lost, vague as the legends told. At twilight of a mystic band, circling in age of gold. Unseen, unheard, unfelt, and yet, beneath the army blue, our heart-beats sounded real enough when we were boys like you. We turned us from your fabled lore with ancient passion rife. No myth our solemn laying down Of love and hope and life.
No myth the clasped and severed hands. No dream the last replies. Upon the desolated home to-day the sunlight lies.
Take sons of peace your heritage. Our loss your legacy. Our action be your fables fair. Our facts your poetry. O ye who fall on calmer times, the perils of the calm, are yours the swell, the sloth, the sleep, the carelessness of harm. The keel that rides the gale to strike, where the warm waves are still, ours were the surf, the stir, the shock, the tempest and the thrill. Comrades, be yours that vigor old, be yours the elected power that fits a man like rocked tide to his appointed hour. Yours to become all that we were and all we might have been. Yours the fine eye that separates the unseen from the seen.
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8 08 - The Unseen Comrades 2:10
The Unseen Comrades Last night I saw an armed band Whose feet did take the martial step, although they trod, Soundless as waves of light upon the air, Silent From silent lips the bugle fell. The wind was wild, but the great flag they bore, hung motionless and glittered like a god above their awful faces while they marched. And when I saw, I understood and said, If these are they whom we did love and give, why seek they? But one sternly answered me, We seek our comrades, whom we left to thee. The weak who were thy strength, the poor who had, thy pride the faint, the few who gave to thee, one supreme hour from out of the day of life. One deed majestic to their century. These were thy trust, how fair they at thy hands.
Thy saviors then, and they thy heroes now, are comrades still we keep the step with them. Behold, as though unto the least of them shalt do So doest thou unto us. Amen.
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9 09 - Stronger than Death 7:04
Stronger Than Death by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Stronger Than Death. Who shall tell the story as it was? Write it with the heart's blood, pale ink, alas! Speak it with the soul's lips, or be dumb. Tell me, singers fled, and song to come. No answer. Like a shell the silence curls, and far within it leans a whisper out. Breathless and inarticulate, and whirls and dies as dies an ailing dread or doubt. And I, since there is found none else than I, no stronger, sweeter voice than mine, to tell this tale of love that cannot stoop to die, were fain to be the whisper in the shell, were fain to lose and spend myself within the sacred silence of one mighty heart, and leaning from it Hidden there to win some finer ear that, listening, bends apart.
Fly for your lives! The entrail of the earth trembled, resounding to the cry, that, like a chasing ghost around the mine, crept ghastly. The pit's on fire. Fly! The shaft, a poisoned throat whose breath was death, like hell itself grown sick of sin, hurled up the man, haggard and terrible, leaping upon us through the din. That all our voices made, and back we shrank from them as from the starting dead, recoiling, shrieked, but knew not why we shrieked, and cried, but knew not what we said. And still that awful mouth did toss them up. The last is safe, the last is sound. We sobbed to see them where they sunk and crawled, like beaten hounds upon the ground. Some sat with lolling idiot head and laughed.
One reached to clutch the air away, his gasping lips refused, some cursed, and one knelt down, but he was old, to pray. We huddled there together all that night, women and men from the wild town. I heard a shrill voice cry, We all are up, but some, ye have forgot, are down. Who is forgot? We stared from face to face, but answering through the dark she said, It was a woman. Eh, ye need not fret, none is forgot except the dead. The buried dead asleep there in the works, eh, Lord, it must be hot below. Ye'll keep em waking all the livelong night to set the mine a-burning so. And all the night the mine did burn and burst, as if the earth were but a shell through which a child had thrust a finger-touch, and peal on dreadful peal the bell, the miner's larum Wrench the quaking air, and through the flaring light we saw the solid forehead of the eternal hill take on a human look of awe.
As if it were a living thing that spoke and flung some protest to the sky, as if it were a dying thing that saw, but could not tell, a mystery. The bells ran ringing by us all that night, the bells ceased jangling with the morn. About the blackened works Sunk, tossed, and rend, we gathered in the foreign dawn. Women and men, with eyes askance and strange, Fearing we knew not what to see, Against the hollow jaws of the torn hill, Why creep the miners silently? From man to man a whisper chills. See, see the sunken shaft of thirty-one. The earth, a traitor to her trust, has fled, And turned the dead unto the sun. And here, O God of life and death, thy work, thine only this, with foreheads bare we knelt and drew him, young and beautiful, thirty years dead, into the air.
Thus had he perished, buried from the day, by the swift poison caught and slain, by the kind poison unmarred, rendered fair, back to the upper earth again. The warm and breathing earth that knew him not, and men and women wept to see, For kindred had he none among us all, how lonely even the dead may be. We wept, I say, we wept who knew him not, but sharp a tearless woman sprang from out the crowd, that quavering voice I knew, and terrible her cry outrang. "'I pass, I pass, ye all, make way, stand back. Mine is the place ye yield,' she said. He was my lover once, my own, my own.' Oh, he was mine, and he is dead. Women and men, we gave her royal way, proud as young joy the smile she had. We knew her for a neighbor in the town, unmated, solitary, sad.
Youth, hope, and love, we gave her silent way, calm as a sigh she swept us all. Then swiftly, as a word leans to a thought, we saw her lean to him and fall upon the happy body of the dead. An aged woman, poor and grey, bright as the day, immortal as young love, and glorious as life he lay. Her shrunken hands caressed his rounded cheek, her white locks on his golden hair fell sadly. "'O love!' she cried with shrivelled lips, "'O love, my love, my own, my fair! See, I am old, and all my heart is grey. They say the dead are aye-forgot. There, there, my sweet, I whisper, leaning low, That all these women hear it not. Deep in the darkness there, didst think on me? High in the heavens, have you been true?
Since I was young, and since you called me fair, I never loved a man but you. And here, my boy, you lie so safe, so still. But there she hushed, and in the dim, cool morning, timid as a bride, But calm as a glad mother gathered him unto her heart, and all the people then, women and men and children too, crept back and back and back and on, still as the morning shadows do, and left them in the lifting dawn. They too, on her sad breast, his shining head stirred softly, as were he the living one, and she had been the moveless dead. And yet we crept on, back, And back and on, The distance widened like the sky Between our little restlessness And love so godlike that it could not die.
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10 10 - Vittoria 3:00
Vittoria, by Elizabeth Stewart Phelps. Read for Liverbox.
