And as I watch that path

Over the distant hill,

A foolish longing comes

My heart and soul to fill, A painful, strange desire

To break some weary bond; A vague unuttered wish

For what might lie beyond!

In that far world unknown,
Over that distant hill,

May dwell the loved and lost,
Lost yet beloved still;

I have a yearning hope,

Half longing, and half pain, That by that mountain pass They may return again.

Space may keep friends apart,
Death has a mighty thrall;

There is another gulf

Harder to cross than all;

Yet watching that far road,

My heart beats full and fast

If they should come once more, If they should come at last!

See, down the mountain side

The silver vapours creep; They hide the rocky cliffs, They hide the craggy steep,

They hide the narrow path That comes across the hill

Oh, foolish longing, cease,

Oh, beating Heart, be still!

BEYOND.

E must not doubt, or fear, or dread, that love for life is only given,

And that the calm and sainted dead will

meet estranged and cold in heaven :

Oh, Love were poor and vain indeed, based on so harsh and stern a creed.

True that this earth must pass away, with all the starry worlds of light,

With all the glory of the day, and calmer tenderness

of night;

For, in that radiant home can shine alone the immortal and divine.

Earth's lower things her pride, her fame, her science, learning, wealth, and power

Slow growths that through long ages came, or fruits of some convulsive hour,

Whose very memory must decay-Heaven is too pure for such as they.

They are complete: their work is done. So let

them sleep in endless rest.

Love's life is only here begun, nor is, nor can be, fully blest;

It has no room to spread its wings, amid this crowd of meaner things.

Just for the

very

shadow thrown upon its sweetness

here below,

The cross that it must bear alone, and bloody bap

tism of woe,

Crowned and completed through its pain, we know that it shall rise again.

So if its flame burn pure and bright, here, where our air is dark and dense,

And nothing in this world of night lives with a living so intense;

When it shall reach its home at length-how bright its light! how strong its strength !

And while the vain weak loves of earth (for such base counterfeits abound)

Shall perish with what gave them birth their

graves are green and fresh around,

No funeral song shall need to rise, for the true Love that never dies.

If in my heart I now could fear that, risen again, we should not know

What was our Life of Life when here-the hearts we loved so much below;

I would arise this very day, and cast so poor a thing

away.

But Love is no such soulless clod: living, perfected it shall rise

Transfigured in the light of God, and giving glory to the skies:

And that which makes this life so sweet, shall render Heaven's joy complete.