Susan Coolidge - A Few More Verses

GIVING to all, thou gavest as well to me.
A myriad thirsty shores await the tide:
They drink and drink, and will not be denied;
But not a drop less full the brimming Sea.

One tiny shell among the kelp and weed,
One sand-grain where the beaches stretch away, —
How shall the tide regard them? Yet each day
It comes, and fills and satisfies their need.

What can the singing sands give to the Sea?
What the dumb shell, though inly it rejoice?
Only the echo of its own strong voice; —
And this is all that here I bring to thee.

GOD give thee, love, thy heart’s desire!
What better can I pray?
For though love falter not, nor tire,
And stand on guard all day,
How little can it know or do,
How little can it say!

How hard it strives, and how in vain,
By hope and fear misled,
To make the pathway soft and plain
For the dear feet to tread,
To shield from sun-beat and from rain
The one beloved head!

Its wisdom is made foolishness;
Its best intent goes wrong;
It curses where it fain would bless,
Is weak instead of strong, —
Marring with sad, discordant sighs
The joyance of its song.

I do not dare to bless or ban, —
I am too blind to see, —
But this one little prayer I can
Put up to God for thee,
Because I know what fair, pure things
Thy inmost wishes be;

That what thy heart desires the most
Is what he loves to grant, —
The love that counteth not its cost
If any crave or want;
The presence of the Holy Ghost,
The soul’s inhabitant;

The wider vision of the mind;
The spirit bright with sun;
The temper like a fragrant wind,
Chilling and grieving none;
The quickened heart to know God’s will
And on his errands run;

The ministry of little things, —
Not counted mean or small
By that dear alchemy which brings
Some grain of gold from all;
The faith to wait as well as work,
Whatever may befall.

So, sure of thee, and unafraid,
I make my daily prayer,
Nor fear that my blind zeal be made
Thy injury or snare:
God give thee, love, thy heart’s desire,
And bless thee everywhere!

A THOUSAND leagues of wind-blown space,
A thousand leagues of sea,
Half of the great earth’s hiding face
Divides mine eyes from thee;
The world is strong, the waves are wide,
But my good-will is stronger still,
My love, than wind or tide.

These sentinels which Fate has set
To bar and hold me here
I make my errand-men, to get
A message to thine ear.
The winds shall waft, the waters bear,
And spite of seas I, when I please,
Can reach thee everywhere.

Prayers are like birds to find the way;
Thoughts have a swifter flight;
And mine stream forth to thee all day,
Nor stop to rest by night.
Like silent angels at thy side
They stand unseen, they bend and lean,
They bless and warn and guide.

There is no near, there is no far,
There is no loss or change,
To love which, like a fixèd star,
Abideth in one range,
And shines, and shines, with quenchless eyes,
And sends long rays in many ways
To lighten distant skies.

Where sight is not, faith brighter burns;
So faithfully I wait,
Secure that loyal loving earns
Its guerdon soon or late, —
Secure, though lacking word or sign,
That thy true thought keeps as it ought
Tryst with each thought of mine.

EVERY day is a fresh beginning,
Every morn is the world made new.
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,
Here is a beautiful hope for you, —
A hope for me and a hope for you.

All the past things are past and over;
The tasks are done and the tears are shed.
Yesterday’s errors let yesterday cover;
Yesterday’s wounds, which smarted and bled,
Are healed with the healing which night has shed.

Yesterday now is a part of forever,
Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight,
With glad days, and sad days, and bad days, which never
Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight,
Their fulness of sunshine or sorrowful night.

Let them go, since we cannot re-live them,
Cannot undo and cannot atone;
God in his mercy receive, forgive them!
Only the new days are our own;
To-day is ours, and to-day alone.

Here are the skies all burnished brightly,
Here is the spent earth all re-born,
Here are the tired limbs springing lightly
To face the sun and to share with the morn
In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn.

Every day is a fresh beginning;
Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain,
And, spite of old sorrow and older sinning,
And puzzles forecasted and possible pain,
Take heart with the day, and begin again.

TO have touched Heaven and failed to enter in!
Ah, Elsa, prone upon the lonely shore,
Watching the swan-wings beat along the blue,
Watching the glimmer of the silver mail,
Like flash of foam, till all are lost to view, —
What may thy sorrow or thy watch avail?
He cometh nevermore.

All gone the new hope of thy yesterday, —
The tender gaze and strong, like dewy fire,
The gracious form with airs of Heaven bedight,
The love that warmed thy being like a sun: —
Thou hadst thy choice of noonday or of night;
Now the swart shadows gather, one by one,
To give thee thy desire!

To every life one heavenly chance befalls;
To every soul a moment, big with fate,
When, grown importunate with need and fear,
It cries for help, and lo! from close at hand,
The voice Celestial answers, “I am here!”
Oh, blessed souls, made wise to understand,
Made bravely glad to wait!

But thou, pale watcher on the lonely shore,
Where the surf thunders, and the foam-bells fly,
Is there no place for penitence and pain,
No saving grace in thy all-piteous rue?
Will the bright vision never come again?
Alas, the swan-wings vanish in the blue,
There cometh no reply!

ONE stitch dropped as the weaver drove
His nimble shuttle to and fro,
In and out, beneath, above,
Till the pattern seemed to bud and grow
As if the fairies had helping been, —
One small stitch which could scarce be seen.
But the one stitch dropped pulled the next stitch out,
And a weak place grew in the fabric stout;
And the perfect pattern was marred for aye
By the one small stitch that was dropped that day.

One small life in God’s great plan,
How futile it seems as the ages roll,
Do what it may, or strive how it can
To alter the sweep of the infinite whole!
A single stitch in an endless web,
A drop in the ocean’s flow and ebb!
But the pattern is rent where the stitch is lost,
Or marred where the tangled threads have crossed;
And each life that fails of its true intent
Mars the perfect plan that its Master meant.