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■ »

1 2 3

4 5 6

.1.. .-U I i f.. B l.w p jj i gM J

THE

BLICKHSWK.

Smndard Bearer

MJ) OTHER POEMS.

BY J, J, PROCTER.

>t. Johns, P.Q :
NEWS PRINTING AND PUBLISHING HOUSE.

1883.

PS i4-g I

69765

tli.

POEMS.

BLACK HAWK ;

A LEGEND OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.

A boy was coming back from the mill

As the sun was dipping down to the west,

And the old horse under him toiled up the hill

With weary step to the pinnacle's crest ;

A gaunt bkck horse, tamed down by years.

With roughened coat and with drooping ears,

A broken-down hack, though the fire in his eye

Gleamed yet at the thought of the days gone by ;

The days gone by when the loud acclaim

Of the shouting crowds hailed the Black Hawk's name,

And never a horse in the State could beat

The time that was marked bv the racer's feet —

The pet of the children 'low, but then

The boast and the pride of bearded men.

The two had reached tlie brow of the hill
That went sheer down, like a wall, on the right
A full two hundred feet into night,
And the brawling o'er rocks of an UYiseen rill,
And passing along, the boy caught sight
Of a strange sweet flower all blooming alone
A little way down on the face of the stone,
Just within reach, he thought, and stayed

BI.AOK HAWK.

The horse, and leaping down lightly, said :
** Stand steady, old horse," then went to the ^'erge
Of the steep descent, where far beneath
The unseen stream was singing a dirge,
And the pines on its banks seemed holding their breath
While weaving their needles into a wreath
For the brows of the hungry watcher, Death.

He bent to clutch the flower, and then
Earth reeled before him, and down he fell
TiU the very jaws of Death and Hell
Gaped for him, and again and again
Tlie mountain echoes took up the cry
Wrung from his mortal agony ;
But half way down grew a little bush
That checked him awhile in his deadly rush,
And he clung, to it as a drowning man clings
To whatever he clutches, while round him rings
Ii\ his ears a voice from earth and fiom air,
Speaking despair.

No one was nigh ; but the old horse heard.

And with all the sluggish life-blood stirred,

Step by step to the perilous brink.

With ears pricked forward, and feet that shrink,

He pressed, till his nostrils grew all a-fire

With his master's danger, his own desire.

And he wheeled, as the clouds in the whirlwind wheel.

And the stones at the dint of his thimdering heel

Were all aflame

As the racer came
At the full free stretch of the horse's speed .
To ask for aid for his master's need.

Gone were the years of the old horse, gone

The stiffened muscles, the shortened breath.
And he lived in the days of liis youth, as on

The black racer raced with the white horse. Death ;
Tlie gaunt old muscles stood out like ropes

Of a vessel when winds are blowing free,
And the breath came short and quick, like the hopes

Of those who are chased by the roaring sea.

BLACK HAWK.

And under the dint
Of his armed heel
Flint after flint
Answered steel after steel ;
Stride after stride was left behind,
As the dust is swallowed up by the wind,
In the speed of the weH-iemembered rush —
While Death was toilin^^ away at the bush,
And the bush was giv'ng slowly.
Above its roocs the clay
Cracked, ani dropped away
A handful here, a morsel there —
Slowly but surely came despair
To him who was hanging in middle air.

The great pines vanished in misty shades.
The valleys swirled into shadowy glades,
The mountain steeps were billowy deeps
That he tore over, plunged beneath, rose on again.
Till there lay before him the cloudy plain
That led, long-stretched, to his home.
Oh waiting home, oh fireside Hght,
What message shall reach you at dead of night,
When the black and the white horses come ?

That night, as a man was shutting the gate,
There daited past him a cloudy fate
With a whirl and a rush of resistless might,
And breathing from eyes and nostrils a light

That seemed like a gleam

Of fiery steam,
And he heard the thunder of flying feet.

Swift and fleet.

Meet and beat.

Advance and retreat

On the echoing street
As a meteor rushes through moonless skies ;

Before it a fiery vapor flies.

And the earth replies
To the noise of its fall, while behind it lies

Darkness and silence that tremble still

Over black valley and blacker hill —
But the bush was giving slowly.

BLACK HAWK.

. I

On, in the race for life or death !
Never, old racer, was such a prize
Held out before thine eager eyes
In the pride of thy youth, when the lungs were strong
And the muscles firm as thou sped'st along
With heaving flanks and with labored breath,
At the will of a jockey : now thou art free,
No weight on thy saddle, no curb on thy rein ;
No bit in thy mouth, and befr^re thee the plain ;
Yet age and work can wear out the best.
And thou, black racer, should'st surely have rest.
A rest, old racer, a rest for thee
When the winning post is the bush, in thy mind.
And thou knowest the White Horse close behind.
While the roots are giving slowly !

The fence was high, and the farm-yard gate
Was closed and fastened ; no entrance there.
Old horse ! with all your speed you are late ;
The White Horse will win the race, and then
At the farm will be tears of women and men,
At the bush one dying prayer.
Did he speed like this to be balked at last ?
With a rush and a bound the gate is passed.
And up at the front door he whinnies and neighs.
Strikes with his hoof, and all but says :
" Help all things himian, help all things holy.
For my master is clinging in middle air
There, where he sought a flower ; — ^there !
And the bush is giving slowly,"

A moment's fluny,

A moment's hurry ;
Then, as he saw they would follow, he turned,

And over the gate again ;
Then waited until they got nigh, and then
Over the plain that his swift heels spumed.
On to the master for whom he yearned.
Past white farm-houses wrapt up in sleep,
Past grain-fields waving like ocean's surge.
Past great pines singing a low, soft dirge,

Over rocky steep.

Into valleys deep.

BLACK HAWK.

And up again, up again, pressing on,
The staunch old horse loomed out, and was gone
Like a flash of black lightning, and after him came
Those he had summoned, with eyes aflame

With a horrible fear and dread ;
And by them, and running side by side,
Cume the great White Horse with a racing stride,
But the black horse kept ahead.

Swift lift

Fleet feet
Gain new strength with each quick-drawn breath,
" Is it you behind me ? behind me, Death ?

Ha ha ! ha ha !

I could scent the war
And the battle between us from afar !
And now. White Horse, put yourself to your speed.
Now match you against the worn-out hack.
Till, foiled and beaten, you turn your back.
For my boy shall have help at his utmost need,

Though the bush be giving slowly."

■rt

Out of the very jaws of the grave
They drew him up with an anxious care ;
Beneath him he heard the waters rave,
Out of the blackness, and up above
Eang shouts of encouragement and love.
And once as he rose, with a moaning cry.
The great white owl flitted swiftly by ,
Till all things mingled as in a dream ;
And then on a sudden a torch's gleam,
And the solid earth beneath him, and then
The kisses of women and clasp of men ;
Yet he heeded them not, but bowed his head
In a passion of tears, for before him lay
He that had given him back to the day,
The old black racer — dead !

IffiW T£AA.

NEW YEAR.

Ah Tnf ! my tliouglits are very sad, and sable winged woe
Broods like a nightmare on my heart, and bids my sorrows flow,
All day I seek their forms in vain, and in the silent night
I mourn tlie friends that never changed, now hidden from my sight.

Can the dead praise Thee in the grave ? The sleeperi^ in the tomb 7
What hymns come up from those who dwell within the nether gloom ?
Now earth that holds in dark embrace that grim and solemn crowd,
Lies glittering ghastly herself, wrapt in her snowy shroud ;

A corpse laid out before the Heavens — all cold, all calm, all still ;
Her million veins no longer throb through valley and down hill ;
The waves that laughed to meet the sun, in icy death reposed.
Gleam like the light in dead men's eyes before the lids be closed.

The birds are mute ; the breath of Earth, the sweet and loving Air
Is frozen to a deadly sleep : — the woods stand gaunt and bare ;
The flowers have hid their tender heads, and whereso'er I tread,
I seem beneath the crackling snow to trample on the dead.

Oh hark I upon the startled air the new year's bells ring out
With clang on clang, and peal on peal, a glad triumphal shout :
Hear Earth within thy silent tomb and echo back the cry,
" He will not leave us in the Grave — Where is Death's victory ?"

And even as the bells clang out a tremor shakes the snow.
Above, below, before, behind, are voices whispering low :
The hills and dales and woods and streams are speaking to the sky^
**He will not leave us in the Grave — Where is Death '8 victory?"

They cease — those sounds of hope and faith die off from rill and plain.
But Heaven's angelic choirs take up the never ending strain,
*' All glory, honour, praise and power to Him who dwells on high.
He will not leave them in the Grave — Where is Death's victory ?

Ring out, ring out, oh happy bells, the glorious theme again.
Our own Redeemer lives and reigns and we shall live and reign ;
He lives — though erst Earth shook with awe to hear His dying breath.
And Death lies prostrate at His feet, for Love can conquer Death.

TRR BTAKDARD-BkAREB.

THE STANDARD-BEARER.

A LROKND OF INDIA.

War I The Carnatic HcWb were rife

With nimor8 of war and the golden glory
Of grai n-covered plains, the quiet homes

Of simple peasants that hated strife,
Must vanish before the eagle swoop

Of the foeman ; vanish in clouds of flame
Rising from ingle-nook and stoop,
Fioiii lowly valleys, and crested combs
Of thr hills, wherever the enemy came,

Anu nothing be left to tell the story.

vV^arl light/ 1 up with the blazing roof
Flarir, its helpless appeal to the sky.
Wir! with its nnisic of rushing hoof.
Trampling down in the victory

Dead and dying,

Fallen and flyiiij^,
And hurrying oft* in a whirlwind of spears.
With curses beliind, antl before them jeers,
Matrons clutching their babes to the breast.
Old men tottering beneath their years.
And young maids, doves scarce out of the nest,

Sore of heart and sore of feet.
But pressing on to the quick-timed beat
Of the horseman's gallop that comes and goes
In the dreaded sweep and rush of the foes.

" As well sit still and die,"
Said the Councillors ; " what can worse befall
The man that crouches beneath a force
That evermore gains the victory
Than the lot that cometh at length to all,
The death that takes all men in its course ?
Treat, oh King, with the foe.
Let the wide Carnatic go ;
Let them plunder and slay, if it seems to them best,
In the far-off" province, and leave us the rest."
" Not 80," said the Shah, « not so."

THE STANDARD-BEARER.

\' ',

" Am I a King, if a cry for aid

Should come to me from my people unheurd?
Am I a man, if matron or maid

Should seek my help, and my pulses unstirred ?
War! if it must be so, war!

War, with its prospect of defeat,

Of utter route and calamity.

And the enemy's Juggernaut car.
If my people must lie beneath the beat
Of the enemy's squadrons, what more am I?

I, too, can die.
But ye, who have given the counsel of brute.

Shall be led by a brute in the day of fight ;
In the battle-field where he puts his foot

Shall be the signal for stay or flight.
Mark him well! Where my elephant stands

When we come to blows is the vanguard line ;
My curse on the cowards that stay their hands

While my standard floats from the beast that is mine.

First in the foremost rank he stood,

A huge form towering above the rows

Of armed men awaiting the shock
Of the swift on-joming foes.

As, in the '-.lidst of ocean a rock

Awaits the impotent rage of the flood

Of waters that foam around his base.

Foam and attack, and retreating chase
Their ebb, while the sky above them smites
The snow of their crests, and their emerald lights

Till they seem like waves of blood,
So did he stand, while glint of steel

Flashed around and above and below
From sabre and arrow, and armed heel

Of coursers trampling o'er friend and foe.
And ever the standard flew from his back
Glancing like meteor through the rack
Of the war-cloud deepening by his side;
Feeling the touch of his driver's hand,
Hearing the quiet voice of command,

And heeding naught beside,
Till, in the midst of a glancing rain
Of crowding arrows, teonx ofl'his seat,

THE STANDARD-BEARER.

Pierced through the eye to the very brain.
The driver fell at the elepliant's feet,
And pressing over the wounded and slain.
As a torrent rushes along its course.
Elephants, standards, men, and horse.
Rushed pell-njell backward in swift retreat.
And close on the heels of the frenzied rout,
Tlie foenian came with exulting shout,
Till the thunder of battle muttered and died
Away in the distant country side,
Leaving the standard bearer alone
With the battle-flag waving above his head.
As he waited in vain for the well know tone
Of the voice of the dead.

And so.
In the midst of terror and wild despair
Casting behind a hurried glance
At the vengeful flashing of sword and lance.
The fugitives saw the elephant stand
With the king's flag flying still in the air,
And turned again on the foe ;
Drove them shattered and nerveless back,
Pressed in their turn on the eneniy's track
And hurled him out of the land.

The fight was over, the victory won,
And he stood in the rays of the setting sun
That turned the spearhead to burnish ■^d gold.
And streauied, blood-red, on each silken fold

Of the standard over his head.
Long and doubtful had been the fight
As the war-waves surged and ebbed by his side,
Bnt there he had stood, as a rock in the tide
Till they left him, a misty form, in the night,

Keeping his watch o'er the dead.
Friend and foe had passed him by,
Grim Defeat, and Victory,
And now in the gathering shades alone
He stood like a statue carved in stone.

All through the solenm night he heard,
Mingled with human groans and cries,

THB STANDARD-BEARER.

The jackal*B laiighter, the tiger's roar,
The snarl of the wolf as it rent and tore,
While, above, the darkling rest of the skies
With sound of unseen wings was stirred.

And 80 day found him — ^the fiery rays

Drank from his sides the oool night c -▼,

Smote him, and parclied him, and pierced him througbj
Fanned him with flame, and housed him with blaze
Of torturing light, till the patient head
Drooped lower and lower over the dead.

And over the reeking noisome plain

Night came ghastly and ghoul>like again^

Thus passed three days ; but whenever they tried
To lead him away from his master's side,

The red light leaped to the glazing eye,

And the lifted trunk gave warning high.

That where he had stood he would die.
Then, as a last resort.
From the driver's desolate home they brought
His little son, and put in his hand
The goad, his father's leading wand,
Placed him on high where the standard flew.
And bade him speak to the beast.

The tones of a voice that he knew

Came back in the childish word of command.

And, as if from a heavy dream released.

The elephant turned with a deep-drawn sigh.

And one, low, tremulous, sobbing cry.

Threw his trunk up and caressed the head

Of the little driver, then turned away

From his pitiful watch by the motionless clay.
And saw in the living the dead.

So in the battle of life.

Often there falls at our very side

Some loved and cherished one, friend and guide,

And we stand in a helpless agony.

Caring nothing for friend or foe,

Noting little who come or go
In the varied turns of the strife,

And heedless even of victory,

THK STAXDAIin RKARRR.

Ill

Till Goil in hia mercy sends at last
Some echo out of the vanished past,
Some tone of the voice that is evermore still.
Some little touch that recalls a hand,
Out of sight now in the spirit land,
Antl wakes up the palsied will.

-(§)-

THE SLEIGH RIDE.

I' p

■f-

■ K'

A XEW year's idyl.

Over the enow tlie cold winds blow,

Over the enow the sleigh bells wrangle ;
Blow, blow over the snow.

Winds, while the silver Vjells wrangle and jangle.
Over the snow the sharp winds blow.

But the sky above us is tenderest blue ;
The little bells tinkle as we go ;

Ring and tinkle for me and for you —

Crisp snow 1 sharp blow !
And the merry chiming of silver l>ellBl
Quick foot! Firm hoof!
And the gliding runner that ring^ and swells !

Rings and swells to the joyous bells,

With silvery voices above and below,
And heaven's blue for me and for you.

Darling ! and under us purest snow !
Life is before us, sweet and bright,

So may our life through the long years be.
So cold that we cling to each other, so light

As the Heaven that smiles upon you and me.

Crisp snow, echo sharp blow.
And the merry tinkle of the siver bells !

Quick foot! Firm hoof!
And the gliding runner whose music swells !

Rings and swells to our pulsing hearts,

Pulsing hearts that shall beat together ;
Though Time may bring us its aches and smarts

Together, the closest in coldest weatlier
See J the night is coming down fast.

And we shall meet it, my love, we two,
With tenderest thoughts of the life tha^i8 past,

And an outlook into the deep sky's blue.

Crisp snow ! Sharp blow 1
And the echn of Heaven's sweetrtoned l)e]l8 !

Quick feet! Swift beat,
When Death breaks in on Life's golden spells I

THE SLEIQH RIDE.

Death ! My darling ! look into the night.

The Heavens are flaming over our heaJs ;
The cold blue sky above us is bright

Witli daffodil, primrose and crocus beds,
Bright with amethyst, jasper and gold,

Pearl and sardonyx, and the stone
Ruby-red with the Blood that was shed

To cleanse, and purify, and atone.

Crisp snow 1 Sharp blow !
Nearer and nearer Heaven's anthem swells !

If life be a sleigh-ride over the snow
It echoes the deathless Sabbath bells.

Diamonds glance from the branching pines,

Diamonds cover the sleeping vines,

Diamonds star the skies above.

But brighter thy diamond eyes, my love I
Sweet eyes sparkle when blue skies darkle,
When night comes down with her gemrny crown,
Ere the bridegroom sun has his race begun,
And sleep still fosters country and town.

Where are the flowers of last year's spring !

" Dead, love, dead in their shrouded bed.**
Where are the birds that in summer sing,

" Fled, love, fled ; all fled."
Nay 1 not so ! Look up as we go !

Daffodil, cowslip and crocus bloom
In the heavens above, that smile on us, love,

And snowdrops under us brighten the glooin.

Flowery skies and flowery earth 1

And the sweetest flower of all by my side I
The New Year springs into happy birth.

Pure and bright as thyself, my pride!
Have the song-birds vanished? Not soh not so I

They are here iu our hearts, and their notes are heard,
*' The spring is blushing e'en now o'er the snow.

And where shall we make, our nest, my bird?"

»J:.ji''

Diamonil eves «„ i <■
W- happy tilTlZT ","""'' ■•" »«-•-'

Cnep a„ow) .ha^p bW, '

And the gliding runner f).«f •
A"<J Death that h ^ "" ""^ ^''"^^ ""^ swells f

S^-" usher «« in" ; ,'f '"'"''^' "»>^ ^o-,)L

To the better Hfe la '""""'"^^ ^"«
FWeryslcien anL ^'''''*' "« «l«>ve.

^^ienthehi::^^^:^^^^^^^^^^

And we shall sint tho» "'^^^^-Vmn^,

lo sever, my y^jf^ ,

WHISPKR8 OK THE NU;HT,

WHISPERS OF THE NIGHT.

SUNSET.

Sweet love, come forth : tlie gentle air with many a fond caress
GlidcH through the cedar's scented hair, and stirs the larch tree's trefls ;
The birds are singing vesper songs, and sparkles down tiie hill
The many-dimpled laughter of the ever-noisy rill.

The Heavens are girt with rays of fire, the clouds are red with flame,
O'er hill and dale and wood and stream the splendor burns the same ;
But bright as are the glorious beams that blaze along the skies
More dear to me the tender light that trembles in thine eyes.

Draw n«arer, sweet one! Nearer still I The red light dies away,
O'er all the chill struck earth there creeps a sad soft tinge of gray,
Arid one by one the birds grow still, and on ■ by one tlie trees
No longer whisper lovingly unto the loving breeze.

Oh see ! the sun has left the Heavens and sought his nightly tomb.
The sky's deep blue grows deeper still, the eartli grows dark with gloom.
And such as is the sun to Heaven, to earth and storm-tossed sea,
My sun! n>y love! my life! my all! such art thou, sweet, to m«.

The. lowing of the kine is hushed — The babbUng waterfall
Booms like the tolling of the bells above a velvet pall.
Closer ! There comes a time when love is powerless to save —
Naught but the perfect love of Got! can triumph o'er the grave.

TWILIGHT.

The Heaven's high vault is azure black, no cloud, no stars, no light,
Nought save the cruel shadows of the ever deep'ning night ;
The well-loved voice is hushed, and now there speaks instead with me.
The chill wind wailing in its flight accpss the darkeiieil lea.

Till all my blood grows icy cold, and round the bowed down head
Hovers on grim and ghastly wings the never dying dread ;
The jealous fear that stills the pulse and clogs the heavy breath —
I see the coffin's bridal veil, and I fear my rival — Death :

WHISPERS or THE KIOHT.

For ae the dark night closes round and all the earth is hid,
Methinkfl I hear the pattering earth upon the sounding lid.
Father and mothers-all are gone, and she alone is left :
Oh Heaven I what soul can fight life's war of every hope bereft,

E'en as I muse, before my eyes life's saddened mem'ries fall,
As shadows lengthen out and creep along a fire-lit wall :
He knows too well the face of Death, he hears too plain its tread
Whose every tie save one frail hope is mouldering with the debd.

See on the far horizon the Eastern wave grows bright;

There surges up a sea of fire upon the loathly night ;

And o'er the mighty vault above, and o'er the hills below.

The broad full moon pours forth her beams like arrows from a bow.

Till all the plains are bathed in light, and all the sullen wood
Stands forth, a garment ermine tinged, beneath the silver flood ;
And life comes back to earth again where at the first calm rays
The cheeping of the lizards swell a harmony of praise.

MOONLIGHT*

Alone I — yet not alone ! within are doubts and faithless fears.
And thoughts too sad for utterance, and griefs too deep for tears.
Her presence draws me up to Heaven as with a golden chain.
And when she leaves me all alone I sink to Earth again.

They say God gives us things to love— Alas, He takes away —
His is the hand that faehioneth and we are but the clay.
Are all men else resigned, and I the sole rebellious one ?
I too have bent the head before, and said " Thy will be done."

And now, I bow the head indeed ; alas, I can but bow,

But grief has seized the bleeding heart, and clouds the svllen brow,

I stand beneath the falling dews alone, bereft, forlorn.

And wait through all the hateful night the scarce less hateful morn.

. . .Sweet calm is dreaming in the heavens, sweet sleep en wraps the ground.
The moon in peaceful migesty pursues her endless round:
I seem to hear from plain ana ntream, and from the clouds above.
Faint whispers of a wondrous tale— words of Eternal Love.

WHISPERS OF THE NIOHT.

Methinks I heard them once before — the strain i« not unknown,
But yet my heart forgets the wonh — the very notes have flown ;
And still the great moon sliouts it out, and still the soft calm breeze
Comes from the deep abyss of Heaven, and sings it to the trees.

STARLIGHT.

Tlie moon has sunk beneath the west, and glancing in her stead
The bright Eternal guards of Heaven are watching over head.
I love the happy, happy stars that tremble in the skies —
All night I watch them in the Heavens, all day time in her eyes.

And now the strain comes sharp and clear, unclogged by doubts and fears,
I hear the glorious symphony that swells throughout tlie spheres,
My whole soul swells to echo back the notes to realms above,
And join all nature in the hymn that tells that God is love.

Whatl can a mother hate her child, the child of smiles and tears.
E'en though it rend her loving heart, unchanged through weary years ?
Yea, let a mother cease to love, and nature leave her throne.
Yet He will not forget His word — nor God forsake His own.

His own I and she is one of His, so pure, so fair, so mild,
If e'er God's children tread the Earth she is his loving child —
Yea though He tear my heart away, yet will I love and trust.
He will not leave me comfortless — Our God is good and just.

DAWN.

Night dreams along the darkened sky, and reigns in every cloud';
A shadow clasps the slumbering earth, as with a glossy shroud ;
The streams are hushed and very still, the flowers are all asleep.
The sea-bird seeks his treacherous couch and slumbers on the deep.

The very sea is stilled at last and all his troubled waves
Sleep, though in dreams they sob and wail above their victim's graves ;
In Heaven and Earth is naught but calm, all things have rest save me.
Me, in whose breast rage fiercer storms than lash the maddened sea.

Yet as the darkness grows apace and shadows thicker fall.
From vanished star to vanished star I hear the angles call $
Their-rainbow-tinted pinions flash athwart the dazzled sight,
Their voices swell among the Heavens and wake the sullen night.

■s^

WIII8PKHS OK THK NUiKC,

DAWS'.

' Let there he lixht r

Ligiit of as old, when the flrnt ghul ray

Beamed on a fiery and storm toHHe<I day,

When the earth lay olasped in the mint's embrace,

And the dark clouds covered her troubled face,

Under their veil the hot seas Iniiled
And the grim volcanoes lal)oured and t4.)ilod,
And ever they went to the Heavens a cry,
The shriek of Earth's heavy agony.
Till there echoed suddenly through the sky —
♦Let there be light!'

'liet there be light!' How it rushed along
With its mighty chorus of angel song !
Speeding its way froni the throne alM»ve
On its message of joy and peace and love;
Fain were we to have ushered it on,
But ere we could Ihjw our heads 'twas gone,
And we saw, where naught that had life had trod.
The clear sky burst on the grassy sod
That had wakeneil to life at the voice of God
' Let there l>e light !'

* Let there l>e light!'
liight, as on that imniortal day
When the great atonement was maiie for aye.
When the Holy veil was rent in twain.
And the one true Paschal Lan^b was slain :
When the chain was broke and the captive free,
And Oeath swallowed up in victory :
When the sun grew pale at the awful sight.
And there came the word through the solemn night
* Let there be light !'

Let there be light — there comes a day
When the Kingdoms of Earth shall pass away,
When some who shall hear the angel's call
Shall cry to the rocks and hills to fall —
But another day to the world is sent
And those who have sinned may yet repent !
Hear, Sea, whefe thy deep tongued waters boom !
Hear, Earth, that sleepest in thy nightly tomb I
God's voice is speaking through the gloonj :
♦Let there be light!'

WHISI'KRS OF Tllk: NlOHr.

1. I » II T .

The EasU'rn fky Itt'^i"?* to IjIuhIi — tlie doutlh'trt overh«'a«J
Unfurl u bauiuT Houvt'ii-worked in lines of gold and red.
And, as the day coineM nweeping on and toIIh away the ni^ilit,
Methinkn I hear the angel sing, " Let there be light — be light."

Above the far horizon the sun hath risen at last.

And darkness vanishes away as when a dream hath passed ;

The forest rustles U) his Iteanis, the streams confess his might,

And yonder hills have heard the words, " Let there light — be light."

But in the middle of the plain there Unvers up oii high,'
One rugged mountuin, mist-enwrappe*!, that frowns unto the sky j
And on it droops one sad pale tiower amid the nxik and stone,
And when it dies the hill must sUind, as erst it stood alone.