By Larry, Johnson City, Tennessee. Vittoria. Wise was the word the wise man spake who said, Angelo was the only man to whom God gave four souls, the soul of sculpture, Of song, of architecture, and of art, these all. For so God loved him, as if he were his only child, and grouped about those brows, ideals of himself, not angels mild as those that flit and beckon other lives, but cherubim and seraphim, tall, Strong, unsleeping, terrible, with wings across, their mighty feet and eyes, if we would look. Upon their blazing eyes, these too are hid. Some angels are all wings. O shine and fly! Were ye not angels? Ye would strike us blind, and yet they did not. Could not dazzle her, that one sweet woman, to whom he bent.
As pliant as the quarrelled marble turned, to life immortal in his own great hand. Steadfast, Victoria, looked on Angelo. She lifted lonely eyes, the years trod slow, fourfold the reverence, which he gave to her. Fourfold the awful tenderness, fourfold the loyalty, the trust, and, oh, fourfold the comfort, beyond all power of comforting, whereby a lesser man may heal the hurt of widowhood. Pescara had one soul, a little one, and it was stained, and he, it too, Perhaps, God knows, was dead. The dead are gods. Vittoria had one heart. The woman gave it, and the woman gives. Once. Angelo was too late, and one who dared to shed a tear for him has dropped it here.
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11 11 - New Neighbors 2:18
New Neighbors New Neighbors Within the window's scant recess Behind a pink geranium flower She sits and sews And sews and sits From the patient hour to patient hour As womanlike as marble is Or, as a lovely death might be, a marble death condemned to make a feint at life perpetually. Wondering, I watch to pity her. Wandering, I go my restless ways. Content, I think, the untamed thoughts of free and solitary days. Until the mournful dusk begins to drop upon the quiet street. Until upon the pavement far, there far's the sound of coming feet.
A happy hastening, ardent sound, tender as kisses on the air, quick as if touched by unseen lips, blushes the little statue there.
And woman-like as young life is, And womanlike as joy may be. Tender with color, lithe with love, she starts transfigured gloriously. Superb in one transcender glance, her eyes I see are burning black. My little neighbor smiling turns and throws my unasked pity back. I wonder, is it worth the while? To sit and sew from hour to hour, to sit and sew with eyes of black behind a pink geranium flower.
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12 12 - By the Hearth 1:39
By the Hearth You come too late, tis far on in November. The wind strikes bleak upon the cheek That careth rather to keep warm, and where's the harm, Than to abate one jot of its calm color for your sake. Watch, see, I stir the amber upon my lonely hearth, And bid the fire wake. And think you that it will? Tis burned, I say, to ashes. It smoulders cold as graveyard mould. I wish, indeed, you would not blow upon it so, the dead to kill. I say the ghosts of fires will never stir, nor woman lift the lashes of eyes wept dim, however yours shine for love of her. Ah, sweet surprise! Did not think such shining upon the gloom of this cold room could fall. Your even, strong, calm breath calls life from death.
The warm light lies at your triumphant feet, faint with desire to reach you. See the lining of violet and of silver in that sheath of fire. If you would care, although it is November, I will not say a bitter nay to such a gift for building fires, and though it tires me to think of it, I'll own to you, if you can stir the amber. It may be found at last, just warm enough for two.
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13 13 - Told in Confidence 0:51
Told in Confidence Vow you'll never, never tell him, Freezing stars now glittering farthest, Fairest on the winter sky, If he woo me, not your coldest cruel ray, Or can or may be found more chill and still to him than I. Swear you'll never, never tell him. Warm red roses, lifting your shy faces to the summer dew. If he win me, blush your sweetest in his sight for his delight. But I can be as warm and sweet as you.
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14 14 - What the Violins Said 1:54
What the Violins Said by Elizabeth Stewart Phelps. Read for livervox.org. By Larry, Johnson City, Tennessee. What the Violins Said. Song. We're all for love. The Violins Said. Sidney Lanier. Do I love you, do I love you, ask the heavens that bend above you to find language And to prove you, if they love the living Son, Ask the burning blinding meadows if they love the falling shadows, if they hold the happy shadows when the vervid day is done. Ask the bluebells and the daisies lost amid the hot field mazes, lifting their thirsty faces if they love the summer rains. Ask the linets, ask the plovers, in the nest-life made for lovers. Ask the bees and ask the clovers, will they tell you for your pains?
Do I, darling, do I love you? What, I pray, can that behoove you? How, in love's name, can I move you? When, for love's sake, I am dumb. If I told you, if I told you, would that keep you, would that hold you? Here at last, where I enfold you, if it would, hush, darling, come.
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15 15 - Won 1:11
I.
Oh, when I would have loved you, dear, The sun of winter hung more near, Yet not so sweet, so sweet, so sweet, The wild rose redding at my feet. Your lips had learned a golden word. You sang a song that all men heard. Oh, love is fleet. The stain is long. Who stays the singer from her song? Across my path, the red leaves whirled. Dare I to kneel with all the world? How came I then to clasp you, sweet? To find a woman at my feet.
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16 16 - Spent 1:31
Spent by Elizabeth Stewart Phelps. Read for Leverbox.org by Larry, Johnson City, Tennessee. Spent. Heart of Iron. Smile of Ice. Oh, the rock! See him stand as dumb as death? If you could, would you care to stir or shock him? Think you, by A blow or breath from his mood?
Arms of velvet, lips of love. Oh, the wave! See her creeping to his feet, trustfully. None shall know the sign he gave. Death since then were all too sweet. Let her die. Lift thine eyes upon the sea. Soul of stone. Rather, wouldst thou breathe or move? I would be. A warm wave, faithfully wasted throne, spent and rent, and dead with love. Then be thee.
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17 17 - Parted 1:05
Parted.
Oh, never a word he answered, and never a word spake she. They turned their faces each from each, and looked upon the sea. The hands that cannot clasp for life must quickly severed be, The love that is not large enough to live eternally, In true love's name, for fair love's fame, Must die before its bloom, for it, in all God's earth or heaven, there is no garden room. Though all the wine of life be lost, try well the red grape's hue, holy the soul that cannot taste the false love for the true. And blessed, aye, the fainting heart, for such a thirst shall be, yet never a word they spoke and looked upon the bitter sea.
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18 18 - An April Gust 1:02
An April Gust It shall be as it hath been, All the world is glad and green. Hush, ah, hush, there cannot be April now for you and me. Put your finger on the lips of your soul. The wild rain drips, the wind goes diving down the sea. Tell the wind. But tell not me. Yet if I had ought to tell, high as heaven or deep as hell, bend the fates awry, O fit, I would find a word for it. O words that neither sea nor land Can lift their ears to understand Wild words, as dumb as death or fear, I dare to die, but not to hear.
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19 19 - The Answer 2:23
The Answer by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Read for Libobox.org. That we together may sail, just as we used to do. Carton's Ballads.
And what if I should be kind, and what if you should be true? The old love could never go on, just as it used to do. The wan white hands of the waves that smote us swift apart will never enclasp again and draw us heart to heart. The cold far feet of the tides that trod between us two can never retrace their steps and fall where they used to do. Oh well, the ships must remember that go down to the awful sea. No kale that chisels the current, can cut where it used to be. Not a throb of the gloom or the glory that stirs in the sun or the rain, will ever be that gloom or glory that dazzle or darkeneth again. Not a wave that stretches its arms and yearns to the breast of the shore. Is ever the wave that came trusting, and yearning, and loving before.
The hope that is high as the heavens, the joy that is keen as pain, the faith that is free as the morning, can die, but can live not again. And though I should step beside you, and hand should reach unto hand, we should walk Mutely stifled, ghosts in a breathless land. And what if I should be kind, and though you should be true, the old love could never, never, love on as it used to do.
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20 20 - Thorns 0:52
Thorns.
As we pass by the roses, Into your finger-tip bruise you the thorn. Quick at the prick you start, Crying, Alas, the smart! Farewell, my pleasant friend, wisely our way we went, Out of the reach of roses. O we pass by the roses, Where does the red drop drip? Where is the thorn? What though tis hid and pressed, piercing into my breast? Scathlers I stretch my hand, strong as their roots I stand, and there to trust the roses.
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21 21 - The Indian Girl 1:24
The Indian Girl, a picture by Walter She standeth silent as a thought, too scared to be uttered, All her face unfurling like a flower, That at a breath too near will shut. Her life a little golden clock, whose shining hands arrested stay forever at the hour of love. She doubts, she dares, she dreams. Of what? I ask, she, shrinking, answers not. She swims before me, dim a cup, of waste, untasted tenderness. I drink, I dread. Until I seem myself unto myself to be, He whom she choose and charmed in mist On some faint Asiatic day of languorous summer ages since.
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22 22 - Sealed 0:51
Sealed.
Sealed. Shall I pour you wine, she said, The wine that is rare and red? Sweeter the cup for the drop, But why do you shrink and stop? The seal of the wine has a sacred sign. "'I'm afraid,' she said. "'I love you and revere. You more for your fear than I do for your wine,' he said."
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23 23 - Guinevere 5:09
of Guinevere from Arthur separate, and separate from Lancelot and the world, and shielded in the convent with her sin, as one draws fast a veil upon a face that's marred but only holds the scar more close against the burning brain. I read today. This legend and if other yet than I have read or said, how know I? For the text was written in the story we have learned, between the ashen lines, invisible, in hieroglyphs that blazed and leaped like light, unto the eyes. A thousand turn the page and understand, and think we know the record of a life, when, lo, If we will open once again, the awful volume, hid, mysterious, intent, there lies the unseen alphabet, re-reads the tale from breath to death, and spells a living language that we never knew.
This that I read was one short song of hers, a fragment, I interpret, or a lost, faint prelude to another, missing two. She sang it. Says the text, one summer night, after the vespers, when the abbess passed, and blessed her when the nuns were gone, and when she, kneeling in her drowsy cell, had said her prayers, poor soul, her sorrowful prayers, in which she had besought the Lord for his dear sake, and love and pity of his only son, to wash her of her stain, and make her fit on summer nights. Behind the convent bars and on stone floors, with bruised lips, to pray away all vision but repentance from her soul. When kneeling as she was, her limbs refused to bear her, and she fell afeint from weariness and striving to become a holy woman, all her splendid length, upon the ground, and grovelled there, aghast, That buried nature was not dead in her.
But lived a rebel through her fair fierce youth, aghast to find that clasped hands would clench, aghast to feel that praying lips refused, like saints to murmur on, but shrank and quivered dumb. "'Alas! I cannot pray,' cried Guinevere. "'I cannot pray. I will not lie. God is an honest God, and I will be an honest sinner to His face. Will it be wicked if I sing? Oh, let me sing a little, of I know not what. Let me just sing, I know not why. For lips grow stiff with praying all the night. Let me believe that I am happy too, a blessed, blessed woman. Who is fit to sing because she did not sin, or else that God forgot it for a little while, and does not mind me very much. Dear Lord, said Guinevere, wilt thou not listen while I sing, as well as while I pray?
I shall feel safer so, for I have not to say God should not hear. The song comes as the prayer doth come. Thou listenest, I sing. Purple the night, and high were the skies, and higher the eyes that leaned like the stars of my soul to me. Whom loveth the queen, him who hath right to crown her? Who but the king is he? Sultry the day, and gold was the hair, and golden, the mist that blinded my soul away from me, dethroned for a dream. For a gleam, for a glance, for a color, how could the crowned be? Life goeth by like a deed, nor returneth forever. Death cometh on, fleet-footed as pity should be. Hush! When she waketh at last, and looketh about her, whom will a woman see? Thus in her cell, deep in the summer night sang Guinevere, a little broken.
Blind, sweet melody, and then she kneeled upon the convent floor, and peaceful, finished all her prayer and slept, for she had not to say God might not hear.
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24 24 - Sung to a Friend 1:29
Sung to a Friend by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. The tide is rising, rising out of the infinite sea. From ripple to wave to billow, past beryl and gold and crimson, a prism of perfect splendor, what shall the white surf be? The sacred tide is rising, rising for you and me. Defiant across the breaker, wave unto wave must answer. The sea to the shore will follow. When shall the great flood be? The tide must turn falling, falling back to the awful sea. Thus far shalt thou go, no farther. The color sinks to the shadow. The peon sobs into silence. Where shall the ebb-line be? By the weeds left blazing, beating like heart-throbs of the sea. By the law of the land and the ocean, by the hand that holdeth the torrent, I summon the tide eternal to flow for you and me.
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25 25 - Incompletion 1:00
Incompletion Perhaps the bud, lost from the loaded tree, The sweetest blossom of the May would be, Or wildest song that summer could have heard Is dumb within the throat of the dead bird. The perfect statue that all men have sought May in some crippled hand be hid. Which of our dearest dead betook his flight into the rose-red star that fell last night? The words, forever by thy lips unsaid, had been the crown of life upon thy head. The splendid sun of all my days might be the love that I shall never give to thee.
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26 26 - Rafe's Chasm 1:44
Rave's Chasm, Cape Ann, September 7, 1882. White fire upon the gray-green waste of waves, The low light of the breaker flares. Ah, see, outbursting on a sky of steel and ice, The baffled sun stabs wildly at the gale. The water rises like a god aglow, who all too long has slept and dreamed too sure, and finds his goddess fled his empty arms. Silent, the mighty cliff receives at last that rage of elemental tenderness, the old omnipotent caress she knows. Yet once the solid earth did melt for her, and pitying made retreat before her flight, would she have hidden her forever there? Or did she, wavering, linger long enough to let the accustomed torrent chase her down? Over the neck of the gorge I cling, lean desperately.
