4579522Poems — Charlotte CushmanHelen Hunt Jackson
Where constant through the golden air The tree of life sheds mystic leaf, Which angels to the nations bear, Healing alike their joy and grief."
CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN.
I
UT yesterday it was. Long years ago It seems. The world so altered looks to-day That, journeying idly with my thoughts astray, I gazed where rose one lofty peak of snow Above grand tiers on tiers of peaks below. One moment brief it shone, then sank away, As swift we reached a point where foot-hills lay So near they seemed like mountains huge to grow, And touch the sky. That instant, idly still, My eye fell on a printed line, and read Incredulous, with sudden anguished thrill, The name of this great queen among the dead. I raised my eyes. The dusty foot-hills near Had gone. Again the snowy peak shone clear.
II.
Oh! thou beloved woman, soul and heart And life, thou standest unapproached and grand, As still that glorious snowy peak doth stand. The dusty barrier our clumsy art
DEDICATION.
SAW men kneeling where their hands had brought And fashioned curiously a pile of stone. To God they said they gave it, for his own, And that their psalms and prayers had wrought Its consecration. When, perplexed, I sought Their meaning, they but answered with a groan, And called my question blasphemy. Alone, In silence of the wilderness, I thought Again. Swift answer came from rock, tree, sod: "These puny prayers superfluous rise, and late These psalms. When first the world swung out in space, Amid the shoutings of the sons of God, Then was its every atom dedicate, Forever holy by God's gift and grace."
UT yesterday it was. Long years ago
SAW men kneeling where their hands had brought
