Albert Smythe Poems

I know that the Master walked on earth,
For I've heard the tale of His human birth,
And all that He did would I have done
Had he been mortal and I God's Son.
...

ONE figure flitting through my dreamland ways
Holds out dear hands and beckons me to go,
And all the world is sweeter for a phrase
That dimly whispers when the lights are low.
Once, leaping through the silences of snow,
Far up the heights, the sky all turned to haze,
A little rill, escaping, rippled so:
Adventured thus, my dreamland figure strays.

Belated on the spray that afternoon
The red, unripened bramble-berries hung,
Touched with November sunshine, fading soon–
A smile, untimely bright, in mockery flung;
A blackbird, all his summer anthems sung,
Fled with a scream; about our feet lay strewn
The leafy havoc; and my heart was wrung
To know, too late for life, life's only boon.

They pass, these uninterpretable years,
A weird, oracular host, abrupt and stern,
Interminably ranked. Time domineers,
Despoiling us of all the joys we earn;
And yet, Soul-shiningly, the mist-banks burn
With glory on the hither side of tears.
The out-world phantoms nevermore return;
The world within enfolds the years and spheres.
...

Once again the ocean fulness,
Once again the daring leap,
All my limbs o'er-lapped in coolness,
All my joy upon the deep–
...

What shall it profit a man
To gain the world–if he can–
And lose his soul, as they say
In their uninstructed way?
...

Dear little darkened way where we have climbed
How often and again,
Down to the still, star-shadowed haunt where chimed
Uncounted hours of peace beyond all pain!–
...