He who fear the chasm's edge were never the one to see the torment and the triumph hid where the deep searches be. I pierce the gulf. I sweep the coast where wide the tide swings free. I search as never souls sought before. There is not patience enough in all the shore, There is not passion enough in all the sea, To tell my love for thee.
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27 27 - Galatea 3:50
Galatea A moment's grace, Pygmalion, Let me be a breath space, Longer on this hither hand, A fate too sweet, too sad, Too mad to meet. Whether to be thy statue or thy bride, An instant spare me, terrible the choice. As no man knoweth, being only man, nor any saving her who hath been stone and loved her sculptor. Shall I dare exchange veins of the quarry for the throbbing posts? Insensate calm for a sure aching heart? Repose eternal for a woman's lot? Forgo God's quiet for the love of man? To float on his uncertain tenderness, a wave tossed up the shore of his desire, to ebb and flow whenever it pleaseth him, remembered at his leisure and forgot. Worshipped and worried, clasped and dropped at mood, or soothed and gashed at mercy of his will, now paradise my portion, and now hell.
And every single, several nerve that beats in solar body like some rare vase thrust in fire at first, and then in frost, until the fine protesting fibre snaps.
Oh, who, for knowing, ever chose a fate like this? What woman out of all the breathing world would be a woman? Could her heart select? Or love her lover could her life prevent. Then let me be that only, only one. Thus let me make that sacrifice supreme, no other ever made, or can, or shall. Behold, the future shall stand still to ask, What man was worth a price so isolate, and rate thee at its value for all time? For I am driven by an awful law. See, while I hesitate, it moldeth me, and carves me like a chisel at my heart. Tis stronger than the woman or the man. Tis greater than all torment or delight. Tis mightier than the marble or the flesh. Obedient be the sculptor and the stone. Thine am I.
Thine, at all the cost of all the pangs that woman ever bore for man. Thine I elect to be, denying them. Thine, I elect to be, defying them. Thine, thine I dare to be, in scorn of them. And being mine for ever, bless I them.
Pygmalion, take me from my pedestal. And set me lower, lower, love, that I may be a woman and look up to thee. And looking, longing, loving, give and take the human kiss's worth the worst that thou, by thine own nature, shall inflict on me.
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28 28 - Part of the Price 2:03
Part of the Prize Take back, my friend, the gifts once given. No fairer find I this side heaven with which to bless thee than thine own resource of blessing. Mine alone to render what is mine to lose. No niggard am I with it. Choose. Lavish I keep not any part of that great price within my heart. Wilt thou the quiet comfort have? Thine be it, daily, to the grave. The courage, shining down from one whose answering eyes put out the sun? The tenderness that touched the nerve like music? O, I bid these serve thee, soothe thee, watchful of thy need, while mine is unattended. Feed thy heart while mine goes famished. Glad I give the dearest thing I had. Impoverished, can I find or spare aught else to thee of rich or rare?
Sweet thoughts that through the soul do sing, and deeds like loving hands that cling, and loyal faith, a sentry, nigh, and prayers, all rose-clouds, hovering high. Nay, nay, I keep not any. Hold the wealth I leave with fingers cold and trembling in thine own. One thing alone I do deny to bring and give again to thee. Not now nor ever, dear, shalt thou learn how to wrest it from me. Test thy strength. By the world's measures, height or length, too weak art thou, too weak to gain, by slate of tenderness or snatch of pain, at thine own most or least, to take from me mine own ideal lost and saved of thee.
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29 29 - Eurydice 2:10
Eurydice by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Read for LibriVox.org by Sonia. Eurydice. Listening. A picture by Byrne Jones. One. As sentient as a wedding bell, the vibrant air throbs calling her, whose eager body, earwise curved, leans listening at the heart of hell. She is one nerve of hearing, strained to love and suffer. Hope and fear, thus hearkening for her love, she waits, Whom no man's daring heart has gained. Two. Oh, to be sound to such an ear, Song, carol, vesper, comfort near, Sweet words, at sweetest whispered low, Or dearer silence, happiest so, By little languages of love, her finer audience to prove. A tenderness untried to fit to soul and sense so exquisite, the blessed Orpheus to be at last to such Eurydice.
3. I listened in hell, I listened in hell, Down in the dark I heard your soul Singing mine out to the holy sun, Deep in the dark I heard your feet, Ringing the way of love in hell. Into the flame you strode and stood, Out of the flame you bore me well, as I listened in hell. IV. I listen in hell, I listen in hell. Who trod the fire? Where was the scorch? Clutched, clasped, and saved, what a tale was to tell. Heaven come down to hell. Oh, like a spirit you strove for my sake. Oh, like a man you looked back for your own. Back, though you loved me heavenly well. Back. Though you lost me, the gods did decree, and I listen in hell.
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30 30 - Elaine and Elaine 1:31
Elaine and Elaine.
Dead she drifted to his feet, Tell us, love, is death so sweet? O, the river floweth deep, Fathoms deeper is her sleep. O, the current driveth strong, Wilder tides drive souls along. Drifting, Though he loved her not, to the heart of Lancelot. Let her pass, it is her place, death hath given her this grace. Let her pass, she resteth well, what her dreams are, who can tell? Mute this dearest man, why, if he speaketh not a word, should we? Two. Dead she drifteth to his feet, close her eyes keep secrets sweet. Living, he had loved her well, High as heaven and deep as hell. Yet that voyage she stayeth not. Wait you for her, Lancelot? O the river floweth fast. Who is justified at last? Locked her lips are.
Hush, if she, saith nothing, how should we?
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31 31 - The Poet and the Poem 5:08
By Larry Wilson.
Upon the city called the Friends, the light of waking spring fell vivid as the shadows thrown far from the gleaming wing of a great golden bird that fled before us loitering. In hours before the spring, how light the pulse of heaviest feet! And quick the slowest hopes to stir to measure fine and fleet, and warm will grow the bitterest heart to shelter fancy sweet. Securely looks the city down on her own fret and toil. She hides a heart of perfect peace behind her veins turmoil, a breathing space removed apart from out their stir and soil. Our reverent feet that golden day stood in a quiet place that held repressed. I know not what of such a poignant grace as falls, if dumb with life untold, upon a human face.
To fashion silence into words, and softest, teach me how. I know the places silence caught, a dreaming, then and now. I only know twas blue above, and it was green below. And where the deepening sunshine found and held a holy mood, lowly and old, of outline quaint, in mingled brick and wood, clasped in the arms of ivy-vines, a nestling cottage stood. A thing so hidden and so fair, so pure that it would seem hewn out of nothing earthlier, Than a young poet's dream, of nothing sadder than the lights that threw the ivy's gleam. Tell me, I said, while Shriel the bird sang through the garden space to her who guided me. Tell me the story of the place. She lifted in her Quaker cap a peaceful, puzzled face, surveyed me with an aged calm and unpoetic eye.
