Poems by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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A Marriage-Table

THERE was a marriage-table where One sate,

Haply, unnoticed, till they craved His aid:

Thenceforward does it seem that He has made

All virtuous marriage-tables consecrate:

And so, at this, where without pomp or state

We sit, and only say, or mute, are fain

To wish the simple words "God bless these twain!"

I think that He who "in the midst" doth wait

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Word In Season

THIS is a day the Lord hath made."--Thus spake

The good religious heart, unstained, unworn,

Watching the golden glory of the morn.--

Since, on each happy day that came to break

Like sunlight o'er this silent life of mine,

Yea, on each beauteous morning I saw shine,

I have remembered these your words, rejoiced

And been glad in it. So, o'er many-voiced

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Four Years

At the Midsummer, when the hay was down,

Said I mournful - Though my life be in its prime,

Bare lie my meadows all shorn before their time,

O'er my sere woodlands the leaves are turning brown;

It is the hot Midsummer, when the hay is down.

At the Midsummer, when the hay was down,

Stood she by the brooklet, young and very fair,

With the first white bindweed twisted in her hair -

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Dream Of Resurrection

SO heavenly beautiful it lay,

It was less like a human corse

Than that fair shape in which perforce

A lost hope clothes itself alway.

The dream showed very plain: the bed

Where that known unknown face reposed,--

A woman's face with eyelids closed,

A something precious that was dead;

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Christmas Carol

TUNE--"God rest ye, merry gentleman."

GOD rest ye, merry gentlemen; let nothing you dismay,

For Jesus Christ, our Saviour, was born on Christmas-day.

The dawn rose red o'er Bethlehem, the stars shone through the gray,

When Jesus Christ, our Saviour, was born on Christmas-day.

God rest ye, little children; let nothing you affright,

For Jesus Christ, your Saviour, was born this happy night;

Along the hills of Galilee the white flocks sleeping lay,

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Valentine

YE are twa laddies unco gleg,

An' blithe an' bonnie:

As licht o' heel as Anster's Meg;--

Gin ye'd a lassie's favor beg,

I' faith she couldna stir a peg

Ance lookin' on ye!

He's a douce wiselike callant--Jim:

Of wit aye ready.

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Fable

SILENT and sunny was the way

Where Youth and I danced on together:

So winding and embowered o'er,

We could not see one rood before.

Nevertheless all merrily

We bounded onward, Youth and I,

Leashed closely in a silken tether:

(Well-a-day, well-a-day!)

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Dream Of Death

WHERE shall we sail to-day?"--Thus said, methought,

A voice that only could be heard in dreams:

And on we glided without mast or oar,

A wondrous boat upon a wondrous sea.

Sudden, the shore curved inward to a bay,

Broad, calm, with gorgeous sea-weeds waving slow

Beneath the water, like rich thoughts that stir

In the mysterious deep of poets' hearts.

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Flower Of A Day

OLD friend, that with a pale and pensile grace

Climbest the lush hedgerows, art thou back again,

Marking the slow round of the wond'rous years?

Didst beckon me a moment, silent flower?

Silent? As silent is the archangel's pen

That day by day writes our life chronicle,

And turns the page,--the half-forgotten page,

Which all eternity will never blot.

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Psalm For New Year’s Eve

A FRIEND stands at the door;

In either tight-closed hand

Hiding rich gifts, three hundred and three score:

Waiting to strew them daily o'er the land

Even as seed the sower.

Each drops he, treads it in and passes by:

It cannot be made fruitful till it die.

O good New Year, we clasp

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A Living Picture

No, I'll not say your name. I have said it now,

As you mine, first in childish treble, then

Up through a score and more familiar years

Till baby-voices mock us. Time may come

When your tall sons look down on our white hair,

Amused to hear us call each other thus,

And question us about the old, old days,

The far-off days, the days when we were young.

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A German Student’s Funeral Hymn

WITH steady march across the daisy meadow,

And by the churchyard wall we go;

But leave behind, beneath the linden shadow,

One, who no more will rise and go:

Farewell, our brother, here sleeping in dust,

Till thou shalt wake again, wake with the just.

Along the street where neighbor nods to neighbor,

Along the busy street we throng,

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik