Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/371

1840-50.] ALICE GARY. 355 The evil I have done I do deplore, And give my praise to whom it doth be- long For each good deed that seemeth out of wrong An accidental step, and nothing more. Treasure for heavenly investment meant, I, like a thriftless prodigal, have spent. I am not in the favor of men's eyes. Nor am I skilled immortal stuff to weave ; No rose of honor wear I on my sleeve. To cheer the gloom when that my body lies An unrigged hulk, to rot upon life's ford — The crew of mutinous senses overboard. "What shall I bring thy anger to efface, Great Lord ? The flowers along the summer brooks In bashful silence praise Thee with sweet looks, But I, alas ! am poor in beauty's grace, And am undone — lost utterly, unless My faults thou buriest in thy tenderness. A FRAGMENT. It was a sandy level wherein stood This old and lonesome house, — far as the eye Could measure, on the green back of the wood, The smoke lay always, lowland lazily. Down the high gable windows, all one way, Hung the long, drowsy curtains, and across The sunken shingles, where the rain would stay, The roof was ridged, a hand's breadth deep, with moss. The place was all so still you would have said. The picture of the Summer, drawn, should be With golden ears, laid back against her head. And hsten to the far, low-lying sea. But from the rock, rough-grained and ice- encrowned, Some little flower from out some cleft will rise ; And in this quiet land my love I found, With all their soft light, sleepy, in her eyes. No bush to lure a bird to sing to her — In depths of calm the gnats' faint hum was drowned, And the wind's voice was like a little stir Of the uneasy silence, not like sound. No tender trembles of the dew at close Of day, — at morn, no insect choir ; No sweet bees at sweet work about the rose. Like little housewife fairies round their fire. And yet the place, suffused with her, seemed fair — Ah, I would be immortal, could I write How from her forehead fell the shining hair. As morning falls from heaven — so bright ! so brio'ht ! FAITH AND WORKS. Not what we think, but what we do. Makes saint*; of us — all stiff" and cold. The outlines of the corpse show through The cloth of gold. And in clespite the outward sin — Despite belief with creeds at strife,