A Birthday Tribute to Zöe

     Dear Zöe, blessing & blessed One!
The moons that measure the season of Earth
Have brought us again the day of thy birth
     In the warm rich light of the August sun.
Another year in that golden sphere
     Where Beauty & Love, & Life, are one,
Hath given new charms to thy glad career,
     To deepen, in ways it were hard to guess,
Thy earth-life’s beauty & love sincere,
With its. Maiden glee up-bubbling free,
     And the depths of a Womanly tenderness!
     In that strange ne life there can be nothing less
Of all sweet gifts that adorned thee hence
So blithesome & pure is thy heart, how sure
Shall thy graces grow & our loves endure!

What a year may bring to a soul made free
     Of the upper worlds, it were much to know;
But thy love for us & our love for thee
     Shall shed some gleam of it here below.
Ah, might they reveal the things we feel,—
     What depths of vision & heights of thought
     Could well be thine, though in warp unsought,
As thy natural breath, we should see, & know
What no thou knowest of that unseen
     Inscrutable World—thing true I ween
Than the wisdom of earth has painfully taught!

One lesson I learn, as toward thee I turn,
     And behold the joy of thy wise heart, press’d
     To a Father’s breast, as of old endeared,
Thy rapturous smile half-hidden the while
In the sway depths of his ample beard
As thou layest the touch of a healing palm
On the Mother’s brow, thou tell’st me how
     Soul looks through the shadow, & love can calm
The rays of bereaval, though arrows of Death
May have found a rift in the shield of Faith;
     For warm Love, wiser than cool belief,
     Is strong to conquer a moral grief.
Dear Zöe, Is thine, from thy luminous sphere
To breathe that strength & immortal cheer
     Into lives of the loving who hold thee dear!