Sad hill! tliat while thou standest tliere hast neither love nor rest,
No lauglung morn shall come to thee and deck thy sombre crest;
No birds shall sing sweet siiiigs for thee, but still the chilly air
Shall wail in everlasting notes of sorrow and despair.

But seel — the mist is torn aside, — the clouds are rolled away,
A peak shoots up in rays of Hre beneath the orlt of day ;
The lark ntounts o'er the sunlit crag, and poised on feeble wing •
Pours forth such notes of praise and joy as angels love to sing.

'Tis well — I knew the lesson when I lieard the angels call,
Though clouds Ikj round al»out thy path yet God is over allj
Though yonder rock rise lone and sjwi alx)ve the happy sod,
Is it alone when round it moves an ever loving God ?

All night I heard my rival's voice — I saw the funeral shroud,
My soul was all too weak to pierce beyond the gloomy cloud ;
But DOW God's angels speak to me and teach me Hope and Elaith,
And to Hia love I truHt my love, nor fear my rival, Death.

WARKtVaS.

«» WAENINGS."

" I know a maid more lovely far
Than all that elne created are,
Fairer than ev'ry ftiirent thing,
Dearer than early Howers in spring ;'*

Take care, take care t
Faireflt things are fakte as fair.
Victims of its treachery
Lie beneath the clear blue nea^

Oh flee, oh flee.

Beware the look of Hweet Horprise
That da8he» from those liquid eyes,.
Those large soft orbs of hazel hue.
Beware in time, lest late you rue ;

Take care, take care (
Fairest things are false as fair,
Turn the head, and pass her by.
Lightning lurks in yonder eye.

Oh fly, oh fly.

The magic of her gentle voice
Bids ali the love torn heart rejoice.
Can you not hear a lover's sigh
In each note of the melody ?

Beware I beware f
Fairest things are false as fair :
Though the tones be sweet <»nd low.
Well the Siren's song we know.

Oh go t oh go I

The silken lustre of her hair
Gleams through the soft and scented airi,
But go not near the dark brown tress»
Life is the price of one caress ; , . |

Beware, beware I . '
Fairest things are false as fair.
Spider's webs have silken ray ;
Be no fly~-make no delay,

Awayl away I

WARVIXOS.

Awa/, or else thou art undone.
If thou would'flt lire, begone, begone.
Ah me I cannot flhun the Htrife,
What without her were longest iifei

Be still, be still—
Let her slay me, if she will j
Be she false, yet wh^t care I
So that at her feet I die,

I will not Ay.

Fly I does the •torm-tossed seaman fly
His longed-for port when wares run high f
When Heaven on earth awhile is giren.
Say shall I fly my earthly Hearenf

Oh no I oh no t
Though I would, I could not go.
Though all else should fickle prore,
She is true as sainfs abore,

I lore, f lore.

THE CORAL ROCK.

THE CORAL KOCK.

A brave flhip danced o'er the Southern sea
With a fair breeze blowing merrily •
For a bridal party, bright and gay
Wire sailing home on the wedding day :
But the bride, as she gazed on the ocean wide,
Clung closer awhile to her husband's side :
For naught is certain in life, 'tis said.
And the brightest flowers are first to fade,
And the bride may tremble and hold her breath
For the ship is running a race with Death.

Ah me i

One mile from tlieir death 1 — and they hurry along
With tlie sea breeze chanting a merry song ;
And the bride in her glorious beauty and grac€;,
Smiles as she looks in her husband's face;
But the day has come and the doom has apokeoi
And the golden tie shall be rudely broken.
For though winds are still and waters deep,
Underneath the sharp rocks sleep;
And the lobsters crawling along the stones
Know well the crasli of wave washed bones.

Ah me I

One inch from their death 1— but the sun shines bright.
And the blue sea leaps in the golden light.
Till his wavelets, laughing aloud as they go,
Lazily rise and break into snow,
And the diamond spray from each watery curl
Leaps up to kiss the lovely girl :
But for beneath in tlie unstirred sea
The great snake twists in his loathly glee,
And the skeletons moved by the eddying wave
Rise to greet those who have come to their grave.
• Ah mel

THE CORAL ROCK.

A crash, and a phriek, and a sobbing gasp
As his victims writhe in the sea-king's clasp;
For rocks are sharp and waters are deep,
And the coral rises abrupt and steep,
And the ocean has lost his tinge of blue,
For.th? sharks were asked to the banquet too —
But death conies quickly, and sea and air
Have nothing to show what has happened there,
Save where on the laughing and dancing spray
A bridal bonnet goes floating away.

Ah mel

y"*

SEAWEBD.

SEAWEED.

NIOHT.

fstood on the ocean beach at night,
Waittng but dreading the morning light,
last'ning to what the waters said,
List'ning alone with bowed-down head.
For the voice they used was the voice of the dead.

Far o'er the sea^

Hearing upon the sounding strand
The plash of the waves firoin a distant land.
Hearing the words of the moaning main.
With the chill breeze wailing a low refrain.
Till my whole heart echoed the sorrowful strain.

Far o'er the sea*

Looking out in the dim expanse.
Seeing the dark black waters glance.
Glance, as the sheen of the velvet pall
That covered the sleeping dust of all
That would long for my voice, and would hear me call.

E'en o'er the sea.

Sitting in darkness, alone, and still.

With my thoughts that worked at their own sad wiU*

Hearing and seeing nothing but thi»—

The shade of a never-forgotton bliss.

The sound of one first, one only kiss.

Far o'er the seat

Watching alone, for I could not sleep,
Prayin(^ that Ood would grant me to weep.
Bowing down 'neath the solemn sky
Seeking for but one little sigh.
But hearing naught but the sea-bird's cry,

Far o'tr tB» sea,

SEAWEED.

Seeing clear through the darkening night
(Was it my own gloom that made it bright?)
FoniH that, like clouds when tempest tost,
Cr jwded aiound, and passed and crossed,
Phantoms of all I had loved and lost.

Far o'ef the saa.

Seeing my own home's firesit'e
Without my mother, its greatest pride ;
Looking ou t with a dull despair
Par oflf to my own land, and missing there
The sacred gray of my father's hair,

Ah me 1 Ah me t

Missing another, my own, own love
That none but One alone could remove ;
She, of h(;r will, had not left me so.
All to myself in my bitterest woe
To sit by the black sea's ebb and flow,

Far o'er the sea.

Seeming to tread the forest glade
Where once (did I ever play ?) I played.
But seeing a church with moss oei grown
That casts its shade on a well-known stone.
And throwing me down with a he art-wrung moan.

Ah me t ah me t

Gone I all gone! and I see no more:

I would weep, if I could, that the dream is o'er.

Sad and solefnn though it be.

Yet it was company to me,

But a voice breaks in on my misery,

'* Break o'er the sea."

DAWK

Break o'er the seal Break on the night!
Ever blessed and holy light;
Shed but one ray, but one joyous beam
Wherever the eastern watera gleam—

SEAWEED.

But one small ray, for the night is dark,
And the ocean waits for the first bright spark j
Others are longing too for thee.

Break o'er the sea I Break o'er the sea !

Oh dawn! oh rosy fingered dawn!
Come up and herald another morn,
Come, till the dark mists fly away ;
Come till the night gives place to day ;
Come where the deep black waters l)Oom ;
Come through the veil of the sullen gloom ;
All things are longing, oh light, for thee.

Break o'er the sea 1 Break o'er the sea !

Oh day I oh happy day I

Chase the gloomy shadows away.

Though Nature's slumbers seem calm and deep

There are those on earth who cannot sleep—

Those who in toil alone are blest —

Those who in labor alone find rest.

Hearts that are breaking have need of thee ;

Break o'er the sea ! Break o'er the sea !

Oh light 1 oh tender, tender light I

There came a cry through the livelong night j

Wherever a mortal foot has trod,

A cry of woe to a loving God,

From those who wo\ild drink of the fabled wave

That gives forgetfulness long as the grave.

Sorrowing souls have need of thee.

Break, o'er the sea ! Break o'er the sea I

Oh waves that were moaning all night long,
Break out, and join in the angels' song^
Thunder it out with shock on shock
Into tlie ears of the dull hard rock i
Whisper it low to the far off strand
Where the ripplets lazily laugh on the sand,
Till eartli shall echo from flower to tree

Break o'er the s^a ! Break o'er the sea 1

tjt*i

SEAWKKD.

2i>

Oh type of the Everlaating Day !

Come from the East land far away I

The land whence once oatne a holy voic?

Bidding all mourning hearts rejoice ;

Conie and recall its echoes now,

Flaf»h on the darkened and sullen hrow,

Bid all doubts and all sorrows flee,

Break o'er the sea! Break o'er the sea!

Oh sun, rise up fi'om thy wat'ry bed!
Rise till the shades of night have fled !
Sweep on, on thy mission, and linger not,
With rays of love, on each sacred spot
Where He, the Pure One, for sinners bled,
Where earth once covered her Maker's head —
Hp that made thee is calling to thee,

Break o'er the sea! Break o'er the sea!

DAYBREAK.

Sister of sorrow! sullen night !

Make room for the path of the happy light —

Clouds that brood along the sky.

Break at the sight of me and fly :

Scatter and break, that the earth may view

The eniblem of love in the sky's deep blue ;

But first, ere ye seek another hon>e.

Give back my blush to the wo >ing foam —

See me, wheresoever ye be,

Waves of tlie sea! Waves of the sea!

Rise up, oh laughing ocean spray.
To chase and to catch the sun's glad ray ;
Catch me and clasp me and send me along
From wave to wave with a loving song;
Speed me along till ye can no more,
And we break in diamonds on the shore.
Others may woo me, wherever I go,
But I sprang to love on the water's flow,
And I am yours who welcomed me,

Waves of the sea ! Waves of the sea !

SEAWEED.

Miets that brooded upon the Bod,

Flee at the voice of the light-giver, God —

Types of the doubt) of the human heart,

Light is Co.iiing apace, depart 1

Melt away in the sunlit air

As the morning rise^, bright and fair ;

The glad, glad morniig that ever brings

Solace and hope on her flame-i-inged wings —

Sing to the earth wherever ye be,

Waves of the sea I Waves of the seal

Oh trees ! oh silent and sullen trees

I come on the wings of the cool sea breeze —

The wind that, where the pine trees soar.

Seems like the voice of the ocean's roar.

When the night covered your leaf-crowned brow

Ye longed for the light that is coming now j

Wake up, that I may revel awh-le

In the pride of the forest monarch's smile —

The ripple that b\ Ings ye back to me.

Waves of the sea I Waves of the eea I

Oh rills I oh merry, merry rills I
Snatch my first gleams from the wooded hills ;
Carry me on as ye swiftly flow
Down to the valleys that lie below ;
Chatter and scold at the laughing brink.
Sprinkle the bird as he comes to drink.
Whirl down rock and pebb'e and sand.
But carry me on to the meadow land,
Ye sisters of those who aie dear to me.

Waves of the sea ! Waves of the sea !

Oh flowers ! oh simple meadow flowers.
Marking with sweets the passing hours 1
Open your buds to the mornmg's love.
To the light that is given by Him above.
Oh daisy 1 lift rp thy modiest eye
To meet the rays that look down from the sky :
Oh queen of the wild flowers t oh buttercup 1
I am gilding thy gold — look up, look up —
Methinks that I see as I sweep o'er the lea

Waves of the seal Waves of the sea I

SEAWEED.

Oh birds on ev'ry forest bough !

The morning beam is shining now ;

Too long has your soft wing sheltered the head —

The day has come, and the chill night fled ;

Timid and fluttering things that none

Could have kept from your foes save Him alone,

(Him who knows when a sparrow dies),

Lead earth's hymn to the list'ning skies ;

And ye too join in the melody,

Waves of the sea 1 Waves of the eea I

Waves of the eea, that never rest.
Ye know the love of the highest best ;
Though ye be strong, and the ship be frail,
What without Him can your force avail?
Oh oceans thunder your fiercest shock :
Ye cannot prevail against our Bock !
Though the tempest may howl and rave,
Though ye threaten with wave w wave.
He rules you, storm-tossed though ye be.

Waves of the sea ! Waves of the eea!

Far o'er the tossing waters sweeps the happy blush of day.
The blue waves ripple in the light and break in snowy spray.
And to the sunlit mountain peaks, and o'er the flow'ry sward.
The firmament proclaims thy work, the Heavens thy glory, Lord.

The birds break out in grateful song, the flow'rets stud the vale,
Sweet music echoes through the woods, sweet perfumes load the gale:
I hate the bright and busy day at whose approach have fled
My only solace of the night — the spectres of the dead.

Fled, leaving but a blank behind ! In all my dull despair
Through yonder solemn night I saw their faces in the air :
In night I heard them speak to me, in night they lived again.
Now day that brings all else relief, to me brings fiercer pain.

As one who wrapped in seeming death, all stifl*, all cold, all dumb,
Sees with unutterable pangs' the well-loved mourners come.
Feels the last kiss of wife and child, and sees the funeral pall.
And hears the cold screw gnawing througli the coflin's wooden wall ;

8KAWKRD.

Till all seems dark around him, and all the world is hid —
No sound except the patt'ring of the earth upon tlie lid,
And sense itself dies otf, till swift and sudden on his night
Sweeps in upon the throbbing brain a flash of living light.

