BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 95 



From looming crags straight hemlocks skyward went; 

 Along their shafts upcarried the eye sent 

 Its glance to plains of constant deepest blue, 

 By bough enhanced and leaf of greenest hue. 



"On hilltop tall above a flowery field 

 There sat aloft the sylvan spires to shield, 

 When rays of sun ashoot from median sky 

 In throbs of heat restrain the bird's shrill cry. 

 Woodlands rise on and on, and murmuring sounds 

 Of rush and splash rise out from dense tree-mounds, 

 And song of winds entranced around me play, 

 Whence life and forceful vigor crown the day. . . . 



"Hush ! Night at last reigns over all supreme, 

 And sense and mind blend one in trance or dream. 

 The mood of noon with form of thine still clings, 

 Tho midnight's note gives voice that truly rings 

 Of greater depths of ardor than e'er first 

 When yearning youth paused but to quench its thirst. 

 Then folded for one brief respite by thee, 

 Earth's feeling, true with thine eternity ; 

 In thought like this what care for life or death, 

 What staying bond hath power this force to wrest?" 



Not far from the same time she wrote, in a poem which was 

 probably a sort of metrical letter to a friend, these significant 

 lines, pointing to this vital change or deepening of her re- 

 ligious consciousness : 



"I stand imbued 



With light laid up from youth's first early store, 

 For hours of penitential act and psalm 

 May not from faith, but intent fervid come. 

 You smile that penance such as these trite ways 

 Could turn the spirit into wake of dawn? 

 Yes, smile you may, for very fact remains, 

 Not prayer, the guiding mind alert and free 

 From doctrines, litanies, and forms of Church, 

 But meanings born of stress and strain 

 Uplead the toilsome path of growth's full self, 

 Where Science, Art, and all of Beauty's wiles 



