Part 4 — THOMAS EDWARD BROWN

SHE knelt upon her brother’s grave, My little girl of six years old— He used to be so good and brave, The sweetest lamb of all our fold; He used to shout, he used to sing, Of all our tribe the little king— And so unto the turf her ear she laid, To hark if still in that dark place he play’d. No sound! no sound! Death’s silence was profound; And horror crept Into her aching heart, and Dora wept. If this is as it ought to be, My God, I leave it unto Thee.

WHEN Jessie comes with her soft breast, And yields the golden keys, Then is it as if God caress’d Twin babes upon His knees— Twin babes that, each to other press’d, Just feel the Father’s arms, wherewith they both are bless’d. But when I think if we must part, And all this personal dream be fled— O then my heart! O then my useless heart! Would God that thou wert dead— A clod insensible to joys and ills— A stone remote in some bleak gully of the hills!

TO live within a cave—it is most good; But, if God make a day, And some one come, and say, ‘Lo! I have gather’d faggots in the wood!’ E’en let him stay, And light a fire, and fan a temporal mood! So sit till morning! when the light is grown That he the path can read, Then bid the man God-speed! His morning is not thine: yet must thou own They have a cheerful warmth—those ashes on the stone.

A GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot! Rose plot, Fringed pool, Fern’d grot— The veriest school Of peace; and yet the fool Contends that God is not— Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool? Nay, but I have a sign; ’Tis very sure God walks in mine.