Poems (Jackson)/Charlotte Cushman

by Helen Hunt Jackson

Where constant through the golden air
The tree of life sheds mystic leaf,
Which angels to the nations bear,
Healing alike their joy and grief."

CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN.

I

UT yesterday it was. Long years ago
It seems. The world so altered looks to-day
That, journeying idly with my thoughts astray,
I gazed where rose one lofty peak of snow
Above grand tiers on tiers of peaks below.
One moment brief it shone, then sank away,
As swift we reached a point where foot-hills lay
So near they seemed like mountains huge to grow,
And touch the sky. That instant, idly still,
My eye fell on a printed line, and read
Incredulous, with sudden anguished thrill,
The name of this great queen among the dead.
I raised my eyes. The dusty foot-hills near
Had gone. Again the snowy peak shone clear.

II.

Oh! thou beloved woman, soul and heart
And life, thou standest unapproached and grand,
As still that glorious snowy peak doth stand.
The dusty barrier our clumsy art

DEDICATION.

SAW men kneeling where their hands had brought
And fashioned curiously a pile of stone.
To God they said they gave it, for his own,
And that their psalms and prayers had wrought
Its consecration. When, perplexed, I sought
Their meaning, they but answered with a groan,
And called my question blasphemy. Alone,
In silence of the wilderness, I thought
Again. Swift answer came from rock, tree, sod:
"These puny prayers superfluous rise, and late
These psalms. When first the world swung out in space,
Amid the shoutings of the sons of God,
Then was its every atom dedicate,
Forever holy by God's gift and grace."

CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN