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[The moon had tipped the housetops, and the wind

Sighed out in music to Italian skies
[Its last faint evening breath, and black outlined
1 saw the giant Campanile rise,
io shouldering up to heaven, and a spell
Jeemed on the voiceless watery waste to dwell.

Iwift as a thought and silent as a grave,

With smooth black sides and thin keen iron prows,
'he gondolas swept on, a thin -lipped wave

Of silver ribbon gleaming at their bows ;
>o swift and silent that their passage seemed
LS if men slumbering saw them when the}' dreamed.

Lnd so we crossed the narrow shining street

Where every block was mirrored, and we crept

ito long lanes where never hurrying feet

Awoke the sounding echoes as they slept ;
'here moss-grown terrace and gray crumbling wall

"he glories of tie vanished days recall :

! I ,

And if you would see Venice as she is,
Wander by night in silence and alone

Among her towers and sculptured palaces,
And read the story she has writ in stone ;

Then, as you read, she will upon you cast

The fascination of her wondrous past.

Muse on, and let the silent gondolier

Wind at his will 'mid tortuous, twisting ways.
And broad lagoons, with waters wide and clear,

On whose unruffled breast the moonbeam plays ;
And move not, speak not, for the mystery
Of Venice there is with you on the sea. I

Pass, if you will, beneath the five great domes

Of old Saint Mark's; watch how the glittering heig^

Soars in quick curves ; see how each sunbeam ro^ims
And fills the nave with soft pure amber light ;

This is the heart of Venice, and the tomb

Which folds her story in its sacred gloom.

So leave her sunlight, enter now her cells.

By frowning black-browed ports and massy bars/:

Where pestilence in foul dank vapor dwells,

Far, far from sun and day, from moon and stars

The only sound when whispering waters glide

In on the bosom of a sluggish tide.

Then turn again into her solitudes,—

Things of to-day will faint and fade like smoke,—
Drift through the darkened nooks where silence broods,

Let memory fall upon you like a cloak ;
I Venice will rise around you as of old,
pecked out in marble, amethyst, and gold.

ways,
?ar,
im plays;

iBut that was years ago ; to-day, the notes
J Of wild free song have left her silver streets ;
yler blazoned banner now no longer floats

In aureate folds, no more the sunrise greets ;
;he lives but in a past, so strong and brave.
It serves alike for monument and grave.

ering heig'f
im roams
' light ;

nassv bars I

1 and stars
de

^bc Spirit of Sleep*

Alone on a shimmering molten tide,
With never a stir in the silent wood,

For slumber was hovering far and wide

O'er the drov/sy land and the voiceless flood.

Naught but the wash as my paddle dipped

In the foam-flecked pools 1 was gliding throUj"^

And lines of hurrying ripples slipped

From the ivory bows of the White Canoe.

The hour was full of an infinite rest,

Of peace unfathomed, undreamt, unknown

By those who have turned from their mother's bro
To teeming cities and streets of stone.

Then out from the shore where the wavelets brok
A spectral shape 'mid the shadows dark

Swept silently on, and stroke by stroke

Drew up to my side in a spectral barque. .•

Her face was the face of an angel maid.
Her hair was black as the raven's wing.

An holy calm on her forehead played,
Such calm as only the angels bring :

As snow on the crest of a hill is white,

Her wonderful craft had a pallid gleam ;

And so we two on that mystical night

Shot on like forms in a waking dream ;

And never a word she spake to me,

In thjir waxen lids her eyes were veiled,

But the thrust of her blade was steady and free,
As over the river we swiftly sailed.

So side by side, till a moonbeam shone
Like a bar of silver athwart the bay.

And the ghostly visitant paddled on

To its verge, and faded like mist away.

1 felt that the vision I saw was true

By the face of the troubled swirling deep,

And dreamt, as I lay in the White Canoe,

Of'my cruise with the " Spirit of Silent Sleep."

!; I

1: !
Ill

Zbc SlcepiUQ 1barp.

Sleep now, my Harp, forever now no song ;
Minstrel, awake no more, back to the place

Of everlasting silence, till ere long-
Cold time thy very memory will efface.

Far in the glades and dells 1 made thy honie,

Strung each resounding chord beneath a pine,

Naught but free winds of heaven dared to roam

And wpke thy strong pure echoes, Harp of mine.

There came a hand, a small white hand, and crept
Across thy strings, and wooed each throbbing t

Till one by one the harmonies that slept

Burst forth in strains of Love, and Love alone :

Higher and fuller, till the very woods

Caught up that rhythmic burden, and they bore
The waves of melody which surged in floods

Ro'ind thee, O Harp, to swell, alas, no more !

The small hand passed ; that all too sweet refrain
Sank sobbing into silence, every string

Lay trembling, mute, and slackened ; nor again
Can aught that long lost thrill of music bring.