And peacefully, but puzzled half, half-tolerant, made reply. The people come to see that house, indeed. I know not why. Except thee know the poem there. T'was written long since, yet his name who wrote it, now, in fact, I cannot seem to get. His name who wrote that poetry, I always do forget. Hers was Evangeline. And here, in sound of Christchurch bells, she found her lover in this house, or so I've heard folks tell. But most I know is that that's her name, and his was Gabriel. I've heard she found him dying in the room behind that door. One of the friend's old almshouses. Perhaps they've heard before. Perhaps they've heard about her, all that I can tell, and more. They can believe she found him here, if thee do so incline.
Folks have their fashions in belief. That may be one of thine. I'm sure his name was Gabriel, and hers Evangeline. She turned her to her common work and unpoetic ways. I knew the rare sweet note she struck resounding to your praise, O poet of our common nights and of our careworn days. Translator of our golden mood, and of our leaden hour, Immortal thus shall poet gauge the horizon of his power, Where in your crown of laurel leaves the little ivy flower. And happy be the singer called to such a lofty lot, If ever blest to be the heart hid in the simple spot, Where evangeline was loved and wept, and longfellow forgot. O striving soul, strive quietly, whate'er thou art or didst. Sweetest the strain when in the song the singer has been lost.
Truest the work when it's the deed, not doer counts for most. The shadow of the golden wing grew deep where'er it fell. The heart it brooded over will remember long and well, full many a subtle thing, too sweet or else too sad to tell. For ever fall the light of spring, fair as that day it fell, Where evangeline died by your voice, O solemn Christchurch bell, For lovers of all springs, all climes, at last found Gabriel.
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32 32 - Overtasked 1:07
Overtasked by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Read for the Brevox.org by Sonia. Overtasked. It was a weary hour. I looked in the lily-bell. How holy is the flower! It leaned like an angel against the light. O soul, it said, sighing, be white, be white. I stretched my arms for rest. I turned to the evening cloud. A vision how fair, how blessed. Lo, heart, it called softly, Arise and fly. It were yours to reach levels as high as I. I stooped to the hoary wave that wept on the darkening shore. It sobbed to me, O be brave, whatever you do or dare or will, like me to go striving, unresting still.
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33 33 - Stranded 1:41
Stranded by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
O busy ships that smile in sailing in a glory like a dream, from the colours of the harbour to the colours of the sea.
In singing words, or in bewailing, tell the story as you gleam, Tell the story. Guess the language of my idle hours for me.
Oh, busy waves, so blessed in bruising your white faces on the shore. So happy to be wasted with the purpose of this sea, content to leave with it the choosing of your places evermore. Whisper but the far-sea meaning of my stranded life for me.
Gray, the sails grow in departing like fleet swallows to the south. Stem, the tide turns in its parting, as it follows with dumb mouth.
In the stillness and the sternness, God makes answer Unto me.
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34 34 - Gloucester Harbor 1:58
Gloucester Harbor, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
One shadow glides from the dumb shore, and one from every silent sail. One cloud the averted heavens wear, a soft mask, thin and frail. Oh, silver is the lessening rain, and yellow was the weary drouth. The reef her warning finger puts upon the harbor's mouth. Her thin, wan fingers, stiff and stark, she holds by night, she holds by day. Ask, if you will. No answer makes the somber guarded bay. The fleet with idle canvas hung like a brute life sleeps patiently. The headlights nod across the cliff, the fog blows out to sea. There is no color on the tide, no color on the helpless sky. Across the beach, a safe small sound, the grass-hit crickets cry. And through the dusk I hear the keels of home-bound boats, great low and sweet.
O happy lights! O watching eyes! Leap out the sound to greet! O tender arms that meet and clasp! Gather and cherish while ye may. The morrow knoweth God. Ye know your own are yours to-day. Forever from the Gloucester winds the cries of hungry children start. There breaks in every Gloucester wave a widowed woman's heart.
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35 35 - The Terrible Test 1:54
The Terrible Test Separate upon the folded page Of myth or marvel, sad or glad The test that gave the Lord to thee And thee to us, O Galahad. Found pure in deed and word and thought The creature of our dream and guess, the vision of the brain thou art, the Eidolon of holiness, man with the power of the God, man with the weakness of men, whose lips the sangriel leaned to feed, whose strength was the strength of ten. We read and smile no man thou wast, no human pulses thine could be. With downcast eyes we read and sigh, so terrible is purity. O fairest legend of the years, with folded wings go silently. O flower of knighthood, yield your place to one who comes from Galilee. To wounded feet that shrink and bleed, but press and climb the narrow way.
The same old way our own must step. For ever yesterday, to-day. For soul can be what soul hath been, and feet can tread where feet have trod. Enough to know that once the clay hath worn the features of the god.
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36 36 - My Dreams are of the Sea 1:12
My Dreams Are of the Sea My Dreams Are of the Sea My Dreams Are of the Sea All night the living waters stepped stately and steadily, All night the wind conducted them. With forehead high a rock glittering with joy stood to receive the shock of the flood-tide. I saw it in the mind of sleep and silence. When I woke, I wept. My dreams are of the sea, but, oh, it is the sea of glass. I met that other tide as I desired. Alone, the rock and I leaned it to the wave, a foolish suicide that scooped its grave within the piteous sand. Now I am tired. It died, and it was buried. Let me pass.
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37 37 - Song 0:53
Song The firelight listens on the floor To hear the wild winds blow. Within, the bursting roses burn. Without, there slides the snow. Across the flower I see the flake Pass mirrored, mystic, slow. Oh, blooms and storms Must blush and freeze. While seasons come and go. I lift the sash, and live the gale comes leaping to my call. The rose is but a painted one that hangs upon the wall.
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38 38 - An Interpretation 1:11
An Interpretation by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Read for Leverbox.org by Larry, Johnson City, Tennessee. An Interpretation, Chopin. Prelude in C minor, op. 28. From whirlwind to shower, from non-glare to shadow, from the plow to the vesper, a day is gone. From passion to purpose, from turmoil to rest, from discord to harmony, life moveth on. From terror and heartbreak, from anger of anguish, from virgil and famine, a soul has gone. By mercy of mystery, through trust which is best, to feasting And sleeping now, God calleth on.
