Susan Coolidge - A Few More Verses

A SONG of sunshine through the rain,
Of spring across the snow,
A balm to heal the hurts of pain,
A peace surpassing woe.
Lift up your heads, ye sorrowing ones,
And be ye glad of heart,
For Calvary and Easter Day,
Earth’s saddest day and gladdest day,
Were just one day apart!

With shudder of despair and loss
The world’s deep heart was wrung,
As lifted high upon his cross
The Lord of Glory hung,
When rocks were rent, and ghostly forms
Stole forth in street and mart;
But Calvary and Easter Day,
Earth’s blackest day and whitest day,
Were just one day apart!

No hint or whisper stirred the air
To tell what joy should be;
The sad disciples, grieving there,
Nor help nor hope could see.
Yet all the while the glad, near sun
Made ready its swift dart.
And Calvary and Easter Day,
The darkest day and brightest day,
Were just one day apart!

Oh, when the strife of tongues is loud,
And the heart of hope beats low,
When the prophets prophesy of ill,
And the mourners come and go,
In this sure thought let us abide,
And keep and stay our heart, —
That Calvary and Easter Day,
Earth’s heaviest day and happiest day,
Were but one day apart!

THEY stood upon the vessel’s deck
To catch our farewell look and beck.
Two girlish figures, fair and frail,
Hovering against a great white sail
Like spirit shapes in dazzling air, —
I seem to see them standing there,
Always together, always so, – ,
’Twas long ago, oh, long ago!

The east was bright with yellow noon,
The flying vessel vanished soon.
Flashes of jubilant white spray
Beckoned and pointed her the way.
A lessening speck she outward sped;
Sadly we turned, but still we said,,
“They will come back again, we know,” —
’Twas long ago, so long ago!

Those faces sweet, those happy eyes,
Looked nevermore on Western skies;
Where the hot sunbeams weave their net
O’er cedar-crowned, sad Olivet,
They who had shared their lives shared death,
Tasting at once the first strange breath
Of those quick airs for souls that flow
So long ago, so long ago!

In vain we picture to our eyes
The convent gray, the still, blue skies,
The mountain with its bordering wood; —
Still do they stand as then they stood,
Hovering like spirits fair and frail
Against the dazzle of the sail;
The red lips part, the faces glow,
As long ago, so long ago!

WHAT shall I do to keep your day,
My darling, dead for many a year?
I could not, if I would, forget
It is your day; and yet, and yet —
It is so hard to find a way
To keep it, now you are not here.

I cannot add the lightest thing
To the full sum of happiness
Which now is yours; nor dare I try
To frame a wish for you, since I
Am blind to know, as weak to bring,
All impotent to aid or bless.

And yet it is your day, and so,
Unlike all other days, one bead
Of gold in the long rosary
Of dull beads little worth to me.
And I must keep it bright, and show
That what is yours is dear indeed.

How shall I keep it here alone? —
With prayers in which your name is set;
With smiles, not tears; and sun, not rain;
With memories sweeter far than pain,
With tender backward glances thrown,
And far on-lookings, clearer yet.

The gift I would have given to you,
And which you cannot need or take,
Shall still be given; and it shall be
A secret between you and me, —
A sweet thought, every birthday new,
That it is given for your sake.

And so your day, yours safely still,
Shall come and go with ebbing time, —
The day of all the year most sweet, —
Until the years so slow, so fleet,
Shall bring me, as in time they will,
To where all days are yours and mine.

ABANDONED wrecks they plunge and drift,
The sport of sea and wind,
The tempest drives, the billows lift,
The aimless sails they flap and shift
With impulse vague and blind,
As tossing on from wave to wave
They seek – and shun – the yawning grave.

The decks once trodden by busy feet
Man nevermore shall tread;
The cargoes brave of wine or wheat,
Now soaked with salt and drenched with sleet,
And mixed and scatterèd,
No merchant shall appraise or buy
Or store in vat or granary.

The wet ropes pull the creaking sails,
As though by hands drawn tight.
Echoes the hold with ghostly wails,
While daylight wanes, and twilight pales,
And drops the heavy night,
And vast and silent fish swim by,
And scan the wreck with cruel eye.

Ha! lights ahead! A ship is near!
The dumb wreck makes no sign;
No lantern shows, returns no cheer,
But straight and full, without a veer,
Sped by the urging brine
She goes – a crash! her errand done,
The deadly, lonely thing drives on.

Oh, hopeless lives, distorted, crushed,
Which, like the lonely wreck,
Lashed by the waves and tempest-tossed,
With rudder gone and cargo lost,
Torn ribs and leaking deck,
Plunge on through sunshine and eclipse,
A menace to the happier ships.

All oceans know them, and all lands.
Speechless they drift us by;
To questioning voices, friendly hands,
Warnings or counsels or commands,
Still making no reply.
God send them help if help may be,
Or sink them harmless in his sea.

WHAT was she most like? Was she like the wind,
Fresh always, and untired; intent to find
New fields to penetrate, new heights to gain;
Scattering all mists with sudden, radiant wing;
Stirring the languid pulses; quickening
The apathetic mood, the weary brain?

Or was she like the sun, whose gift of cheer
Endureth for all seasons of the year,
Alike in winter’s cold or summer’s heat?
Or like the sea, which brings its gifts from far,
And still, wherever want and straitness are,
Lays down a sudden largess at their feet?

Or was she like a wood, where light and shade,
And sound and silence, mingle unafraid;
Where mosses cluster, and, in coverts dark,
Shy blossoms court the brief and wandering air,
Mysteriously sweet; and here and there
A firefly flashes like a sudden spark?

Or like a wilful brook, which laughs and leaps
All unexpectedly, and never keeps
The course predicted, as it seaward flows?
Or like a stream-fed river, brimming high?
Or like a fruit, where those who love descry
A pungent charm no other flavor knows?

I cannot find her type. In her were blent
Each varied and each fortunate element
Which souls combine, with something all her own,
Sadness and mirthfulness, a chorded strain,
The tender heart, the keen and searching brain,
The social zest, the power to live alone.

Comrade of comrades, giving man the slip
To seek in Nature truest comradeship;
Tenacity and impulse ruled her fate,
This grasping firmly what that flashed to feel, —
The velvet scabbard and the sword of steel,
The gift to strongly love, to frankly hate!