Sleep, no rude touch shall wake thee ; so forget
Thy pulsing death song, and the wild sweet pa

Would God it had not been, and 1 — but yet
God willed it, and to all comes sleep at last.

An.
lOr

Zo (ID? ipipe.

Wake, sluniberer, too long the cloudy shrine

Of fair Nicotia forsaken sleeps,
While her dull priest, O briar brown of mine,

His fading red morocco cloister keeps.

Ah, now the incense rises; thus of yore

Did bold Sir Walter stride his heaving poop

In clouds of smoke, and scan the sea plains o'er
For Spanish galley, merchantman, or sloop.

Ah, amber lips, were human lips as true.
Did they but proffer solace such as this !

Alas, alas, I turn again to woo

But thee alone with a fond lover's kiss.

Perhaps, who knows but fate in olden days
Bade all men love ; if passion was not ripe,

|And man shunned maid, she changed her hidden ways
And metamorphosed woman to a pipe ?

And hence our strange proclivities ; what touch
Can so unseal the subtle springs of thought.

Or marshal bygone days, or soothe so much

The wild weird phantoms of a brain o'er wrought ?

up, they come ! old faces, old desires.
Dead love, dead longing, through the vaporous mist
see them gather round the bowl's dull hres—
The lips which once as careless boys we kissed.

'A*-

ill

All this, and more, forsake me not, old friend.

What though they say 'tis poison, take no heed,
Rank heresy will flourish to the end : —

I follow where the good brown briar may lead.

Sonnet

This, only this, to lie upon the lip
Of some bluff cliff, with you beside ; to feel
The kiss of heaven's own breath break loose and stea

From sandy dunes ; to hear the green surge dip

In thunderous ruin ; follow some white-winged ship
Into the twilight ; mark the stars unseal
Their thin aerial lids, and circling wheel

Around their pole, above the new moon's tip.

World-weary, I turn once again to draw
Life from the fount of life, and to abide
On the warm breast of her who all men bore ;
Nor turn in vain, if once these old eyes saw
Peace brood upon the flood, or caught the tide
Of shining sea creep up the long low shore.

Is i\

heed,

lead.

temptation-

^el

se and ste;>

dip
ged ship

:n bore

le tide
shore.

The Spirit of Sleep hau laid her hand

On the face of the river ; it silent lay ;

In the far-oflf west an aureate band

Of cloudlets wept o'er the dying day,

And the moon climbed up, as I paddled alone,

Up the star-studded height to her azure throne.

I The rapids were calling me soft and strong.

Their myriad voices all whispered, *' Come": —

[To only one toucli that mystical song

May swell, and must to all else be dumb ;

lYet of all the harmonies raised above

We find the echo in one chord. Love : —

A sable shadow athwart the night

Like the plume of a giant raven blew,

Till faint as a dream came the silver light

Of the moon in the clouds it was hastening through ;

Then an evil thought fluttered into my heart

And pierced my soul like a poisoned dart.

"Is it well that only you gained to lose,

To sip at the wine as the wine cup fell,
To bafHe all other, and find the ruse
7 Of a devilish mammon left naught but Hell ;
waste the music of life in vain
'hile destiny answered in one note, * Pain '?

Lo, here is a bourne where the weary flee,
Unpierced, unfathomed, and sacred still ;

As silent as only the grave can be,

With its infinite secrets of woes and ill ;

Turn, turn again to thy mother's breast.

And find in her outstretched arms thy rest."

1 looked at the river, 'twas not so grim,

And the kiss of its ripples was not so cold ;

Deep, deep in its bosom the weeds were dim,
As down to its tryst with the sea it rolled,

And 1 said, '* It is well ; for, O River, with thee

I will cross the bar to eternity."

All horror of death it had fled afar ;

The waves said, " Welcome ; away ! away! "
When out of the dusk one thrice blessed star

Flung a beam of glory athwart the bay ;
I looked in the hurrying treacherous tide
And saw — the face of a suicide !

m I

Oh, Thou, in the hollow of whose great hand
The streams of multitude worlds do lie.

Who rulest their storms with a magical wand,
And chainest the thunderbolt to the sky,

Lay the seal of Thy power on a mortal will.

And say to its sorrow, *' Peace, peace ; be still."

a.S). 147-

)ld;

hee

way
ir

! ;

I "

e,
.ad,

still.

A word from the Infinite came,

And breatli was bestowed upon clay ;

A spark from the Intlnite flame

Shone bright in his breast for a day ;

hi pursuit of the phantom of fame

The brown locks were turned into gray.

A whisper came out of the void : —
*^ The shadows of even are nigh,

Say, how has the time been employed ?
Naught else now is left but to die,

For of all that thou here hast enjoyed
Account must be rendered on high,"

'* I have followed the voice in my heart.
Till my glory has filled all the land,

1 worship truth, beauty, and art.

And my captives are counted as sand.

And earth to the uttermost part

Has bowed to the weight of my hand.

" A new faith came out of the East,
That spake of a child and a star,

And held that each shaveling priest

Was more mighty than emperors are,

That the power of Olympus had ceased,
And peace cometh but from afar.

** But I stamped on the insolent creed,

And drave the swine into the earth,

To abide with the dead, and to breed

Where the dead might look down on their birth

I planted so deeply their seed

That in harvest time there will be dearth.

ijl
II

ilil
Hi.!

**So now that the even is here,

And I go to my infinite home,

E'en Lethe can bring me no fear,
For rest lieth over its foam.

And a nation will write o'er my bier :

* He lived for his nation and Rome.' "

Inscrutable essence of Light,

Oh, Fount of unchangeable truth !

This heathen, though blinded in sight
And bred in religion uncouth.

Obeyed his conception of right,
His inherited precepts of youth.

Are the sons of the night to be lost.
And salvation be kept for the day,

On the billows of ignorance tossed,

With no Pilot to lead them the way.

To show how the sea may be crossed.
To teach them to trust and to pray ?

lit!

H nDeMterranean IRigbt

Across the olive slopes of hill and vale

The long blue shadows creep,
Heralds of twilight, now the loitering gale

Brings in its bosom sleep.

And in the East one star, refulgent, white,

That palpitates and glows
Above a brimming sea ; its argent light

Deepening ere morn to rose.

And out, far out, with never voice nor stir,

Illimitable lies
A still dead flood, nor ship nor mariner

On that vast mirror plies.

For all the stars are doubled, and the shore

Dips to a sister strand.
And cypress nods to cypress, leaning o'er

Semblance of other land.

Naught but the wash as laughing waters fall

From the gaunt, shaggy hills.
Or a lone night bird's plaintive lingering call

In some dusk thicket thrills.

And thus the blue vault o'er the dark world bends.

Smiles on her land and main,
Until this drowsy old earth wakes, and sends

Those smiles to heaven again.

'!ili

J!l t

I !|li

So every long, cool, balmy night repeats :
'' He to whom nature's nurse

May lay his hand upon the heart that beats
Within a Universe."

Zbc ®I& St^lc of proposaK

Not so very long ago,

At the bottom of a lane,
Where the shallow waters flash and flicker by,

Near a stile antique and low.

Walked a simple village swain
And a maiden, not so simple, by her eye.

Oh, his thoughts were great and deep
As he pondered, pacing there :

" Shall I risk it all, and ask her by the stile ? "
And the maid, though half asleep.
Felt by something in the air

She had better keep awake a little while.

So he pondered on and on,
Till her patience nearly went,

She wished she were the man and not the maid ;
** Oh, you stupid, silly John,
1 would jump at what you meant.

If you only were to stammer in the shade."

Then the stile's stiff, rusty bones

Gave a shiver and a shake,
A thrill of life ran through him like a flame,

And in quaint, old-fashioned tones

To the loitering- pair he spake,
Calling each astonished villager by name :

" Such a pretty pair c geese

I have never, never seen ;
Why this dallying on a question that's so plain ?

John take Sue, and live in peace,

With no bickering between
Man and wife. Now go, nor bother me again."

That was all he said ; and soon,

On that silent summer night.
Sue looked up at John, and John looked down at Sue,

Till the bashful, modest moon

In a cloudlet hid her light.
As along the leafy byway went the two.

maid ;

ii!
H

ilJH

^be Sceher after peace.

*' Ah, v/here are the islands of infinite peace ?
And where are the isles of the blest ? "
Said a Soul, as it longed for life's battle to cease,
And sighed for the haven of rest ;
** Come ! come! " said the Sea, with his cavernous lips,
" 1 will bear thee across to thy home
Far over my plains, where the white-winged ships
Like sheep all unshepherded roam."

So away to the South to a coral-ringed isle,
With the bosom of ocean like gold,

Where the summer eternally verdant did smile,
And the halcyon seasons unrolled ;

Where life was aflame with its color and stir,
With its purity, vigor, and glow ;

But the smoke of an altar rose high in the air, —
'' Not here,'* said the Soul, *' 1 must go."

Then away to the North, till aflash through the sprayj
An aurora gleamed vivid and white.

Flooding glittering fields, where in terrible sway
Ruled winter's immutable might ;

Where mountainous high, to a star-studded sky.
Great bergs shouldered up through the snow ;

But a skeleton told of starvation hard by, —
" Not here," said the Soul, " I must go."

ase,

\ous lir^, i

O'er country and continent, desert and field,

In village, in city and town.
The Soul went a-roaming, but nothing could yield

The calm it would claim as its own ;
Though earth promised fair, 'twas but dross in the end,

Till the Soul did its wandering cease
[And returned to its God ; then the hand of a friend

Wrote above : *' Here one lieth in peace."

ships

nile,

ir,
air,—

the spray?
sway

id sky,
le snow ;

Sweet Servitu&e»

A captive who his fetters burst.
And stood inebriate at the first

Long breath of liberty,
Turned back from freedom to his cell,
Content in bondage still to dwell.

And 1, who smiled beneath my yoke
Till Fate its dear dominion broke

And set the prisoner free,
Would turn from very Heaven above
To kiss the chains I learned to love.

®ccan6 Zlwain,

I : ill

Still as very death I rested

On the wave,
Watched the rollers verdant crested,

Like a grave,
In whose bosom friend and foeman.
Prince and peasant, knight and yeoman.

Lay the brave.

E.irth was silent, earth was sleeping.

Day was o'er,
Stars their lonely watch were keeping,

As of yore ;
All seemed dead their vigil under.
Save the dull and distant thunder

On the shore.

In the West the mist was clouding

All the sky.
Where the sun his, glory shrouding.

Dipped to die ;
And long arms of v/hite came stealing
From his tomb, the stars concealing,

Pale and high.

^g:>

iing
idlng,

Closer, denser, folded round me,

Till I thought
God Himself could not have found me

If He soug:ht ;
Or a crimson villain hiding
in that fog might, there abiding.

Care for naught.

Then across another ocean.

Memory's sea,
Blind black billows of emotion

Came to me ;
Long deep surges born of passion,
Fated but to vainly dash on

Destiny.

Mystic surge on surge, all falling

On my brain.
Till the bygone years recalling

Back again
I re-lived the life I wasted.
Once more quail'ed its joys, and tasted

All its pain ;

And once more my love I buried,

Sadly kissed
Parting lips, and then the serried

Ranks of mist
Of Forgetfulness came rolling.
An unconciously consoling

Eucharist.

;

Dead to life and dead to loving,

All beside,
Here, alone, my boat slow moving

With the tide.
To the Infinite from Finite,
To the slumbrous, drowsy twilight

Let me dide.

Pi
ill

■ I: :
Mini

i !

!!i! tili

Dijnamite BilL

" Know Henderson ? Yaas, —

Right there by the drill,
With the kink in his leg,

Thet's Dynamite Bill :
What's that you said ?

You're a jay of a bird
Ef you ain't never heard

Of Dynamite Bill !

'* Jest five months ago.

We wuz near through the cut
Right close to the bridge,

When tht blame foreman put
A durn little Swede

To loadin' up holes.
And tcuchin' off fuse

With a chunk of hot coals.

" Wall, the whistle had blowed,

I off to the shack
With Bill close behind,

When we stopped to look back ;
And right thar in the cut,

Still as if he wiiz dead,
Lay the Swede, and the rock

Next his face wuz all red.

Two fuse on his left.

Beside whar he fell,
Were spittin' out fire

Like black snakes of hell ;
He had lit them, and turned

To the next hole, and tripped
On a boulder somehow.

And was stunned whar he slipped.

*' I froze ez I stood ;

Fur the poor little cuss
Were the pet of the camp ,

And the devil's own fuss
Would be raised if the kid

Got mixed up in a blast :
Bill ripped out an oath,—

His first and 'lis last,—

i I

niil i

.11

! iiiiiijl

liiiiii

! M'

*' Then 'fore I could stir

Dropped hi' coat and lit out
Fur the cut, with a whoop

And a sort of a shout,
Meant for God or the kid ;

And the fuse wuz low down
And soon thar would be

More blood on that stone.

*' Right up whar he lay

Sailed Bill, and he grabbed
The Swede by the arms ;

The next minute there stabbed.
Two pillars of flame

Up into the air,
All over the kid

And Bill Henderson there !

*' When the smoke hed all cleared

I run to the place,
And found them both heaped

In mighty small space, —
The kid? Wall, he had

The inside of the track,
For the dynamite blowed

His consciousness back.

" But Bill,— yes, his kg

Were a piirty long job,
And outside of the fracture

He'd one on the nob ;
So that's why we call him,-—

What's that ? No, indeed ;
Curse you and your money,

Keep that for the Swede."

a ^ale of tbe Drive*

Where the rapids madly swirl
Down the height,

And the flying billows hurl
Shreds of white

High in air, the woodsmen say.

That a spectre haunts the day
And the night.

If you ask a shanty man

Does he know
All the tale, his face of tan

Dull will glow ;
Half with pride and half with shame
He will mutter but the name,
*' Pierre Lozeau."

!
j

ill

n'MW
I II I,

iiiir'

llllll

Could the dripping alders speak,
Trembling there;

Could the cliffs their answer make,
Grim and bare ;

Could the river racing by

Whisper back, all would reply,
" Gallant Pierre."

Nigh four years ago this June,

Maybe five.
Forty thousand logs were run

In our drive, —
Logs two feet through at the butt.
Till the rapids with our cut

Were alive.

But the crafty river sank,—

Narrow grew.
Till, there, standing on the bank

Close to you.
All across it long black teeth
Of the sunken rocks beneath

Came in view.

Down the river came the logs.
Grinding there.

Like a pack of angry dogs
At a bear.

And the foaming billows tossed

Them like matches that were lost
In the air.

At the bottom of the dip

All a cram,
Where a ledge's stony lip

Made a dam,
Sheer across from side to side
Tightened by the sweeping tide,

Formed the jam.

One long stick of Norway pine

Held the key ;
Breaking, it would break the line,

Set them free ;
But the stream's deep surges crashed
All their weight, and vainly gnashed

Hungrily.

Came our foreman, Jean Frechette,

And the scud
On his ruddy cheek was wet

From the flood ;
'' Who will break the jam ? " he said,
And from every cheek there fled

Coward's blood.

Then strode forward Pierre Lozeau,

Smiling, gay :
*' Monsieur Jean, here, I will go.

If I may."
So we watched him creeping out.
Crimson kerchief at his throat,

'Mid the spray.

;

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III

iilii!

■ i'i

lllil

Now upon the key he stands,

Shone the flash
Of the axe in his strong hands,

Till a crash
Snapped the log, his swinging stroke
Gnawed the timber till it broke, —

Went to smash.

Nothing but a glimpse of red

Could we see ;
When we found him he was dead.

Smilingly :
By that cross of tamarac,
With the big pine at the back,

There lies he.

Down in Lower Canada, —

Far away, —
His old mother, Ursula,

Lives to-day ;
And she soon will follow him
To that other river's brim.

So they say :

Every morning, noon, and night.

Bowing low.
All her beads does she recite.

Reverent, slow
Whispers to the lifted Host,
One dear name she loves the most,-

" Pierre Lozeau."

IDiUa V€etc, Xago M Como.

A long green avenue that rose

Twixt lines of pillared cypress trees,

Up to a grot where walls enclose
A marble sculptured Hercules,

Who tense in poisoned anguisli throws
Young Lycus to Euboean seas ;

And down where the straight vistas end,

A stretch of molten silver lake,
Whose waves their voice to heaven send.

And from that heaven their shadows take ;
For borrowed hues their music lend

When sunsets glow or mornings break.

And on its eastern side great hills

With vineyards clustering on their flanks.
All seamed and scarred with tortuous rills

That twist between steep olive banks ;
A giant armament that tills

Half heaven with marshalled ordered rar.ks.

To right, far in a deep cool glade

Of laurel, cedar, oak, and pine.
Across broad flecks of sun and shade

The wild rose and the ivy twine.
And down a long dim colonnade

Wanders Italian eglantine ;

I ^w '*

To left, a mound of clustered green
Climbs sharply from a narrow vale,

With gray rocks thrusting up between

Tall chestnut groves, whose blossoms pale

Serve as a living odorous screen

Where hides the shy sweet nightingale.

And over all a clear blue sky

Where sunlit fields of glory sleep,

And bands of snowy cloudlets fly

Unshepherded like flocks of sheep ;

And borne on waves of song on high
The tuneful larks their vigils keep.

All this I saw one afternoon

At Villa d'Este, when the hours

In golden minutes fled so soon,

That ere 1 knew the verdant bowers

Lay still beneath a full fair moon,

And dew was trembling on the flowers.

I ml I

Zbcn an^ IRow.

PART I.

'' There, that will do, now leave it so ;
You have wrought well and thoroughly, yet go
Before 1 hate you — gently, make no stir
Closing the gate, or you may waken her."
But as he went, that rugged laborer,
Baring his red brow, to my sorrow, said.
With half-averted eye, " God help you. Sir,"
Took up his spade and left me with my dead.

All— is this all — this narrow wave -like mound

Upon the frozen ground —
All that is left of her, my very life ?
Perhaps 'twere better never to have known
Such short-lived joy, not to have called my own
What 1 have lost so soon— my wife, my wife.

Then the red sun in molten glory set.

And black night came and spread her dusky wings

O'er t^^ still earth, and birds and creeping things

Sank into silence deep ;

The whole world was asleep,

Save my numb brain,

Striving in vain
To cease its being and its woes forget.

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lifli

And I, who ne'er before had uttered prayer,
Through bitter loneliness and stress of grief
Poured out my sorrow and my unbelief.
My cry ascended through the starlit air,
Up, up, until it reached the throne

Where One alone
Lists to His pleading children ; and 1 asked
Only to follow where those dear white feet
Had trod so late. Life was too sorely tasked
For me to live ; with her, all things were sweet.
Now she had gone my heart had gone with her,

And memory still.

In spite of all my will.
Thronged with sad thoughts the vacant atmospheiv\

Home ! Home ! What mockery !

1 stumbled thither in the gloom of night,

The flowers were gone lest they should vex my sight ;

But, ah, the fairest flower that ever blew —

God's loveliest creation — vanished too !

Was it for this,

Such momentary bliss.
That clay was cursed with immortality ?

Alone once more, —
Haunted by wild imaginings, 1 heard
Her footstep on the stair ; her singing bird

Drooped in its gilded prison ; by my side

I saw upon tiie floor

A glove she wore,
Still from the impress of her fingers swelling :

With reverence I lifted it, and, dwelling
With smiles that were half tears
Upon the sacred thing, my troubled fears
Grew lighter, and the cord about my heart
Was slackened by the sense of sympathy
That seemed to lie between that glove and me.

Then gentle sleep touched sorrow leaden -eyed,
Relaxed the tension of the weary brain :

In dream I walked again
With her, my wife, her beauty glorified
By some ethereal faculty ; she took

Me forth into the wild,
And, as a mother shows her little child.
She showed me mountain, valley, river, brook,
And all the wonders of this wondrous world,
How evermore unswervingly it hurled
Itself through myriads of other spheres,
And, one by one, the little fateful years

Dropped noiselessly into the sea

Of limitless eternity ;

!l^ll,-<

flit

it
!

And turning to me said, '* Husband of mine,

For such thou art, mine to the very end,

Thou see'st how far these marvellous things extend,

And how the great hand of the power divine

Doth govern all that is and is to be,

And how the mighty heart beats in the earth

That men call theirs, and no humanity

Can be, unless 'tis ordered from its birth ;.

Yet know the soul of man,

And his life's fleeting span,
Outweighs with God a giant universe ;
So live as thou would'st die : 1 wait for thee.
Thy guardian spirit, 1 ; be mindful, nurse
All loftier aspirations patiently.
For they shall bear thee up on angels' wings
To meet me here and end thy wanderings."

PART II.

Long years have pr ssed, and nov/ upon my head

The hoary crown of many a winter lies ;

My hour has come to join the silent dead

And her I loved so well. 'Neath other skies

The blossom nurtured here shall bloom and spread

Into the flower of grand realities.

For oftentimes I feel the soft caress
Of shadowy hands adown my withered face,
And ghostly lips with ghostly kisses press
This wrinkled brow, and spirit arms embrace
This poor bent form, slow tottering to its doom ;
If still she loves, what joy beyond the tomb !

Man that is born of woman has his day :

First in the cradling arms ; then crescent strength

Of budding childhood bids him seek his play

'Mid children of a larger growth ; at length

Incipient manhood rises, and in scorn

Breaks those sweet fetters it too long has worn.

So, on and on, into the restless sea.

Grasping at straws that mock but cannot save,

At strife with self and all humanity.

Sport of the wind, toy of the rising wave.

Till on the shore of dim eternity

Cast by the flood whose wrath he could not brave.

Twas thus with me, but now these glazing eyes
Have pierced the shadows of approaching night.
Have rested on the hills of Paradise,
And caught the vision of undreamt delight ;
Blind to the earth, these sightless orbs may scan
The glory that God keeps for dying man.

-MSi-

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II II

' ■'III I

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Listen, listen, voices calling,
Through life's evening softly falling.
Voices that I seem to know,
Accents heard once long ago,
Clearer, sweeter, purer far
Than the tones of mortals are ;
Hear ye not celestial lyres
Harping to the Cherub choirs ?
These the notes the shepherds heard
When earth's atmosphere was stirred .
By angelic melody
On the shores of Galilee.
Now they slacken, fainter yet—
Look ! the sun has nearly set :
Now he sinketh, watch and see
All the deathless soul in me
Put on Immortality.

Farewell, farewell ! Alas, these poor vain tears
Make but the parting harder. 'Tis but sleep ;
After the labors of a few short years
We look for rest and sleep, so do not weep ;
The barque that braves the tempest seeks at last
Its haven home when aP the gale has passed.

My wife ! My wife ! Her feet upon the strand
Of that bright shore, her arms outstretched to me
In loving welcome to that glorious land
Where sorrow dies and there is no more sea ;
Heart of my heart ! I come with thee to dwell, —
The morning broadens ; earth, fare\/ell ! farewell !

.36

Coloaeeo IRomano.

Slowly, at last, the pale and radiant Queen

, Tipped the faint blue hills of the drowsy East,
Treading her far aerial course between

Clusters of stars ; as some tall ghostly priest
To his high altar turns, 'mid many a light
And twinkling candle flame — so fell the night.

And as the murmured monotone of prayer
Sinks into whispers to a Host on high,

So the great city's hum spread on the air
Fled out in music to the vaulted sky,

A silence borne of darkness like a cloak

Covered the earth, and naught but memory spoke.

Now long white shafts of silver glory fell
On each gray arch and ruined parapet,

Touched into life the crumbling citadel,

Where echoing evening zephyrs lingered yet.

And o'er that titan relic there was cast

The brooding spirit of its mighty past.

Was it a dream ? The galleries tenantless

Seemed full of life and shapes and stirring things,

Half human, half unreal ; I could but guess

At forms or figure ; half -hushed whisperings

Ran around the great ellipse, and a low moan

Of anguish thrilled me from its heart of stone.

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in the arena, stealthily and slow,

Stalked shapes of beasts, and all their jaws were
The white stars shone on high, and down below [red,

The living Pagan and their Christian dead ;
And laugh and song went on, while Roman eyes
Feasted on brothers in their agonies.

Then into thin attenuated air

The shades dissolved, but yet white faces peered
Into the night, still forms gave token where

Each grisly beast its giant outline reared ;
Bright were the hopes which warranted the price
Of such unutterable sacrifice !

So the dream passed ; now nigh two thousand years
Have writ their tale upon ti^ose massy walls.

But still the memory of pangs and (ears

Their woeful blood-stained origin recalls ;

Not all in vain was life so madly spent,

Their altar once, is now their monument.

The moss-grown dens are wrapped in ivy now.

Along their bars no iron footfall rings ;
On the top wall, the Colosseum's brow,

The wild clear-throated Roman linnet sings";
And traced by hands Divine in stars o'erhead :
" The living Christian and the Pagan dead."

Zbc ^rappcr'6 Death*

A glade In a forest of beech and oak,

And a hurrying brook, which softly spoke

In ripples and eddies of field and fen,

And haunts unstained by the steps of men :

A little way back from the water's edge

A great pine clung to a rocky ledge.

And flung its shadow athwart a cross

Of rough-hewn wood, half covered in moss :

Here in the peace of the deep woods' breast

A worn old huntsman tak(!s his rest.

With naught but the wash of the wandering stream,

And the sigh of the wind through the maples' crest,

As the monotone of his endless dream.

Long, long ago, on an autumn morn.
On such a day was this old world born,
He woke, and felt with awaking start
flmi an ice-cold hand had gripped his heart ;
ho leed to ask what the warning meant.
No need to shrink from the message sent,
A grim smile grew on the grim, stern face ;
*'It has come," he said, '* 1 must find a place
In the dim cool woods where my lonely bed
Will be safe from the stranger's hand or tread.'*

..ii

!?■ 1:

He rose, and took from their leathern sling
His rifle and pouch, half wondering
Was it habit or fate that he thus prepared
To hunt for his death ; so forth he fared.
Was it fancy or fact, as he reeled along,
That the wind had tempered its morning song.
Had hushed till its cadence was sad and slow.
Could the wind be sorry to see him go ?
Was it fanc^ hot that the maples shed
Their ruddiest i. ves on his bent gray head ?
That the Spirit of Life in the keen bright air
Breathed a sigh for the doomed heart beating there ?

At last, at last, for the tired feet found
A spot where the green turf clad the ground
In robes of velvet, the branches threw
Their strong thick arms 'gainst a sky of blue,
And the sweet brook sang, as it huiried by, '
*' Ah, Life, dear Life, it is hard to die ! "

The trapper sank to his mother earth,—
No other he knew since his hour of birth, —
For Nature had taken the man aside
And showed him things to the world denied ;
In his simple way in his path he trod,
Lived up to his light ; left the rest to God.

But mark; — in the bushes something stirred,
It was not the wind, nor was it a bird ;
They part, and down to the waters* side
A four -year buck, with his stately stride.
Stepped warily on, for a moment stayed
To sniff at the breeze which gently played
On the rivulet's face ; the golden sun
Just touched on his neck and fetlocks dun ;
He stood like a statue, motionless, mute.
An incarnate spirit of swift pursuit.

A glance from the trapper : — his glazing eye
Cleared bright in the socket, he knew not why ;
Steady and sure came the fluttering breath,
For the habits of life are strong in death,
The thin hand felt for the trigger again,
Unshaking and true as it once had been,
And the withered old cheek for a moment fell
On the long brown barrel he loved so well.
Crack ! and a ball to its billet sped,
Tiie deer at the trapper's feet lay dead,
And the trapper's soul to its Maker fled.

■■ I'

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We found him thus when the night had passed^
The stock of his rifle held hard and fast,
The buck with a hole in his heart lay there ;
We buried them both, — with a silent prayer
That the Father of all, in His mercy, would
Take the soul of the trapper wild and rude
To the home of us all, and the cross we hewed,
To plant at his head, and left him so.
With the brooklet babbling sweet and low.

■III!

fll>e:nor^»

Oh, Memory ! sweet servitor of Time,

Why stirrest thou among the slumbering graves ?
Turn errant footsteps to a fairer clime

Than that of buried love ; oblivious waves
Long years have surged above it, chill and deep ;
Turn, Memory, and let the dead love sleep.

For thou hast glimmerings every day more dim,
Of life half shadowed by the lapse of years,

An echo like the echo of an hymn

In some far fane still strikes thy drowsy ears ;

More than a reminiscence, and not less

Than a sure pledge of coming happiness.

Are our souls wanderers ?• Do they but rest
A point of time within us, till the clay

Moulders to dust ; then to some other breast
Winging invisible their silent way,

Take new abodes ? Oh, Soul, if thou couldst tell

Whose was the heart wherein thou last didst dwell !

Thou hadst existence ere this gray old earth
Rolled out of chaos ; knewest before our birth
That somewhere was a wider, nobler sphere
Than we inhabit here ;

i& .

Where we were nearer heaven, and the skies
Came not between us and our Paradise ;
Where speech was music, every word a song,
And life was sweet, and love was true and long ;
Where might was gentle, weakness was endued
With very strength from its decrepitude ;
When every sense was active, pure, and free,
And fancy mounted through eternity.

Down to this dull earth, oh, my Soul, and find
That it can forge no fetters for the mind ;
We can bend circumstances to our will
And make them serve us ; we are masters still
Of more good than we wot of ; we must rise
Superior to material things of clay.
Forgetting most things, in the few be wise.
And, since night cometh, take heed for the day.

|1|

Our lives are cramped through our own littleness,
And too fast bound by custom and the stress
Of what we deem necessity, we tread
Where trod our sires, and, lo, our sires are dead !

To every life its object ; if we die,

With ends all unaccomplished, still we know
The mark in heaven was <not set too high,

But feeble purpose sped the shaft too low.

lt>opageiu\

See, by yonder pine he stands,
In his tasselled tuque of blue,

With the paddle in his hand.
Watching that far-off canoe,

Marie his ruddy, sun-kissed face/

One of a soon-vanished race :
Voyageur.

All the strength of solitude

Lurks within those steady eyes

Nurtured in a cradle rude,
'Neath a canopy of skies.

He has ever deeply quaffed

Nature's clearest, sweetest draught :
Voyageur.

See, upon his quiet brow

Graven furrows deeply lie,

Nature sets upon him now
Signet of nobility,

Drawn from waters, sky, and soil,

All the dignity of toil :
Voyageur.

'^•-

■ ■

She has taken him aside

To her teeming, throbbing breast,
Led him safely, far and wide,

'Mid the deserts of the West,
And at last revealed to him
All her secrets faint and dim :
Voyageur.

He could tell of brimming lakes

Rimmed by purple mountain tips.

Where alone an echo wakes
As his speeding paddle dips.

Glassy pools and voiceless floods.

Scion of the trackless woods :
Voyageur.

He could guide you like a flash

Down some rapids' ragged verge,

Where the whirling eddies crash.
And the racing billows surge ;

Nerves of iron, wrists of steel.

Never yet did tremor feel :
Voyageur.

Leave him to his luring life.

To his peaceful starlit dreams,

To existence without strife,

To his forest and his streams ;

So a long farewell to thee.

Simple manhood, wild and free :
Voyageur.

(Bob Here.

I passed a city of the silent dead,
With all its lifted monuments, o'erhead

Stooped vaulted blue.
Ragged with cloud wind-rifted all the sky,
And, radiant Queen of midnight mystery,

The moon peered through.

Above was life ; beneath, the worn-out shell
Of souls too fugitive on earth to dwell.

Born but for tears ;
And daisies blossomed from the slumbering breast
That once had pulsed with hope, but now at rest

For long, long years.

They were but pledges, that, when man has bowed
And kissed the cup, his life in love bestowed

Will burst in bloom.
And Immortality its measure find,
in full development of soul and mind.

Beyond the tomb.

So, peace, heart, peace ; a breath, and it is done ;
For who can say ** I see to-morrow's sun "

Ere morning breaks ?
Bide thy short hour ; the Guiding Hand will keep
Its vigil over thee, till, after sleep,

Thy soul awakes.

i^B-:

%' envoi.

pi
lili

Take, friend, the lines, though phrase and rhynic|

Lack subtle turning, finer skill.
Expression of a thought sublime.

Record of deed sublimer still ;

r •'{\

if something of that pure deep tone
The west wind whispers to a pine

When all its tasselled top is blown
Be woven in a song of mine ;

Or, if I catch the peace that sleeps
In starry depths, or silver lake,

When the white moon her vigil keeps.
And all the Northern Lights awake ;

Or, if one kindly thought be stirred.

One moment's rest be found from pain,

If memory lingers on one word.
It has not all been writ in vain.

d rhynic

pain,