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39 39 - The Sphinx 1:33
The Sphinx by Elizabeth Stewart Phelps. Read for Leverbox.org by Larry, Johnson City, Tennessee. The Sphinx. O glad girls' faces, hushed and fair, how shall I sing for ye? For the grave picture of a Sphinx is all that I can see. Vain is the driving of the sand, In vain the desert's art. The years strive with her, but she holds the lion in her heart. Baffled or fostered, patient still, the perfect purpose clings. Flying or folded, strong as stone, she wears the eagle's wings. Eastward she looks against the sky. The eternal morning lies.
Silent or pleading, veiled or free, she lifts the woman's eyes. O grave girls' faces, listening kind. Glad I will sing for ye, while the proud figure of the Sphinx is all that I can see.
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40 40 - Victuræ Salutamus 1:34
Victure Salutimus. Shall we, who are about to live, cry like a clarion on the battlefield? Or weep before tis fought the fight to yield? Thou that hast been, and yet that art to be, Named by our name, that art the first and last, Womanhood of the future and the past. Thee we salute below the breath. O, give to us the courage of our mystery. Pling the clock of time. Has struck the woman's hour, we hear it on our knees. For ah, no power. Is ours to trip too lightly to the rhyme? Of idle words that fan the summer air, of bounding words that leap the years to come, ideal of ourselves, we dream and dare. Victure salutemus. Thou art dumb.
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41 41 - The Ermine 1:40
The Ermine by Elizabeth Stewart Phelps. Read for Leverbox.org. By Larry, Johnson City, Tennessee. The Ermine. I read of the ermine to-day, of the ermine who will not step, by the faint of a step in the mire, the creature who will not stain her garment of wild white fire, of the dumb flying soulless thing So we, with our souls, dare to say, the being of sense and of sod, that will not defile the nature she took from her God. And we, with the souls that we have, go cheering the hunters on to a prey with that pleading eye. She cannot go into the mud. She can stay like the snow and die. The hunters come leaping on. She turns like a heart at bay. They do with her as they will. O thou who thinkest on this!
Stand like a star and be still, where the soil oozes under thy feet. Better, ah, better to die, than to take one step in the mire. O blessed to die, or to live. With garments of holy fire.
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42 42 - Unquenched 1:42
Unquenched. At the Promethean and other festivals, young men ran with torches or lamps lighted from the sacrificial altar. In this contest only he was victorious, whose lamp remained unextinguished in the race. I think upon the conquering Greek, who ran, brave was the racer, that brave race of old. Swifter than hope his feet that did not tire. Calmer than love the hand which reached that goal, a torch it bore, and cherished to the end, and rescued from the winds the sacred fire. O life the race, O heart the racer, hush, and listen long enough to learn of him who sleeps beneath the dust with his desire. Go, shame thy coward weariness, and wail. Who doubles contest, doubles victory. Go, learn to run the race, and carry fire.
O friend, the lip is brave, the heart is weak. Stay near. The runner faints, the torch falls pale. Save me the flame that mounteth ever higher. Grows it so dark, I lift mine eyes to thine, blazing within them, steadfast, pure and strong, against the wind. There fights the eternal fire.
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43 43 - The King's Image 1:29
Org by Larry Wilson. Of iron were his arms. They could have held the need of half the kingdom up, and in his brow were iron atoms too. Thus was he built. His heart, observed, was wrought of gold, burnished. It dazzled one to look at it. His feet were carved of clay, and so he fell. Clay unto clay shall perish and return. The tooth of rust shall gnaw the iron down. The conqueror of time, gold must endure. Thou great amalgam, suffering in thyself, the while inflicting still the certain fate of thy disharmony. From nature's law, unto her law, thy doom appeals. Bids thee to fear the metal sinews of thy soul, and scorn the dust on which thou totterest. But save, oh save the heart of gold for one who did, beholding, trust in it.
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44 44 - At the Party 3:47
At the Party by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Half a dozen children at our house. Half a dozen children quiet as a mouse. Quiet as a moonbeam. You could hear a peeing. Waiting for the party to begin. Such a flood of flounces, O dear me, such a surge of sashes, like a silicon sea. Little eyes demurely cast upon the ground. Little airs and graces all around. High time for that party to begin. To sit so any longer were a sort of sin. As if you weren't acquainted with society. What a thing to tell of, that would be. Up spoke a little lady, aged five. I've tumble up my overdress, sure as I'm alive. My dress came from Paris. We sent to Worth for it. Mother says she calls it... Such a fit. Quick there piped another little voice. I didn't send for dresses, though I had my choice.
I have got a doll that came from Paris, too. It can walk and talk, as well as you. Still till now, there sat one little girl. Simple as a snowdrop. Without flounce or curl, modest as a primrose, soft plain hair brushed back. But the color of her dress was black, all black. Swift she glanced around with sweet surprise, bright engraved the look that widened in her eyes. To entertain the party, She must do her share, as if God had sent her, stood she there, stood a minute thinking, with crossed hands, how she best might meet the company's demands, grave and sweet the purpose to the child's voice given. I have a little brother gone to heaven.
On the little party dropped a spell. All the little flances rustled where they fell, but the modest maiden in her morning gown, unconscious as a flower, looketh down. Quick my heart besought her silently. Happy little maiden, give. Oh, give to me the highness of your courage, the sweetness of your grace, to speak a large word in a little place.
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45 45 - A Jewish Legend 2:58
A Jewish Legend by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Read for LibriVox.org.
I like that old kind legend not found in holy writ, in which that John or Matthew had made Bible out of it. But though it is not gospel, there is no law to hold the heart from growing better. That hears the story told. How the little Jewish children, upon a summer day, went down across the meadows with the child Christ to play, and in the gold-green valley, where low the reed grass lay, they made them mock mud sparrows out of the meadow clay. So when these all were fashioned and ranged in rows about, Now, said the little Jesus, we'll let the birds fly out. Then all the happy children did call and coax and cry, each to his own mud-sparrow, Fly as a bidule, fly. But earthen were the sparrows, and earth they did remain.
Though loud the Jews' children cried out and cried again. Except the one bird only, the little Lord Christ made, the earth that honored him master, his earth heard and obeyed. Softly leaned and whispered, Fly up to heaven, fly! And swift his little sparrow went soaring to the sky. And silent all the children stood, awestruck looking on, till deep into the heavens the bird of earth had gone. I like to think from playmate we have the Lord Christ still, and that still above our weakness He works His mighty will, that all our little playthings Of earthen hopes and joys, shall be, by his commandment, changed into heavenly toys. Our souls are like the sparrows, imprisoned in the clay. Bless him who came to give them wings upon a Christmas day.
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46 46 - The Songs of Seventy Years 2:09
The Songs of Seventy Years by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
J. G. W. Master, let stronger lips than these turn melody to harmony. Poet, mind tremble as they crave a world alone with thee. Thy songs melt on the vibrant air. The wild birds know them and the wind. The common light hath claim on them, the common heart and mind. And air and light and wind shall be thy fellow-singers, while they say how seventy years of music stir the common pulse to-day. Hush, sweetest songs. Mine ears are deaf to all of ye, save only one. Blind are the eyes that turn the leaf against the autumn sun. O blinder once were fading eyes, close folded now from shrine and rain, and duller were the dying ears that heard the chosen strain. Stay, solemn chant. Tis mine to sing your notes alone below the breath.
Tis mine to bless the poet who can bless the hour of death. For once a spirit sighed for home, a longed for light whereby to see, and wearied Found the way to them, O Christian seer, through thee. Past, with thy words unpaling lips. Past, with thy courage to depart. Past, with thy trust within the soul, thy music in the heart. O calm above our restlessness, and rich beyond our dreaming, yet in heaven I know one owes to thee a glad and grateful debt. From it may learn some tenderer art, May find and take some better way Than all are tenderest and best To crown thy life to-day.
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47 47 - Birthday Verses 2:46
H. B.
S.
Arise, and call her blessed, seventy years. Each one a tongue to speak for her, who needs no poor device of ours to tell to-day the story of her glory in our hearts. Precede us all, ye quiet lips of love, ye honours high of home, Nobilities of mother and of wife, the heraldry of happiness, dearer to her than were the homage of the world. We yield unto the royal claims of tenderness. Speak thou before all voices, ripened human life. Arise, and call her blessed, dark-browed men. She put the silver lyre aside for you. She could not stroll across the idle strings of fancy while you wept uncomforted. But rang upon the fetters of a race enchained the awful chord which pealed along, and echoed in the cannon-shot that broke the manacle and made the bound go free.
She brought a nation on its knees for shame. She brought a world into a black slave's heart. Where are our lighter laurels, O my friends? Brothers and sisters of the busy pen, Five million free men crown her birthday feast, before whose feet our little leaf we lay. Arise and call her blessed fainting souls, for whom she sang the strains of holy hope within the gentle twilight of her days. Like angels bid her own hymns visit her. Her life no ivy-tangled door, but wide and welcome to his solemn feet, who need not knock for entrance, nor one ever ask, who cometh there? So still and sure the step, so well we know God doth abide in her. Oh, wait to make her blessed happy world, to which she looketh onward ardently.
Lie in fair distance far, ye streets of gold, where up and down light-hearted spirits walk, and wonder that they stayed so long away. Be patient for her coming, for our sakes. Who will love heaven better, keeping her? This only ask we. When from prayer to praise she moves, and when from peace to joy, be hers to know she hath the life eternal, since her own heart's dearest wish did meet her there.
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48 48 - A Tribute 2:00
A tribute by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Blinded, I groped, you gave me sight. Perplexed, I turned, you sent me light. You speak unto a thousand ears. I pay you tribute hid in tears. I pay you homage in the hopes that rise to scale life's scathed slopes. I give you gratitude in this. That midway on the precipice you never trod and never saw, where air and never drank strikes raw, and wan upon the wasted breath, and gulfs you never passed gave death, and crags you gained some sunlit way from threatening over me to-day. That here with bruised hand I cling, because I heard you yonder sing with those who conquer, If through joy, then deeper be our shame, who toy and loiter in the scourging rain, and did not pass by strength of pain.
Laggard below, I reach to bless you who are king of happiness. You are the victor, you the brave, you who could not stoop to be her slave. Downward to me, rebuking, fling my privilege of suffering, I take and listen. Teach me. See. Nearer than thou I ought to be. Nearer the height man never trod. Nearer the veiled face of God. I ought, and am not. Comrade, be unconscious, captain unto me. Unknowing, beckon and command. I answer you with unseen hand. You read in vain these lines between, and smiling, wonder whom I mean.
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49 49 - To O.W.H. 0:58
August 29th, 1879 I had no song so wise and sweet as birthday songs, dear friend, should be. Silent among a hundred guests, I only prayed for thee. Such wishes held the speaking leap. Such mood of blessing took me there. That music like a bird to heaven flew and was lost in prayer.
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50 50 - Whose shall the Welcome be? 1:21
Whose Shall the Welcome Be? The wave goes down, the wind goes down, the gray tide glitters on the sea, the moon seems praying in the sky. Gates of the new Jerusalem, a perfect pearl each gate of them, wide as all heavens swing on high. Whose shall the welcome be? The wave went down, the wind went down, the tide of life turned out to sea. Patience of pain and grace of deed, the glories of the heart and brain, treasure that shall not come again. The human singing that we need, set to a heavenly key. The wave goes down, the wind goes down, all tides at last turn to the sea. We learn to take the thing we have, Thou who hast taught us strength in grief, As moon to shadow, high and chief, Shine out, white soul, beyond the grave, And light our loss of thee.
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51 51 - Exeat 0:36
Exeat by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Read for LibriVox.org by Jason in Panama. Exeot. To the hope that he has taught, to the beauty he has wrought, to the comfort he has been, to the dream that poets tell, to the land where Gabriel cannot lose Evangeline. Hush, let him go.
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52 52 - George Eliot 1:36
George Eliot.
George Eliot. At evening once, the lowly men who loved our master were found desolate, and grieved for him whose eyes had been the glory of their lives. He, silent, followed them, and joined himself unto their sorrow. With the voice of love that liveth past the end, and yearns like empty arms across the sepulchre, did comfort them. They heard, and knew him not. At eventide, O Lord, one trod for us the solitary way of a great soul, whereof the peril, pain, and depth alone he knows who marked the road. We watched, and held her in our arms of prayer. We wept, and said, Our sister hath a heavy hurt. We bow and cry. The crown is buried with the queen. At twilight, as she, groping, sought for rest, what solemn footfall echoed down the dark?
What tenderness that would not let her go? And patience that love only knoweth, paced silent beside her to the last faint step? What scarred hand gently caught her as she sank? Thou being with her. Though she knew thee not.
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53 53 - Her Jury 1:25
Her Jury by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. RedforLibriVox.org by Amy Grimoire. A lily rooted in a sacred soil, Arrayed with those who neither spin nor toil, Dinah, the preacher, through the purple air, Forever in her gentle evening prayer, Shall plead for her, what ear too deaf to hear, As if she spoke to someone very near. And he of storied Florence, whose great heart Broke for its human error, wrapped apart and scorching in the swift prophetic flame of passion for late holiness and shame, then untried glory, grander, gladder, higher, deathless for her, he testifies by fire. A statue fair and firm on shining feet. Womanhood's woman, Dorothea, sweet, has strength and strong as tenderness to make a struggle with the dark.
For white light's sake, Immortal stands, unanswered speaks, Shall they, of her great hand the molded breathing clay, Her fit select and proud survivors be, Possess the life eternal, and not she.
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54 54 - A Prayer. (Matins.) 2:57
A Prayer, Matins, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Lord, thou hast promised. Lo, I give thee back thine own great word. Keep it, I summon thee. Keep it as God can, not as men do. See, great God, who art to us the awful truth, whereby we live and move and know the true. I ask thee to be true unto thyself. There is a soul that has not sinned unto the death. I pray for it. To such as seek for such a one, O power invisible, O mystery and mercy. Thou hast said, Thou hearkenest. I dare remind thee, God. I dare appeal unto thine honor. Hear. Fulfill thy pledge to me. God, God, great God, I pour my soul out. Dash it down a waste like water as I would my life to save this other one. I light my words with fire, like faggots scorching all my shrinking heart.
So would I walk in fire with these my feet of flesh, if that could melt this frozen heart. I pray for. Thou who listenest, dumb God, had I thy dreadful power to turn the souls of men as they were rivers in thy hand, then would I have this noble one. I would not lose its loyalty. I tell thee, Lord, if I had made it, then it sure would love and honor me. Hearken to me. O save! Give me mine answer, save. Great God, I summon thee. I summon thee.
Father, I am thy child. If I have asked too much, or asked or longed amiss in any wise, or read awry thy word mysterious, or made one cry unworthy of a child, I pray thee to deny me all I ask unto my asking, and rebuke me so. And if thou savest, Lord, dear Lord, dear Lord, then let it be because some worthier than I did pray.
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55 55 - An Acknowledgment 0:53
An Acknowledgement, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. For the faith that is not broken by the burden of the day, for the word that is not spoken, dearest words are slow to say, for the golden draught unpoffered to the thirst that thirsteth on, for the hand that is not offered when the struggling strength is gone, for the sturdy heart that will not make a pauper of my need, Friend, I mean some time to thank thee from my soul. In truth and deed, wait. Some day, when I am braver, I will do so, say so. Now, oh, be tender, I am tired, I have forgotten how.
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56 56 - Hymn 2:04
Hymn for a Brother's Installation Lord, are there any stones upon the way that tear thy bleeding feet? If our weak hands can move them from thy path, give us that duty sweet. Is there, O patient and pathetic face, one thorn upon thy brow that we can pluck from out thy cruel crown? For we would do it now. Is there a deed so difficult for us that none but thou canst ask? Thine asking be our answering. Though swift be ours that have a task. Lord, hast thou left thy hungry in the world for us to find, to feed? Sharper the hungers of the soul? Give us nutrition for that need. And hast thou prisoners unvisited, whose woes our cares should tell? There is a deeper prison of the heart. Help us to find that cell.
Is there a mourner dear to thee, whom we have left uncomforted? Yet still through lonelier loneliness, The heart bereave of thee is led. O world of common human cries, and calls of souls in direst need. To meet ye, mighty were the love that sought to take the master's speed. Give us that love, dear God, who gave to us to bear his loving name. Give us that sacred speed to keep the step that strikes with his the same waves of one tide. This people be, and flow, straight shoreward to thy will, white as a dove upon them. Now descend thy spirit, strong and still. Thy blessings on their future rest and brood, the brightest lip can tell. In home and heart, in faith and fact, O best of daily mercy, dwell.
With those who summon, trusting it to lead their feet to walk, Christ's Way, the voice of him on whose bowed head I call the grace of God to-day.
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57 57 - Answered 0:29
answered by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Why did I never sing a song to you, dearest, to you again? Behold the question start. To mine own pulses have I ever sung, or do I read a rhyme unto my beating heart?
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58 58 - Westward 0:34
Westward by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
My thoughts like waves creep up, creep on. How patient is the sea! How shall we climb, the tide and I, up to the hills, and they, where water's free as winds, to go where mood or need might be? They could but find the sky above the canyon as the sea.
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59 59 - Three Friends 1:20
Three Friends by Elizabeth Stewart Phelps. Read for Leverbox.org by Larry, Johnson City, Tennessee. Three Friends. Oh, not to you, my mentor sweet, and stern as only sweetness can, whose grave eyes look out steadfastly across my nature's plan, and take an earring measure down. Where that plan is failed or foiled, thinking far less of purpose kept than a vision spoiled, and tender less to what I am than sad for what I might have been, and walking softly before God, for my soul's sake I wean. Tea is not to you my spirit leans, O grave true judge, when spent with strife, and groping out of gloom for light, and out of death for life.
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60 60 - A New Friend 0:51
A New Friend by Elizabeth Stewart Phelps by Larry, Johnson City, TN. A New Friend The sun is sinking on the sacred lands wherein the grain ungarnered beckoning stands. Who loses never finds, nor can nor may, the common human glory of the day.
Let us enter, tear-blind as we must, reapers, not gleaners of a solemn trust.
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61 61 - An Etching 0:43
An Etching by Elizabeth Stewart Phelps. Read for liverbox.org. By Larry, Johnson City, Tennessee. An Etching. A true knight, knowing neither worldly fear, nor yet reproach of her unworldly faith. Fine eyes shall see, yet see not on this page. A man from whom a woman's heart of hearts. Could earn and keep the sacred name of friend.
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62 62 - To my Father 0:55
To My Father. Tired with the early follies of the day, a child crept sobbing to your arms to say. Her evening prayer, and if by God are you, Forgiven and loved, she never asked or knew. With life's mistake, and care too early old, and spent with sorrow upon sorrow told, she finds the father's heart the surest rest. The earliest love shall be the last and best.
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63 63 - The Gates Between 1:27
The gates between. Pearl white, opaque, and fixed fast, flashing between the hands unclasp, blinding between despairing eyes. The awful gates shut, too, at last. On comfort snatched, And anguish done on every moan beneath the sun, till we and ours are joy in one. This is your hour, gates of God, your solemn hour, bars of gold. But there shall come another yet. Like silken sails you shall be furled. Like melting mist you shall be set. O ye the dearest, vanished from Love's little inner sheltered spot. To ye I whisper, not forgot, but beloved the dear, named not. Across the barrier, old as life, lean to us from the silent world.
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64 64 - A Prayer. (Vespers.) 1:19
A Prayer Vespered, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Great God, behold, I lie beneath thine awful eye, as the sea beneath the sky. My God, what hope abides? Thine unknown purpose rides the torrent of my tides. Dear God, I am not a shore or hill. An ocean must take still the colors of the heavens' will. Choose, God. Though days be blue or gold, though sorrows new or cold, though purple joy be there or gray of old despair, give but thyself to me, and let me be thy sea. Thy storms have had their way. I pray now not to pray.
End of Songs of the Silent World and Other Poems by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps