My Springs.

In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know     Two springs that with unbroken flow     Forever pour their lucent streams     Into my soul's far Lake of Dreams.     Not larger than two eyes, they lie     Beneath the many-changing sky     And mirror all of life and time,      - Serene and dainty pantomime.     Shot through with lights of stars and dawns,     And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns,      - Thus heaven and earth together vie     Their shining depths to sanctify.     Always when the large Form of Love     Is hid by storms that rage above,     I gaze in my two springs and see     Love in his very verity.     Always when Faith with stifling stress     Of grief hath died in bitterness,     I gaze in my two springs and see     A Faith that smiles immortally.     Always when Charity and Hope,     In darkness bounden, feebly grope,     I gaze in my two springs and see     A Light that sets my captives free.     Always, when Art on perverse wing     Flies where I cannot hear him sing,     I gaze in my two springs and see     A charm that brings him back to me.     When Labor faints, and Glory fails,     And coy Reward in sighs exhales,     I gaze in my two springs and see     Attainment full and heavenly.     O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they,      - My springs from out whose shining gray     Issue the sweet celestial streams     That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.     Oval and large and passion-pure     And gray and wise and honor-sure;     Soft as a dying violet-breath     Yet calmly unafraid of death;     Thronged, like two dove-cotes of gray doves,     With wife's and mother's and poor-folk's loves,     And home-loves and high glory-loves     And science-loves and story-loves,     And loves for all that God and man     In art and nature make or plan,     And lady-loves for spidery lace     And broideries and supple grace     And diamonds and the whole sweet round     Of littles that large life compound,     And loves for God and God's bare truth,     And loves for Magdalen and Ruth,     Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete -     Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet,      - I marvel that God made you mine,     For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine!     Baltimore, 1874.