Julia

We stood by Julia's lowly grave
     When all the glorious trees were bare, 
Save odorous Pines that seemed to wave 
     Their censers in the sparkling air.
And cold, and calm, the winter lay 
     On marble pool, and vale, and crest 
Of the blue mountains far away,
     As death lay rigid on her breast.

Gone mute the lips whose thrillings fine
     Could all my answering pulses move, 
And frorne the hand that pressed in mine 
     The glowing seal of human love.
The deep, dark beauty of those spheres 
     Of eloquent light—her earnest eyes 
Forever quenched, hid mine in tears, 
     That Faith might suffer so to rise.

But wave by wave the wintry air
     Was mellowed, warm with rosy light;
And thrill by thrill I grew aware 
     Of a pure Angel clothed in white, 
Whose equal wings were Love and Prayer 
     That held her heart in equipoise, 
And the rich light that warmed me there 
     Welled from her dark but luminous eyes.

The buds on all the naked limbs
     Burst into Summer with a flash
Of emerald glory: while the hymns 
     Of multitudinous birds and plash
Of laping waters, and the low 
     Eolian harpings of the pine, 
With her rich voice made interflow, 
     That vibrated her form divine.

Scarce touched the earth her radiant feet, 
     Scarce veiled that form her light cymar 
That fluttered where the full heart beat
     Like the clear throbbing of a star!
The beauty of her life had made
     Complete the glory of her death;
The very clay had cast no shade
     Upon her spirit’s love and faith.

So fair in heaven as true on earth, 
     So blest as willing here to bless;
She had no need of Death's new-birth
     To heir the crown of Righteousness, 
Yet all her zeal for human weal, 
     Which, even here, with Angels chimed, 
Her meek, firm nature — firm as steel,
     And meek as love,—had Death sublimed.

While the deep patience that could bear 
     The blight of silent hopes foredoomed, 
And Death's delay in Life's despair, 
     To more than hope's fruition bloomed.
Nor had she lost her human love, 
     In deepening of the love divine, 
For one white hand was clasped above, 
     And one fell tenderly in thine.

Her clear, unfathomable eyes,
     Her lips with more than girlhood's bloom
Her very smile, said " Come, arise!
     Life's subtle fire eludes the tomb.
Arise, and climb the hills of God, 
     By noble life and largest love;
So all the elder Angels trod,
     Whose crowns are beacon-stars above.

"In body's pain, and spirit's fear, 
     In doubts that clearest souls annoy, 
My life shall lend unconscious cheer, 
     And breathe a deeper joy in joy.
The aspirations of thy heart
     My breath shall sooner waft above;
More pure thy sensate loves shall start,
     For this our sublimated love.

“And if in twilight's mystic hour, 
     Or solemn glooms of whispering pine,
Or where the awful sea has power
     To make thy solitude divine
Sometimes the glimpse of angel eyes
     Thrill down thy senses deep unrest,
Or angel arms imperative
    Thy form upon a viewless breast—

Seem not that clodded earth which
     Can hold its course as ever, thus,
The clay-bound soul unplumed to fly,
     On equal wings may soar with us.
Enough if in thy loftier sense
     Are echoes from the deepest soul
With glimpses telling where and whence
     The everlasting life’s floods roll.

Fell back my spirit from its mood,
     And paled her spirit in the air;
The wave-like glory of the wood
     Fell back and left the ridges bare.
But all that wealth of summer’s green
     To Heart and Soul the vision gave,
And Julia’s angel walked between 
     What time we turned from Julia’s grave.