Light that shall lieap up higher still the bitter cup of death —
Life ! that the new-made grave may heave above his gasps for breath—
Oh light I what part hast thou in me, whose inmost heartrstrings bleed.
Me, who am floating on life's wave, storm-tossed, like yonder weed.

Less than the storm-rent weetl that lives through all the ocean's strife,
I float bereft alike of care, and love, and hope and life ;
She could have taught me higher things, but now I learn no more —
All love has left me, and I drift upon the eternal shore.

Weeds of the sea I weeds of tlie sea
Floating where ocean leaps in glee,
Here sitteth one all sullen and wan —
Come and speak to the desolate man —
Come from the far oft coral isles
Where the long summer reigns and smiles I
Come from the chalk of the eastern caves !
Come from the ice-cold northern waves 1
He who made ye, makes use of ye,

Weeds of the sea I weeds of the sea 1

Lofty shrubs and trees are we.
Forests of the mighty sea,
Stretching to the sunlit air
Leafless trunks and branches bare ]
Underneath our pale green groves
Oft the purple mullet roves :
Midst our stems the huge whales roam,
O'er our heads the fierce waves foam,
Raving round each ocean tree.
Kept by Him who rules the sea.

Fragile waifs and strays are we,
Playthings of the mighty sea,
Living, blooming, fathoms deep
Where the restless waters slsep :
Stretching upwards fathoms high
Where the sea raves ceaselessly :

SKAWKKD.

r.!'''

(inthering round tlie coral walls
Where the endless breaker falls :
Spreading out, secure and free,
Watched by Him who rules the sea.

When the deep blue waters dance
Underneath the sunlteain's glance,
And the foam that tipped their crest
Melts, and sinks, and dies in rest —
When the breezes fall away
Sighing for the sleeping spray,
III the sea-light, faint and dim.
From His weeds there goes a hynm —
E'en Thy seaweed blesses Thee,
Loving ruler of the sea.

When the tempest, fierce and dread.
Thunders o'er our bowed-down head.
And the ocean lifts on high
Liquid mountains to the wky.
Rending in his rage and pain
Weeds that ne'er shall live again.
Then we look to him above.
Living in His living love;
Weeds, oh. Master, though we be.
Naught is small or great to thee.

We, the weeds, «an trust — and thou,
Sitting there with sullen brow.
Hearing but the moaning main I
He who loves thee, grants the pain.
Country, parents, wife, are gone.
He can fill thy void alone ;
He is standing by thy side.
Knocks, and will not be denie<l —
In His name we speak to thee.
We, the outcasts of the sea I

THE ^JiST WIND.

THE WEST WIND.

Over the ocean I come ; the brea^st

Of the broad Pacific is lying in reel,

Till I drink from her fountains, and every crest

Of her wavelets is tipped in foam.
Arctic glacier and ice-bound firth
Far in the North have given me birth,
And now I am speeding to rou^e on earth

Life wherevor I come.
I come laden with kisses of maiden,

Witli promise of fruits that are yet to come,
The salt sea blisses are in my kisses,

And the strength of the sea drives me on to home.
On to home, as I sweep along.

The little wave leaps, and surges, and swells,
Till the ocean itself thunders out a song.

As a cannon may roar amid marriage Itells.

Little waves, leap as I paes you by,

Emerald waves, that the great sun smite^^
Into the rainbow colors that die

In living, like those ephemeral mites
That spring to their sun birth, and fade wlien he

Fades away with the dying day !
But listen, little waves, listen to me.

Ere set of 8»in we'll be far away —
Far away on the rocky shore

Where the new world stretches far an4 wide,
There, little waves, ye shall chafe and roar,

And bring fresh wealth with each welcome tide ;
Chafe and roar on tlie mountain slope,

Rave and thunder against the rocks,
While I am away with my burden of hope,

Leaving behind me your puny shocks.

THK WEST WIND,

Hearken, pines on the mountain Bteepin!

I conic witli tlie criip Halt wave on my wingn ;
Hearken, Howers in valleyn' deeps I

'Tin I, tlie West wind of Ocean, that finps ;
I have come from tlie home of whale and seal,
From the great white icebergs of Northern seas,
Frost and snow were alx>ve and Ijelow,
And the avalanche rang a frozen peal,
And I said to myself, not these, not these
Are the home of the spring-time Western wind.
So I spread my pinions, and now, trees,
I have come to woo ye out into leaf,
Till the mountain crest is in blessed unrest
With the waving of tree-tops and songs of bird,
And underneath, in the valleys l>eneath.
The violets out of their moss are stirred.

Life! Life! Over the strife

Of frozen icel>ergs and an<]fry wave

Where death is the only life, I come
To summon life from out of her grave.

Are ye dead, old pines, that a thousand years
Have seen clothe all the mountains with green ?

Are ye dead, sweet violets, dead, ye ears
Of the wild oat, dead , oh primrose I The sheen
Of my wings shall waken ye up to life
As a bridegroom wakens wiih kisses his wife.

Are my kisses cold, sweet flowers ? The sea
That raves bchin<l me must plead for me.

I speed along at my own wild will,

I speed along, but l)ehind me still
Is the voice of my foster-mother, the sea

That raves and roars upon rocky shores.
And evermore, evermore, cries to me :

"Hasten, my youngest and earliest son,

Hasten until thy work be done."
And over the rock and over the plain
Willi whirl and v.'hoop, with shriek and swoop,
With hurrying clouds and gathering rain,
I keep my way till tlie winter time

THK WHHT V'lXI).

(ifdw^ milder, ninl ov<m' the fronfy cliime

Of jdnjjlijig icicU'M, swct'f. Hit'lgli bell-'.
Conies the war of cHtunu-tH, nixl the wceiit
Of tlowern tiiat grace the cltine of F-ent

In Hheltere<l mKtkf* and in nunny dells.
And the renurrectiun of Kaster-time.

Oh, little HtreanilotH, that hiiie away

In mountain Im)^!^, amid nu>nH and ^rass,
And steal among them until the day

SmileH to catch your Hiniles as ye pass.
Where have ye been since the autumn sheen?

Caught ye giving a drink t*» the mice
Hasting to make their nest, ere the green

Grew old and hoary with snow and ice.
Where have ye been, little streams? Wake up!

The ferns are f)ee|)ing out under the snow,
(ireen as they never had died, and tlje ojp

Of tlie cuj)-moss shines with its ruddy glow.
Where are ye now, little streanis? Your chains

Are melted away at tlie blast of my breath.
And over the mountains and down through the plains

Ye course, relieved from your living death.
Streanilets! listen, listen to me I

liisten to me in the joy of your birth ;

Though ye glad<len and bless the earth,
Ye must return to your mother, the sea.

Over the rocks, down into the vales —

And through them on to the Western jdnins, —
Tb? pines were clothing the hills and dales,

And now I sweep o'er the tomb of the grains.
Oh, Wiieat-corn, sleeping beneath the soil

S' arce turned till now, awaken for me.
Winter brought rest, but spring brings toil,

And I have a message from over the sea.

Fe>r I have a mission from the Master,
That drives n>e on ever faster and faster,

*' Blow, blow, breezes, blow !
Come from the North, East, West and South,

See the dead lx)ues lying below,

THK WKf*T WlXl*.

And put the fiHid iti tlu' gapinji moiitli."
Skt'lt'ton Imjuj^Iim wero waviiij? in air,
Tlie evergreen pineH were lunir uml white,
The iiioimtuin nlopeH were dead and hare,
And all wan «leath when I |)anHed hv light;
But now tlie l»rancl»eH are full of leaven,
The pineH liiive nhaken away their nnow,
The Hpring Howern clarnher )ip mountain eavep,

And all in life aliove iind helow.
Wake, yegraiiiH from your sleep of earth, —
Cold though yjiir wooing, after come
The Hoft apring-hreezen and the hum
Of bee8, and nongs of birdn, and rayn.
Of gloriouH Munlight, till ye nhake
Your «hunl)erH from off' you, and awaki-.
Grow, bud, and fruit, and sing Hin praiwe.
Whose winter and spring naven eartli from dearth.

How sweet to rent for a little while.
To wee the mountaiuH wake into life, '
• The little hrookw jangle in pretty strife,

Th« snow melt down from the bright green tnosd.
And the wooil anemone's tender cross
Gleam pure and white in the darkened woods
While the primrose glimmers by hill-ltorn floods.

Sweet to know that from ice and snow
And the death of Nature comes life again ;
That the spring time wind can leave far behind,
The winter sleep, and o'er liill and plain
Woo out the flowers, make way for the hours
Of summer sweets, and of summer chimes
Bring promise of fruits, and call to their nest.s
In the North the birds of the Southern climes.

Listen, oh Earth, give ear unto me
For I have a message over the sea.
Cold though I blow o'er ice and snow,
I bring the promise of life on my wings,
And wljere I pass, the last year's grass.
Is violet-clothed, and the robin sings.

WILD FuOWKRS.

WILD FLOWERS.

Flowers of the happy spring,
Blooming where the wild birds sing,
Ki\ising up yonr fragile bnda
Underneath the stonn-scathe<l woods.
Shining from the ruggeti stone
By the velvet moss o'ergrown,
Glancing to the sun's bright ray.
Where last autumn's leaves decay.
Creeping o'er the sunburnt hills
Gleaming by the babbling rills,
Decked with diamonds by the rains.
Listen to your lover's strains.

Ere the snow has swooned away
Littte flowrets grace the day.
Lifting up a blushing eye
To the wooing of the sky,
Ere the spring has well Itegun,
Ere the sugar sap has run.
Where the dead leaves first appear,
There the May-flower hails the year.
So when life's fierce tempeatn blow,
And our souls sink 'neath the snow.
Ere its chill hath passed away
God sends hope to greet our ilay.

Violets I blue violets !
Who that sees ye e'er forgets
How he toils who seeks ye, \rhere
Sweetest fragrance scents the air ;
Looking long, and looking far,
Wl^en beneath his feet ye are,
Glancing as the deep sea gleams
Underneath the noonday beams !
Coy and shy beneath the stin,
Dreading, willing to be won.
Who that sees ye e'er forgets
Violets, blue violets I

WILD FLOWERS.

Buttercup I proud buttercup !
From tliy meadow-grasa look up !
Haughty, love-compelling queen,
Not for thee to woo, I ween :
Flashing, when the eun looks down,
Myriad rays from golden crown.
Yet in all thy glorious pride
Clinging to the children's side:
Type of Him who reigns al)ove
In His all-constraining love.
In His mercy sweet and mild.
Deigning to the weakest child.

Frailest of the flowers that be,
Fragile wood-anemone I
Giving to the loving light
Sweetest green, and sweetest white ;
Hiding underneath the trees,
Shrinking f:-om the mildiest breeze.
Rising up to greet the morn
From the tangled briar and thorn.
Springing like the soul of man
Front Hfe's thicket, pale and wan.
He, oh wood-anemone.
Cares for man, who carea for thee.

Flowers I oh blessed, blessed flowers,
Marking with your sweets the hours ;
Blooming 'neath the sun's glad rays.
Cry aloud your Maker's praise ;
Hidden in your leafy bower
Praise Him, earlieet May-flower ;
Peeping through yc ur mossy net
Praise His naiu . ' e violet;
Love-compelling butter-cup.
Teach thy lovers to look up;
Praise Hun, frail anemone,
Lord of wori^ds who cares for thee.

PAST AND PRE8KMT.

PAST AND PRESENT.

I thirst, I pant, I die alone.
Sending to the 8kie8 my moan ;
Crying to the heavens above
For the want of eartlily love I
Hear nie, Master, ere I die,
In my need and agony.

Stars I oh peaceful, peaceful stars,
Looking on the soul's dire warp.
Calm, and still, and passionless.
Gazing on my deep distress,
Bear ye witness in the sky
To my need and agony.

Sun ! oh bright and glorious sun 1
Listen ere thy race be run :
Speeding through the viewless air
To our Maker, shriek my prayer I
Flash it out before I die
In my need and agony.

Seas I oh busy, restless seas I
Tossed by every gentle breeze-
Tossed like me, in storm and woe —
Hear me, where your waters flow ;
Tell to Him who rules the sea
All my need and agony.

PAST AND PRESKNT.

Earth! oh mother earth, rise wp
Ere I drink the bitter cup.
Thou that tellest in thy course
Tales of sin and dire remorse.
Hear me ! for I pant and die
In my need and agony.

Is there not one refuge, one?
Must I die unloved, alone ?
If I have not earthly love.
Shall I hope for that above?
Nature ! love me, else I die
In my need and agony.

Nature ! Dearest Nature, teach
What the refuge in my reach —
All thy children look to heaven ;
Mother I let thy veil be riven —
None have I to love but thee,
Help my need and agony.

" Ev'ry rill, and ev'ry sod
Speaks our great Creator, God —
He hath wrought and fashioned thee.
He hath wrought an<i fashioned me.
Child and sinner ! how can I
Help thy need and agony ?'*

" Yet thy mother speaks to thee.

Counselling thy misery : —

To my God I send a hymn —

In thy sin, oh go to Him :

Hill and vale and river cry :

• Turn, dear child, and do not die.'**

" Cry with God's own voice, ' Repent,'
Other days to thee are sent ;
Thou, who pin'st for earthly love,
What is that to His above ?
He can bid thy sorrows fly —
All thy need and agony.'*

I' ii

PAST AND PRESENT.

Yea I but what ajii I but man ?
What was he since earth began ?
Ere Adam slept his last long sleep
God gave one to love and keep.
Parents, wife, are not for me
In my need and agony.

Is man born to love alone ?
Are there none to love him, none?
I can love my mother sod ;
I can love my father's God ;.
Who is there to care for me
In my need and agony.

Yet I love : from earliest birth
Love must bind to heaven and earth :
Who is there that gives me back
What I give but what I lack ?
Who will love me, lest I die
In ujy need and agony ?

80N0 OP THE RIFLEMKN.

iONG OF THE RIFLEMEN (volunteer).

Crack of rifle and clang of sword
Sound o'er England's flowery sward :
Through the valley and hill kept glen
Tramp of horses and hum of men —
Squadrons forming, but not in fear,
Because of the war storm drawing near.

Storms I storms? keep to the plain I
Come not near Englands's cliffs again
Lest ye scatter in tears — not rain.

Roll among the fire scathed pines

Crowning the rugged Appennines

Roar of cannon and crash of war —

Storm though it be, let it keep afarf

Our iKMlies are England's, our souls are God's,

And our bayonets are our lightning-rods.

Storms I storms I keep to the plain !
Come not near England's cliffs again,
Lest ye scatter in tears*— not rain.

Though we have a dear ally
Let him tliink ere he pass us by
We can laugh at a tyrant's nod
Trusting but in ourselves and God.
Englisli hearts beat stout and true-
Storms that come here may have cause to rue.
Storms 1 storms! keep to the plain !
Come not near England's cliffs again.
Lest ye scatter in tears — not rain.

V0ICK8 OK THK DAT.

VOICES OF THE DAY.

DAWK.

No voices Hound ulorrg the vale, no voices on the hilli",
Naught save the wleepy murnmrB of the ever drowsy riil.«,
The sea in silent at my feet ; above tlie cloudletn lie
In sluggisli folds of grey, that mark the dreaming of the sky.

Last evening as the sun went down, all nature rang again
With birds upon tlie tree clad hills, and oxen on the plain.
Till last of all the nightingale sang vesper-hymns, and then
I heard the bull-frog in the niarsh, the lizard in the fen.

Till these two souglit their midnight rest 'neath tufts of grass and stone,
And, as the shadows thicker closed, I kept my watch aloue;
Yt .1 ' all living things were still, o'er earth and sky and sea,
I knew the never sleeping night was keeping watch with me.

But now, it is no longer night, though all things arc asleep :
I see, where ocean touches Heaven, the blood of morning creep;
And there the cloudlets wake at last as maidens wake to love
Till blush on bhish comes burning up and warms the grey alx>ve.

And higher steals the tell tale blush, and higher still, and higher,
Till all tlie eastern sky bursts forth in blood and gold and Hre,
And one by one the binis peep »ip from underneath the wing,
Then leave the shadows of the trees, and flutter forth and sing.

Yet, dearest one! though wanting thee, all weary seem the hours,
Wake not until the morning sun woos out thy sister flowers :
Sleep on, n^y own ; the dawn of love has long since risen for thee ;
Sleep on; but dream, and in thy dreams think lovingly of me.

DAT DREAMS.

Let me dream for awhile.
Ere she wakes up for me,

Catching the sun-beam's smile,
Hearing the laughing sea ;

VOICES OF THE DAY.

Dream of tlie joy to come
Dream of a loving Uriile,

Sitting with me at home
Bv mv own tirefide,

Still my (lelig)it to come,
Whatever elne mav Itetide :

"Watching the diamond spray

Leap in the morning liglit:
However briglit l»e the day

My dreaiuK are yet more Itright.
I have a dear one — one

Wlio can drive away care,
I pity the radiant f>un.

Sun, no partner may phare:
Sun, tliat was speeding alone

Through the desolate air.

Sweet are the songs that ring

Wak'ning forests and groves ;
Birds in the garden sing

Over tlie plants that she loves :
From thy nest in the tree

Little one do not start,
She who has fondled thee

Lives and reigns in my heart,
S(X)n to 1)6 joined to me —

Never, oh never to part.

Soon to l>€ all my own,

Leaning on but viy arm,
I, and I alone.

To stand between her and harm, —
What was tlie gloom o'erhead

Shadowing where I lie?
Was it a clotid that fled

Over the happy sky,
Leaving me sick with a namelesn dread

And a fear, I know not why ?

VOICES OF THE DAY.
LIGHT AND SHADE,

Wake and rise! wake and risel
O'er the Eastern mountains' head ;

All the clouds that veiled the skies
Burn in gold, and blush in red.

Nature calls us, * Wake and risel

* Shake off sleep, make no delay ;
Hapten ! hasten I hasten ! liasten I

* Cometh on the day I'

Watch and pray 1 watch and pray !

Though to yonder hills the sun
Brings the dawn from far away.

And his race be but begun,
Angels whisper, * Waich and pray !

* Thottgh the morn be very briglit,
* Listen! listen! listen! lisi^nl

• Cometh on the night!'

Break in song! break in son^!

Whereso'er the sunbeams glance.
Cool sea-wf-ids blo.v fresh and st-ong,

And the streamlets ?augh and dance.
Nature calls us, ' Break in song

* With the b" "ds on ev'ry fpray,

* Hasten! hasten! haitent hasten!

* Cometh on the day I'

*
Calm and low, calm and low,

Through the joyous hum of day,
Where the cool sea-breezes blow

Where the streamlets catch the ray,
Angels whisper calm and low,

Throiigh the songs that hail th6 light,

* Listen ! listen ! listen I listen !

* Conjeth on the night!*

Bask in joy ! bask in joy 1

Light knows naught of woe or ill.
Storm and darkness may annoy,

Now the sky is bright and etill, • .

V0ICE8 OF THE DAY.

Nature calls us, ' Bask in joy I
U«e the liouriH wliile yet ye may

* Hasten I liasten liasten 1 hasten I

• Cometh on the day P

Hope, but fear I liope, but fear I
Tliough the heavens overhead

Stretch all bright and calm and clear'
They are list'ning to night's tread.

Angels whisper, * Hope, but fear I
' When the day is at its height,

* Listen I listen ! listen I listen I
'CoHjethon the night!

Watch and pray I watch and pray I

Say tlie voices of the dead,
Tremble lest ye be astray

From the path when life has fled !
Angels whisper, ' Watch and pray I

' Pray for God to guide ye right;
'Listen I listen! listen! listen!

' Cometh on the night!*

NIOHT.

Oh, Earth! Earth! Earth! Hear me, for I will speak!
Oh, cruel Heavens, stifle not my cry !
Shout, mountains, from each lightning-blasted peak,

My agony !

Oh, ever-vexed, foaming sea, be still 1

My cries shall drown the roaring of thy wave i

The mightier sorrow gives the mightier will.

And I will rave !

Oh, rocks ! oh, brother rocks, give back my moan :
I saw a flash come from a cloudless sky
That fell on me, and blasted me to stone.

That cannot die.

TOICG8 OF THK DAY.

Dead I (lead ! — But who ? Is it not I am dead ?
Metliink.<^ I am, and yet I think and feel —
My tltought8 fltrike fire within my acliing head

Like Hin . and steel.

Oil cursed, cursed be my natal morn, i

Well uflhere<l in with tempest and with gloom.
When they crietl out. Behold a child is Itorn I

Yes — for the tomh|l

I stand lienumb befteath my deadly ill,

With Are that leaps and crackles in my brain;

A Are that gnaws, and gnaws, and will not kill.

But feeds my pain.

I will not stand with head and spirit l>owe<l
Yet language fails me in my misery ;
Oh, for a million tongues to cry aloud

Before I die.

I will not lose her thus I she shall not go !
She is not dead but sleepeth. She will hear ;
Look up, my own, and smile away my woe;

Thy love is near."

Dead 1 Dead ! Forever dead I and I remain

A death in life, to livs in death alone —

Saith not the preacher that all things are in vain.

All things are gone.

I know what chaos is — I see it round :

I feel the jar of elemental strife;

I tread no longer on the solid grouad —

Oh love I oh wife !

Would I had died for thee! yet am I dead;
For in thy death I die a thousand times,
And, lieing so, surround thy dying head

With mournful rfiymes.

But never, never, never more to sing :
I sang, I dreamt, T labored but for thee.
And Heaven has broken by thy death my string

Of melody.

TOICKS OV THK I>AY-

4»

And HO r pour my sorrows itit>o verHe,

Like <iy)rig nwan whor*o acceiitM rine an<i Hwell.

Oil, th'tttliless Death ! oh, uever-eiuling cur^*e,

Since Adam fell I

I rave, — who would not, lo^inj^ her? But now
A holier sorrow comes ii^hmi my mind;
A jirief that, while it rests upon my brow,

Leaves death behind.

And thus I know her spirit speaks with mine:
She could not leave me in my agony.
Where is, Death, that boast'st that all are thine.

Thy victory?

, Ml DNIO HT . '

Oh, that the still and silent mountain-tops

Would bow themselves and hear me I that their peakct

Storm-scathetl with fire and water, would come down,

And bury me beneath them ! that the earth

Opening her blackest and most lonely cave,.

Would bring my desolation to her own.

And swallow me to darkness, and a night

Brighter than all my days ! or that the sea

That raves for those who love and wish to live,

Would clasp me in his icy-cold embrace.

And let me toss about and moan with him !

Last night I went to see her, and a storm

Of wind and rain came sweeping down the road.

And tore up barns and strongly-rootecl trees.

But came not near me. 1 was fearful then :

I longed to see the well-beloved face

Before God took her fi. i me: knowing not

That some men bear wiihiii themselves a woe

That keeps death at a distance, and is safe.

And now I long for what I feared ; and yet .

Men have at hand a million ways to die.

But only cowards use them : I will bear.

Why, there's a grim delight in suffering,

(Would all the world could feel the joy with me I)

'(!

voicuH or THi: pat.

And I can tear me from my finff^ring nelf,
And stand, a curiouH looker-on, and watch
A human heart that palpitateH, and throbn.
And bleedH beneath the heavy stroken of heaven,
Knowing it is my own, and laugh to see
The fruitless struggles of a loving soul
That had but one frail hope, and sees it fade.
I say that there is laughter in the thought
That hearts, that heaven dissects while ye' ''"«^,
Cannot beat quietly beneath the knife
They know they cannot flee from. If I hold
My hand within the fierce-devouring flame,
The body knows the all-constraining will.
And, while the pangs go through it, givea no uign
Save by the crackling of the nerves ; but now,
Place but the soul upon the fire of grief.
And lo, it screams and struggles! Puny thing I
Well, let it scream, and I will stand and laugh. —
Oh, lovet oh, light I oh, life! oh, heaven on earth I
Would He would slay me on thy new-made grave.
And let me rest a little while with thee I

II.

Oh, that my whole dark soul could open out,

And pour itself upon this living world

In waves of desolation I that my night

(Strange night that broods on me in clouds of fire)

Gould come upon the things that love the light,

And clasp them as it clai^peth me, and burn I

Oh, that I bore within myself the power

As great as is my will, to seathe and blast.

That men might hate and fear me, as I hate

The very sight of men and all they love I

Be still, oh Earth 1 though once indeed I heard

Thy words, and communed with thee, knowing all

The whispers of the flowers, the streams and woods.

And all the voices of the birds and all

That came in waves and harmonies of light

From yonder stars above us ; drinking in

Lo\ e's food from them, and joining all their words

To mine, that I might pour my whole soul forth

Before her feet, and deck her with a crown.

VOK'KS OK TIIK DAY.

T)iat, nil unworthj of licr us it wa^,

No emperor couM give her j yet l»« (lun»l»!

For now am I alone, nnnatnral,

Standing U'reft heniile a new-made grave:

Therefore l>e iiUHlied Jw'fore my hitter woe,

Before the nharj) myHt<'ri(MiH pang with w)iu;li,

Like me, tli<Mi groan'nt and travailleHt; — U* mtiil,

And preach thy petty comfort unto tlio^e

Wlio«e minery neekH pity — n»ine doef4 not, . ,

But, like the flame-encircled Hcorpion,

Vnes \tn hiting poinon on itnelf.

Through rage it cannot torture nometliing elwe.

When HrHt my mother died 1 wept aloud,

Thinking that there wan nothing left to pienx'

The hcartH God'H wisdom lacerateH ; but then

AH Huddenly there came a black-edged note

That lield a Hcantv lock of nilver hair,

And told ]uH death who nourinlied me ; and ho . .

I Huttered mutely, like my own grim creHt,

The otter, <lying underneath the bites

Of yelling houndn, that given no soimd nor nign.

But now — would Qo*\ that I could speak my thoughts,

And cry until the dea«i rise up to hear.

That I might see her once again. Oh, Earth I

Cover not though my blood, for I am lost,

Losing in her my Heaven; therefore. Earth,

Add one more chapter to thy grievous tale,

And cry to thy Creator, if ]>er(;haMce

He deign to hear thee, w/io ni'imix deaf to itie.

Oh, skies, bend down and listen to a cry

That wails and shivers throus^h your cruel culm ;

I speak to my Destroyer; Him who lives,

And gave me life and love, to shatter Itoth.

But Ikj not deaf! I will not say a word

To murmur at His wise omniixttence.

Only to ask, "Why did'st Thou give me love.

And takest all my foo<l of love away

To slay me with a hunger yet more fierce

Than that which racks the iKxIy?" 'Tis not much.

And I am very meek and all resigned. —

Oh, lovel oh, light I oh, life! oh, Heaven on Earth I

Would he would slay me on thy new-made grave.

And let me rest a little while with thee!

VOICKS OK THK DAY,

III.

i'-\f\

I
i'lUfi'

I!:

il, ii

W\'

m
m

I sing as siwnnH do when tlicy float to death :

Metliought tliat men in sorrow could not sing.

But now I wee my error, knowing that

The tleepcHt weight of sorrow oix'uw out

Fonntains within the houU that tind tlieir vent

In telling all their uioauingn in sucli witrds

As best befit the Hacrednenn of grief,

And force all men to sliare it. Let then» share :

I cannot bear such heavy pain alone,

But seek for comfort, like a foolish child,

Knowing there is no solace for my woe :

Knowing that Job, in loss of lands, and wealth,

And dearest children, had some things to love,

And friends to love him ; though, indee«l, their names

Are held by us in scorn — "Job's coniforters !"

And yet the}' loved him. I have neither friends,

Nor lands, nor wealth, nor children, and alas

Our God has rent the band that he had wrought.

There are some men who fancv that thev know

What sorrow is ; l)ecause, when revelling

In untold wealth of love, and life, and joy,

God takes a little fnmi their treasurer — wife.

Or child, or mother; so they conu* to those

Whom He hath blasted, as .the lightning blasts

And melted into lava, speaking thus:

" We too have suffered, we can sympathize;

"But give not way to passionate distress,

" Look upwards for relief, reniember Job."

Oh, men! that put the fire out with oil.

What was Job's sorrow unto mine? and I,

Like him, will curse the ilay that I was Itorn,

Arul use God's words to tell tny titter grief.

For God alone can tell it: " Let the day

" Be darkness, and a shadow as of death

" Brood on it: let the blackness of its night

" Sit like a ghastly phantom-^terriltle,

" And striking it with awe: let all its night

" Be solitary, never hearing words

" Of joy or gladness: let it be expunged

" From out the list and calendar of days,

" Because it shut not up my n>other's womb.

VOICKS OF THK WAY,

*'Nor hid my future norrow from mine eyes."

So would I speak and die; and in her death,

Dying vvt»uld Hud my one last ray of joy.

E'en while I cry, my heart has sought her grave ;

And, like a dove that flutters to her nest.

Sore wounded, to her dear ones, so do I

Flutter to her dear coftiii, and lie down

Beneath the grass that takes the dew of heaven

And rains it down in pity on me. God

Grant me that, if I may not die with her,

I live with her again; Oh, would 1 were

One 8od that falls upon her coftin, so

We never, never should he separate.

In ancient tinies they Ixiund the parricide

Unto the lx)dy that he should have loved,

And left him, living, to corniption. Would

That I couhl claim the same dear law, and die

With her lips fastened unto mine — she deail.

Alas, but I alive ! — for death through her

Is welcome as sweet showers to thirsty lands.

Oh, love! oh, life! oh, light! oh, Heaven on Earth!

Would He would slay me on thy new-made grave,

And let me rest a little while with thee!

IV.

Pray God for that one mercy — that T die

Clasping her toinb-<tt)ne. Is it much to ask ?

I yield her unto Heaven, and am glad

That Heaven takes her from me, giving me

Unto that Hell upon Earth that drags to Hell :

Thanking Him for His curses, so that she

May live and reign forever. 80 he it.

Could I not give up life and so»d for her,

I should not love her, But I do; I do.

Oh, grant me this, that h}' her grave I die ;

And dying give her name unto the world

To live forever, though I die — I die.

** God gives us things to love," they say: what then,

If He resume His gifts and take away;

And, having taught the silly heart to learn

That love is life, and without love is death,

Reud with uns])aring hand eacli tie to life.

■H

VOICEH OF THE DAY.

And doom hifi playthingfl to a living tomb?

Let othern feign to kiss the lifted rod,

Wearirjg alx)ve their bitter hearts the face

Of rcHigriation ; I cannot do ho.

The greatne.sH of iny sorrow strips me bare

Of all the coverings that mask our life ;

And should I say I gladly give her up,

I'd lie like Juda^. Oh, my love ! my soul !

My only tie to Heaven or to Earth ;

My darling, dearer than all things most dear!

Would he would slay me on thy new-made grave.

And let me rest a little while with thee!

Be still! Perhaps she hears me in the grave.

And my lamentings break her angel-sleep ;

Or rather say she listens from tlie Heavens

And cannot sing his praises as she would,

Because she hears my sorrow; for I know •

He lets my angels think of me, and oft

When I have wept myself to sleep, He sends

Their faces to my dreaming; then I sinile

And bless Him for His mercy, seeing them ;

And when the sun peeps in and bids me wake,

I press upon mine eyelids with my hands

To shut Him out, and keep them still with me.

For angels vanish when the sunlight comes.

And so I know they think of me sometime^.

And come, that I may not be desolate ;

And T will cover up my bitter woe

Lest she should see and grieve for it. My own !

I would not vex thee in a thonght ! And yet

How can I hide it, when her heart and mine

Are one, and lie together in one grave?

My love ! iny light! my life ! my Heaven on Earth I

Mine yet! mine always! How we laugh to scorn

My rival, petty tyrant tliat he i.a,

That clasps thee in the grave-yard, — knowing not

That liearts once joined by God, nor Death nor Hell,

Nor aught save God himself, can separate;

And when he grasps thee, that he folds us t)otli

In that embrace, and presses us the more

m
III

TOICES OK THB DAY.

Clonely together — life and heart and soul.
For Love is stronger still than death, and breaks
Tlie prison of the grave, and burns and shines
Above the loved one's coffin ; laughing at
The gloom of dank corruption ; seeing naught
But her who whilom lived, and moved, and loved.
And watching till the day of judgment, when
E'en death shall be engulphed in victory.
And love shall reign foi: ever. Oh, my life!
Pray God in Heaven, as we do pray on Earth
That He will hasten on the glorious day,
And never, never separate us more.

VI.

i went into the garden she had kept
And tended, ere the fell destroyer came
To wither all her grace (that cursed One,
That steals upon his victims like a cat.
And plays with them and mocks their fruitless pangs,
Looking from out the bright brown eyes with fire
That shows the more the two dark rings around, —
The rings that mark the marriage of the grave-
Painting the damask beauty of the cheek
With colors lovelier than health can give,
Andsinawing at the vital fount« of breath
Until he slays his victim, inch by inch).
And there, amid the flowers she loved, I saw
Her very emblem ; for a damask rose,
Giving her fragrance to the wooing air
From all her glorious blossoms, stood alone
With withered leaflets — not one speck of green
And bloomed amid destruction, while the worm
Gnawed daily at her roots. Oh, love! oh, life!
Woiild I could press thee to my heart as close
As I do press this blossom that I plucked
From off this rose-tree! Since thou could'st notHve,
Would we had died together 1 — side by side.
Mocking the cruelty of Heaven with love,
Unparted, unextinguishable by
The grave where thou art lonely now, my own.
Yet do not sorrow ; wait a little while
And I will join thee also — not as those

■56

VOICES OF THB DAY.

V7ho dare not live and bear their agony :

But there are times when grief o'ershoots the mark.

And, while it probes the lacerated heart,

Sees suddenly that quiver of the nerve

That tells that all is over. So make room,

Sweet bride; fur lo! my rival stands by me.

And reads our marriage-service. Blessed Heaven I

And did I call thee cruel? I was madl

There is not in thy richest mercies one

Greater than this thou grantest — that I die.

Oh, love I oh, life I oh, light! oh. Heaven on Earth!

Soon shall I come unto thy new-made grave.

And rest in peace a little while with thee.

VII.

" Heaven gains another angel ; so rejoice."

Let Heaven rejoice that gains her. We below:

Have none so many that we need be glad

When one goes from us. She on Earth was one

Of Heaven's own angels. Wherefore should she go

And leaves a void behind her, to be filled «

Perhaps, by devils ? Wherefore was she sent,

That we, in knowing all her worth, should know

How great otir losn in losing her, and feel

Our gain — of desolation 7 Does a man

Rejoice when flowers die? or rainbows fade?

Or when a meteor, filling all the sky

With light too lovely for the world, departs

And leaves black night behind it? Why, what fools

Are all those would-be comforters — (what's this

That stills my woe and speaks instead ?) — *' that think

" They can relieve the grief that God Himself

*' Waits long before He handles, leaving it

" To weary out its madness ere He speaks ;

** And even then He speaks in lowest tones,

** Touching the sore, that shrinks from ev'ry touch,

" With fingers gentler than a mother's, while

" He soothes the wilful child, and shows it that

*"She is not dead, but sleepeth'; pointing out

" The loveti one's finger beckoning her love

** With eyes of which the light of Heaven shinex,

" To come and join her in her praise of Him."

.: : ■ l;| ^

■ili:

V01CK8 OF THK DAY.

And when ret^llion at the sight is still,

And all the bouI grows calmer, though it yearns

To join her on the instant, thou who speak'st

In words that lay my sorrow, say what then ?

** Then when the heart will hear His word. He speaks

■" More plainly, saying ' Learn to suffer first,

** And so to strive with Me, that Joy and Peace

■" May reign at last upon my vexed earth ' ;

** And thus the child goes forth to do, and hear

*' AH things his Father willetli, with the calm

" Of holy sorrow nestling at his heart,

*' Until the end arriveth. Then our God

" Clasps him in close embraces, whispering:

" *0h, child ! oh, dearest child ! and didst thou think

" Thy Father wounded thee except in love?'

'* While those who stand around the dying bed

" Draw nearer, R.id l>ehold with joyful awe

*' A placid smile upon the dead man's face."

Said I not well my loved one came to me ?

She came amid my madness. Oh, my God,

Forgive me all my murmurs. Let me live.

And live to do thy bidding. Let me be

A beacon in life's tempest. Wheresoe'er

Hearts break beneath their heavy weight of woe.

There send me, Lord, and teach me what to say,

That Thou, not I, may'st comfort: Oh, my love.

Leave not the Heaven again to soothe my grief.

But sing His praise who doeth all things well.

Until I join Thee ; looking down, at times,

To see me toiling up the hills to thee.

Hear me, earth I seas ! rocks I vales !

And echo forth the summous, " Ye who mourn.

Your Lord has need of you to comfort those

Whom He has wounded ; therefore, come with we.

I see a cross that stands on Calvary,

With little ones beneath it. Take them up ;

Each one his brother's. Rise and let, us go."

Oh, love! oh, life! oh, light! oh, Heaven in Heaven!

Our love shall triumph through the love of God.

Wait but a little while. I come to thee.

TWENTY YKABS AFTKR.

TWENTY YEARS AFTER

Red geraniums on the snow.

That covers thy resting place, lost love!
The mouldering dust of earth below,

And the glory and flush of earth above 1
Lie there, die there, beautiful flowers.

As she lies there who is long since dead ;
Wither and droop in your bud's first hours.

As she w^s withered ere youth had fled.
Bed geraniums on her breaHt,
Red geraniums at her feet,
Breathe out your lives o'er her last long rest.
While over your blossoms the breezes beat
The under-notes of the old refrain.

That evermore echoes agi in and again :
" Love that hath us in the net.
Can he pass, and we forget ?
Many suns arise and set ;
Many a change the yeais l»eget."
Red geranixims on the snow,
Answer for me to the sleeper l)elow, —
Through many suns that have risen and set,
Have I forgotten ? or do I forget?

11,

Have I forgotten the hopes and fears

That stirred all my heart in the by-gone years ?

Have I forgotten the graceful head

That has lainso lotitg in its lowly bed?

Have I forgotten the dreams of old,

Or the tender tale that so oft is told?

Have I forgotten the dull despair

That froze me to stone when they laid thee there T

Red geraniums on the snow

Dying above her, answer " no."

TWENTY YEARS AFTKR.

5J»

III.

Have I forgotten the storms witliin,

The weary and shameful load of sin,

"When all my bitter and darkened life

Was a meaningless dream and an aimless strife,-

When the heart within was as hard as the rock,

And the soul was a barren and friiitless stock?

Have I forgotten the liorrible days

Of a life that had neither prayer nor praise?

Have I forgotten the mournful night

In the which I stumbled, nor missed the light?

O animal life 1 heart of stone I

O the sin of the days that ftre gone I,

Dust and ashes upon my head

As I lay these flowers above thy bed I

IV,

Why do I talk of such things to thee,

Things that thou sawest not, could'st not see ?

For the veil of the Holy of Holies is spread

*Twixt the sins of the living and rest of the dead ;

But whenever tlie Mighty One goes to war

The portals of Heaven are left ajar ;

Whenever the lost is found again

The veil of the Temple is rent in twain,

That saints and angels may see from al)Ove

The victory of the Redeemer's love.

Earth's sins and struggles are not for the blest

To break the repose of their blissful rest.

But the triumph o'er sin, and the victory.

Are known at the foot of the Throne on high.

Should I forget the thorn-crowned face?

Should I forget the waiting grace,

The patient waiting in Love's own strengh

That watched me, and hedged me, and won at length.

Till I stand to-day, lost love, by thy grave.

Thy partner in Him who is mighty to save 7

Love that hatli us in Hie net

Shall He pass, or we forget?

Blood-red blossoms upon the snow,

For thee and for me, shall answer ** no."

TWENTY YKAB8 AFTKR.

Do I forget that, as days rolled on,

And the firHt mad anguinh and pain were gone,

In tendereat love, not bitterest wrath.

He walled me around, and hedged in my path ?

Thick were tlie thorns, and few were the flowers.

That grew in my ways in the hy-gone hours ;

But the thorns tliat were in them myself had sown,

And the flowers that blossomed He gave alone.

Till I, that cried out, when thou were dead.

That the glory and joy of life had fled.

Found my stony desert and sky of gloom

As the garden of Eden brighten and bloom ;

And the love and the hope I had lost in thoe.

Come back at His bidding again to me.

VI.

Do I forget as I stand at thy feet

The glory and crown that have coine on my life?
Do I forget by the graveside sweet.

The love and the honor I bear to my wife ?
Do I forget all her love and trust ?

Or is there a thought, or a hope, or a prayer,
As I bend for a little while over thy dust.

That the wife of my heart iiiay not know and share ?
Did I forget theiiie, each bud I fling

In tender memory o'er thy head
Would be to my soul a bitterest sting,

And an injury, foul and base, to the dea<J.
I love thee better by loving her b est :

For I know in my heart that the time will come
When we shall be gathered in, too, to our rest,

And thou wilt be there to welcome us home :
And well I ween that thou, sweet, dost know,

With thy clearer knowledge of things above.
What the true heart seeth but dimly below, —

Thi^t there are no limits or liounds for love;
That the earthly loves which He takes away.

He replaces again with a lavish hand,
Giving them fresh from day to day.

To draw us to Him with a growing band :

TVKXTY VK.VUH AFTKK.

And lunvever o„r lives ,nay be ten.pest-toHHed,

^ot a link of that chain shall l,e nnnsing or lost

When we gather in Heaven around the Throne,
"iiy by day are fresh links U'gun,
Buf, though they he nmny, the chain is one.

VII.

lied geraniums on the snow I

Tell her that naught have I forgot,
Be it of weal, or be it of woe,

That has darkened or lightened upon my lot
Least of all through the stretch of years

Have I forgotten love's loyalty ;
And the lessons it teaches in smiles and tears,

1 learn, and am learning until I die.

KTK.VIXU HTMN.

EVENING HYMN.

. J

Thou, whose never-sleeping eye
Piercea through obscurity,
And whose never-ending love
Guards thy children from above,
Now I lay ine down to rest;
Bless me, and I shall be blest I
Watch me. Father, till I wake ;
Keep roe for my Saviour's sake.

Father ! tlirough the now past day
Oft thy child has gone astray ;
Yet, for Thou canst look within.
See repentence for my sin ;
Human frailty Thou dost know —
What I would not that I do:
Father, e'en in justice mild.
Pardon me, thine erring child.

So, when I mine eyelids close.
Thy great love shall give repose ;
Silent night shall bring no fear.
Since I know that Thou art near.
Though Thy thunders all around.
Rave along the trembling ground,
I shall hear my Saviour cry —
« Be not fearful, it is I."

But, should pain and agony
Keep awake the weary eye.
And the stillness seem more still.
And the darkness full of ill, —
Through the black and solemn night,

Till the happy morning light,
iM thine angel« from above
»e *rith meund all Hove.

And, when near elcruitv.
Sterner night «hall cloH'e on me,
And the hard and laU.«red breath
tease at the approa<,h of death,

iho„,whocani'Htonearthto.ave,
^»tl.erl Conqnerer of the Gravel
in Thine an..., though friends jnay ween
Hu.h Thj little one to Hleep. """^ "'^^P'

•S

ti4

TO A MIHHIONARY

TO A MISSIONAUY.

"Ministers of Go-l-in .nuch patience, in afflictionn in neceHHitien,
Ministers .^^ ai8treH.se«."-2 CuiinthmnH, vi. 4.

Servant of QoA, ppeed on ! The gale
Howls for its victim, and the wave,
In many a watery vale

Spreads wide a yawning gravel

Far otf, the land looms din> 1 The sea,

Tipped with huge clots of snow-white foam.
Leaps in its ntaddeneil glee
Between thee and thy home.

That home where often, wandering free,
Thou, in the dark old forest glade.
Beneath some rugged tree,
In laughing l)oyhooii played.

E'en vet thy memory recalls

Thine aged father's honored face—
The old, the well-hown halls—
Thy mother's last embrace ;

The silent valley, and the hill ^^

« Where the last 8unl)eam loved to stay ;
The forest and the rill

Low murmuring on its way.

Yes 1 on thy heart remem'

Companions of thy wo* > eal.

Like shadows on the «U,
How noiselessly they 8t«al!

Or thee the terrors of the land
Await : The howling wilderness ;
Wild Afric's torrid sand ;
Thirst, famine, and distress.

TO A MlflHIO.VABY.

Ott to thy hut the h'onV roar,
Ff^T off, shall swell along the gale ;
Oft, too, the torrents pour
Destruction on the vale.

Or, where the tempest-beaten North
rjes glittering 'nenth the frosty sky.
Perchance thou Hpeedest forth
To labor and—to die.

Where, rustling through the midnight still.
The splendor of the Northern Light
Streams o'er each ice-capped hill,
The standard of the night)

And the volcano's lurid glow,
From earth's deep bosom leaping high.
Lends to the pure white nnow
The blushes of the sky.

Yet, servant of the Living Oo«l,
Fear not the earth— the ocean's wrath !
As erst His martyrs trod.
Tread thou the holy path.

In life, contempt, and toil, and woe
Are thine, the spurned, forgotten name;
In death, the robes of snow.
The crown of living flame.

<i6

THB INTOOATIOV.

THE INVOCATION.

" But now]^ fltrange and terrible thing occurred ; for the idolatrous
prie8t8, finding their worship falling into sudden disrepute, while theise
Hervants of ye Lord were sailing to another island, did assembl* theni-
fielves together, and, with mr.ny cries, did call upon their gods to arise
and destroy their blasphemerM. And truly a fierce and vehement Btorni
did arise, which did swallow up ye holy men," Ac. — /J?. Mart. Legend,

Mighty king I resistless lord 1

Sprung from Odin's royal line,
Known in many a living word.

Sung of old by Scalds divine I
Thou who, clothed in terrors, sweepest

Over hill and over plain^
Hear me, whereso'er thou keepest

Gloomy, storm-compelling reign.

Where the white eternal snow

Glitters 'neath the frosty sky.
And the ice-bound rivers flow

To the ocean silently ;
Where the foot hath never tro<l.

And the eye hath never gazed;
There, ere Time wan born, the god

Palaces from water raised.

Underneath tlie crystal floor

Ocean, kept in icy chain.
Stills his stern and angry roar.

Moaning like a god in pain :
Yet the tie that binds his wave

Ocean's self to thee had given ;
Though his waters fret and rave,

Never more shall it be riven.

THB INVOrATIOX.

Growing witli tlie growing hour,

Living fitill when Time shall die,
Lo! the mighty snow-wallH tower

Up to Heaven's canopy.
Here for thee the Spirit-Light,

Tinting all the nky with red,
Ever through the frowty night

Spreads its standard o'er thy hea<l.

Murmuring with a mystic sound,

Known to t!»ee nnd tliee alone.
Souls of Vikings all around

Bend before thine icy throne:
They, who ever, when the storm

Swept along the startled sea,
Knew the god's presiding form.

Hailed thine awful majesty.

Fierce in life, and stern were they.

Joying in the heaps of slain.
Swooping on the tremlding prey

Like thy tempests on the plain ;
Therefore, in the hour of death,

When they sought the naval pyre.
Thou for them, with mighty breath,

Kindlwist up the purging fire.

So thy wliirlvvinds howling loud,

And the moaning of the surge,
And the crackhr.g mast and shroud,

Were their lit Jind solemn dirge.
Not the woman's tear-steeped ej'e,

Not the puny wail of grief,
But the fire, and sea, and sky

Swelled the death chant of the chief.

Till the rosy ocean wave

Gulphed the Hre-em braced bark.
And its grim and sullen gi-ave

Overhead grew azure dark.
Then thy tempests died away,

Bearing off the soul to thee ;
And the safiron orb of day

Flashed across the heavinv sea.

«8

THK INVOCATION.

But afar, where thou dost reign,

In the cold and glittering North,
Trooping from the hoary main

Come the hero-spirits forth ;
And when o'er the frosty sky

Oft the Northern Lights expire.
Rustle then their standards high,

Gleams again the funeral lire.

Mighty king I resistless lord !

Sprung from Odin's royal line,
Speak the storm-compelling word.

Come in majesty divine.
Oh I if e'er in times of old.

From thine ice-encircled throne,
Thou didst hear the free and bold.

Now assert, dread king, thine own.

Lo I across the wide-spread path

Of the still and patient sea,
Fearing not, King, thy wrath.

Strangers come who know not thee I
Speaking strange, mysterious things

Of a new and brighter day ;
Foes to all the (Esir kingn.

They would lead thy sons away.

Dastardn are they, that rejoice

In their leader's death of shame;
Fools, whose weak and puny voice

Fain would brand thy glorious name;
Souls that, grovelling with the soil.

Hating sword and arrow true,
Welcoming reproach and toil.

Seek to make us cowards too.

Oh, in this, the hour of need,

Spread thy gloomy wings on high
Rushing with a mighty speed.

Sweep along the shrieking sky ;
Summon all thy servants round,

Arm them for the coming fray.
Stoop upon the heaving ground

Like an eagle on its prey.

THE ISVOCATIOS.

Then, in tliis thy farored place,

Far removed from mortal ken.
In thy whirlwind's grim embrace

Cla^p this coward race of men :
Plunge them in the yawning grave

Of the all-devouring sea;
There let liim they truHt in nave

From thine awful majcnty.

There, beneath the sun's bright ray,

Oft their lleshless bone^ shall glance.
Glittering in the flashing spray

Of the Malestrom's endless dance ;
When the weary serpent-king

Round the earth's )undations curled.
Moves a while each massive ring

That supports the heavy world.

Lo, it comes ! Lo, it wakes !

Dread spirit of the air ;
And the mighty ocean shakes

As it rushes from its lair;
And the gods that dwell on high

Their awful faces veil ;
And the azure of the sky
Gro\trs pale.

liO, it comes I The sullen soun«l

Prophet of the tempest's wrath^
And the startle*! rocks rebound
All along its unseen path ;

And the sea-mew, whirling high.
Screams aloud to the sky,
Till the echoes from the bay
From the hills ami valleys round.
Die away.

All round, a solemn still

Hangs o'er mountain, plain and rill ;
Deepened silence, as of death,
Kushe i > ,M-n voice, and stayed each breath ;
And the oi-'tunlened air

THK INVOCATIOX.

Dies away, and cannot stir
FeatlierH that the white sea-mew,
Circling 'neath the sky's deep bhie,
Dropped on yonder'storm-scathed flr.
ITnderneath, in grim repose,
Ocean waits his coming foes ;
And the foam, that tipped the crest
Of his waves, has died in rest.

But on high tlie light hn^ fled.
And tlie sun ha>^ hid hi-< head :
And darker yet, and darker still,
Hroodsthe dread storm o'er plain and hill;
Save where, as far as eye can see

Atwhart the fearful air,
Rolls slow along the nmddened sea
The tempest's lurid glare.

He has heard ! He has spetl

From his palace in the North ;
He has lifted up his head

He has nent his spirits forth !
All l)ehind him desolation !

Cries of death — a hitter wail !
All before him lamentation 1

Heads that l)OW and hearts that quail,
Darkling spirits rush before him I

Fearful terrors hover o'er him !
Heaven, and eartli, and sea adore him I
Miglity king, all hail !

Mingling with the crashing sky,

Rising o'er the roaring surge.
Raise the song of triumph high ;

Raise the coward's funeral dirge.
Long across the laughing spray

Of the all-devoring wave,
Friends shall gaze the livelong day.

Gaze across tlieir mocking grave.

THE INVOCATIOX.

But, when'er the cold, white snow

Spreads its mantle o'er the ground.
And the wintry breezes blow.

And the earth grows har.1 around—
Bending o'er the blazing fire.

Oft, to while away the hour,
To his children shall the sin^

Tell the God's almighty p.iwer I

Till the blushing cheek grows white,

And the scarce-drawn breath ip still.
And the chill wind's moaning flight

Seems some boding sound of ill
So thy fearful name shall fly

O'er the world, from shor'e to shore,
iill thy lightnings quit the sky.

And thy thunders cease to roar.

MEDITATIOir.

MEDITATION

''If in thii4 life onlj we have hope, we are of all men ntOHtmieerable."-

1 Cor., XV. 19.

pi':

Oh, that 8ome god would hurry me along,
And bear me onwards on his mighty wings ;
Then, in the heaven-inspired realms of song,

Touch onee the strings,
That I might catch their ringing echoes, when
They sounded in the crystal-columned hall
Of the nine sister goddesses, and then

Ponr them back — all
Tn one sweet solemn flood of melody, .
One parting ray of glorious lustre, ere
To other scenes and other climes I fly.

To linger there,
Like some dim sun, that all the day in cloud
Entombed, has hid his fires beneath its night.
Yet, ere his race be run, has burst his shroud

In floods of light.
And all the hills grow purple, and the sky
Glows with the dying god ; and oceln's surge
Burns his vast pyre ; while yon wild sea-birds's cry

Is but his dirge.
But ah t more like the lonely sun that speeds
All dim and saddened through the murky sky,
No ray of light may cheer the path that leads

^e on to die.
Where are they now that here before me stood.
That roamed these hills and smiling vales of yoref
Ah t slowly onwards, sweeps Times*s grasping flood :

Are they no more ?
What boots it then to them that life has been
A weary struggle for an honored name T
The very oak on which their record's seen,

Outlives their fame.

MEDITATION.

They loved, perchance ; and yet their love has passed :
They mourned ; what heart responds now to their wail?
Their loves, their woes, their hopes, are hid at last

Beneath the veil.
So what they toilet! for, with such endless care,
Time's ocean swept from off the fickle strand :
And we shall toil — poor insects, that we are —

And build — on sand.

And yet methinks a voice within me cries —
** Oh, coward spirit! faint'st thou at the track?
** Wilt thon, when Heaven straight on before the lies —
" Wilt thou turn back?

*' Not always shrouded speeds the lonely sun ;
** The sadder days of life must sometime cease :
** Oird lip thy loins and hasten to press on ;
" Then rest In peace,

** Like those who went before thee. Not unknown
^* Are they, whate'er thy gloomy mind asserts ;
** They struggled, and the God who knows His own
"Saw their deserts.

** What though their joys and griefs have passed away,
*• And those who loved them have forgot their love ?
** Life's night to them was harbinger of day,
" And bliss above.

*' Or is it naught to thy distempered mind,
*' With sullen thoughts and bitterness opprest,
*• To know, midst sorrows, that their lies behind
" The coming rest ?

** Or may'st thou not, amidst thy doubts and fears,
** Hope still for some small happiness below ?" —
** Not so, sweet voice, our hopes are frozen tears,
'* And frail as snow.

** We struggle vainly in care's serpent coil,
" Toss'd hither, thither ; yet we know not why.
** Poor puppets I Howsoe'er we bravely toil,
" We toil— to die.

** And though, fh>m righteous Abel until now,
" Strong men have striven to amend the earth,
** The same stem weights of woe oppress the brow,
" E'en ft*om our birth."

I \l

}

MEDITATION'.

" Not 80. By many a battle strengthened, man

" Makes steady progress unto life and light,

" Though those brave minds that struggled in the van

" Fell in the fight.
" Let there be light,' " was said in times of old
" Ere the fair planet shone upon the air :
" He spake, who speaks not vainly, and behold

" The light was there 1
" And still He speaks, and changes not ; and still
" Men struggle through the darkness unto day,
" And yet shall strive till wickedness and ill
" Shall pass away.

" Press on, and quail not : not for thee the ease
"That sleeps, reclined, 'nud purple and 'mid gold;
" Yet there await thee better things than these,

" And joy untold."
Weak dreamer 1 through the chequered ways of life
Take up thy weary burden undismayed ;
Eternal Love is watching o'er the strife

To cheer and aid :
Eternal Love, that sees thy wiyward mood.
And mourns each vain repining and each sigh ;
And, like a hen that calls its wandering brood

With frequent cry,
And beats against the prison-bars in vain.
And opes its wings for those that will .not hear.
Heaven summons the unheeded, and the strain

Falls on the ear
As when one calls a dreamer, and the word.
In veriest mockery and vain pretence,
Falls lightly on the fancy ; not unheard.

But void of sense.

Yet, surely, not so meaningless to thee
Should Heaven's high call an invitation seem :
Shake off the sleep ; let life no longer be

An empty dream.
Press onwards on thy rugged way. Be strong ;
And, 'midst thy journey, be this motto thine —
'Tie human to bewail each fancied wrong ;

To bear, Divine.

ON TUK INDIAN MASSACKKH.

Tr»

ON THE INDIAN MASSACRES.

THE MUTINY.— TIDINGS.

If mortal man could leave his resting place

And dwell upon 8ome mighty orl> that rolln

Far off by an eternity of milen,

E'en there would be no spot that he might Hiuin

The cries of him who, fashioned by the hand

And in the image of the Holy One, delights

To mar his work. For, as the years roll on

By tits and starts, the huge earth's Hashing light

Grows hid in clouds of blood ; and, in the steaii

Of her loud song of praise, the hum and whirl

Of this our mighty planet, sj)eeding on

Her giddy revoluti(»ns, comes a cry

That tingles through the realms of space, and shakes

The shivering stars in passing on to Qini.

And so in this our day, when all the lands
Were resting from their common jars, and men
Geew sleepily luxurious, murinuriug " peace "
When none was near us ; suddenly the sky
Has opened o'er otir heads, and poured forth
A vial, changing half the earth to blood.
And fillin.2 us with d«rkne.°.R, and a fear
More terrible than darkness ; waking us
From sleep, that lay reclined on cloth of gold
And fanned with, perfumed breezes, till we stood
Half stupetieii, while underneath the feet
Of those we loved best, gaping ghastily.
Hell ny>ened wide her mouth, and swallowed them
With Hwift destruction, flame, and seas of gore.

Was it in the spirit of the Northern light
That swept along the heavens, that the air
Should grow blood-red, and, starting at the hue.
Writhe, serpent-like, upon itself, and groan
And mutter with its filful voices things
Half plain, half hidden, dimly fashioned,
That Btruck like wails of goblins on the ear.

ON TBI! INDIAN SIAS8ACRE8.

And curdled all the life-Htream ; until men
Grew deadly sick, and quailed and nhrank amazed,
Scarce knowing why they Hhuddered, ho confused
Yet fraught with meaning was it? Or the sea,
That, roaming through its faintly-lighted dells.
Came on a heap of dead men's skulls that grinne<l
And gibbered at their murderer ; and so
Fled to its deepest hiding-place, and there
Muttered and murmured melancholy strainn
That maddened at their own renioseful tale
Till all the hollow shells and massive rocks
Sent back throughout the deadened wante a MOund
To strike men dumb with terror? Or the earth.
That, casting up her daily sum of nin
To shout it out to Him who dwells on high
From all her hills and valleys, suddenly
Came on a crime so fearful that her voice
Broke with the cry, and she could do no more
Than mutter, like an idiot to herself?
For all the air was heavy and a dread.
Fearful, yet undefined, was on men's minds,
As when the ghost-seer, through the (Solemn gloom.
Notes where some corner looms, in dull relief,
A blacker night, and shrinks, he known not why.
And when sweet sleep should rest upon their eyes.
And Silence spread her mantle round the globe.
Men tossed upon (heir fever-haunted beds
And seemed to hear dull noises flitting roimd.
That ever and anon would break the shroud
Of their surrounding mystery, and shriek,
In ears that echoed to them, " Woe I woe I woe I"

And so, as dragged along the weary time.
Men took no pleasure in the joys of life.
But, glaring on each other, whispered low —
" What is it that is happening, and where ?
^' What is 't that will befall ua ? Who can tell ?"
But none could answer, till one fearful morn
Rose with a wail fh}m out the blood-stained East,
And howled again to hear itself; and lo!
As lightning cleaves the murky clouds with noise
Of thunder, every dull prophetic sound
Leapt into shrieking being — plain, too plain.
With laoans of mothers, and with cries of babev.

ffitit

UN Till: IN'IHAN MAHSAORKI*.

And roaring catuructK that {{iirgled Itlucxl,

And liorrurH Mtill more liorrit»U>. Rut theu

ClaHh<>d up to Heaven an awful anHworing err

From all the rockn that gini fair England round.

And mighty citien, where the buny din

Of rumhling carti^ and hiirrieil tramp of men

Vexer< throughout tlie day the swarming ntreeti* ;

And little''villageH, where ancient npiron

(With heads o'ergrown with ivy, and with feet

NeHtiing 'mid all the flowery ntorea of earth)

King out their liappy chimeH to Sabbath winds ;

And hutN on lonely moorlandn, where the grouHc

Haunts the red heather (for, with one dire Hhock,

Like to an earthquake, it convulHe<I the land).

And men, whose heads were hoary witli the snows

Of wintry time* — for whom the grave had gaped,

And chilled their pulses with its summonings —

StO'jd side by side with beardless toys, and maidf*.

Whose teens had not yet numU^red all their springs.

And cried for vengeance, wearying High Heaven

With ceaseless prayers and importunities,

And thirst for blood that could not be appeased.

For tears were dried with flame, and none could weep.

Or spare onA word for dear-loved memories.

Or breathe one sigh for harrowing tragedies ;

But " Vengeance I vengeance! venokanckI" was the shout

That answered to the voices whispering " woe 1"

" VENGEANCE."

Up with the Red Cross Banner, fair Empress of the seas.
The flag that waves so hau.L;htiIy upon the fresh'ning breeze ;
For never yet, in sorest time of need, did England fail
To hear the euftierer's cry for help, and answer to his wail.

From many a stately city, and from many a fort of pride.

Our brethern's blood is gurgling in an ever-swelling tide ;

And tales come rushing o'er the sea that flends might quail to hear^

And the shrieks of maids and orphans are ringing on the ear.

Ho, daughters of fair England, that glad the gazing eye I
Ho, men of merry England ; raise a free-born English cry,
Ho, bells of England I wrangle out from temple and from fane.
For the injured have been righted, and the wrong repaired agtin.

1«

ox Till: IKIHAN MAMHACRKS.

Well may they dread to meet \w, and Hcek to hide their nhaine
Behind the fated towers that rouHe the Eiiglinh hlorxl to flame —
That flame that bums till recompense be taken for the Hiain,
And Delhi's walls be numbered with the citieH of the plain.

Wiiy tell us of forgivenesH? Ourn in no ille »ong,

The cry of tortured children, of th' unutterable wrong.

Ho, men of England! nerve your arms up«.ii the bloo«l-staine«I Pod,

And strike, if England ever struck, for justice and for Ood 1

Not this the time for charity for yon accurHed broo<l ;
With a mighty shout to Heaven goes up the cry of blood.
Close thicker round the standards ! grasp tighter yet the sword I
For man must be the worker of the vengeance of the Lord.

BITHOOR.

Cease from thy lamentations, thou loved one of the free ;
Ring out, ring out a merry peal across the heaving sea ;
Shout till the heavens echo back to earth the joyful strain.
For the injureil have been righted, and the wrong repaired again.

Ah, little did the foe dream, when they thought thy strength was done,
That thy haughty scroll of victory wa.s scarcely yet begun :
Now let Bithoor bear witness, from her heupH of gory slain,
That the injured have been righted, and the wrong repaired again.

They said our arm had failed us, they said ou'r heart was cold ;
They thought the untamed lion, as a dug, was bought and sold ;
But there comes a cry of vengeance from many a blood-stained plain,
And the injured have been righted, and the wrong repaired again.

Yet 80 their native tiger, when they leant expect him nigh.
Gleams, flashing through the parting air, upon the startled eye
He might have taught the cowards that caution was in vain,
That the injured would be righted, and the wrong repaireil again.

Give forth the Glorious standard to every wind that blows.

The highest boast of freedom, the terror of its foes ;

And gunners hail it proudly, with the mimic thunder-roar.

Till the notes reach England's bravest sons, the victors at Cawnpore.

ON THK INDIAN MASSACHKH.

7!»

'♦ FASTING."

Hark t 'midnt the tiong of triumpli, an under-current swells,
As when one hearx through bridal pealH the hIow funereal Ixjllr* ;
And 80 for aye the leHHon coineH, Hince first we drew the breath ;
'Mid fond caress, 'mid cun(]uerorri' cheer, in life remember death.

Oh 1 still the victors' shout, all ye to whom our England's dear,
And bow the head, and bend the knee, and drop the silent tear.
And keep a solemn fasNday, while there struggles lo the sky
A nation's agony of prayer to Him who dwells on high.

Cry out, and spare not. Let the Heavens re-echo to the tale,
The weary tale of sin and woe — earth's everlasting wail.
With weeping and with groaning, let all the wide-s^pread land
Seek Him who holds the nations in the hollow of His hand.

And, oh I in that one solemn day of mourning and of gloom.
When we who live cry out for those who dread the dreadful doom.
Hear Thou, oh loving Father, who hearest every prayer,
The orphan's sad, sad cry of woe, the widow's wan despair ; ,

And comfort Thine atflicted. Thine by sorrow and by woe
(Stern monitors tliat tear the heart to Heaven from things lijelow),
And teach them that in tenderest love Thy chastenings were sent.
As one might bruise the tlDwer tliut thence gives but a fuller Kocrit ;

And be Thou judge lietween us ami the workers of their ill,
And, as Thon wert in times of old, be God of Vengeance still ;
For thou alone art holy, everlasting Lord,
And in Thy name alone we dare to lift th' avenging sword.

Yes if we seek for vengeance, we seek not as the brute
That treads man in his senseless ra^e beneath his ponderous foot :
'Tis justice cries and hounds us on along the awful track.
And we were less than men intleed to shudder and turn back.

Oh, city of a thousand crimes! Oh, drunk, but not with wine !
Oh, gorgeous with the bloo«l-red gold drawn from a bloody mine!
How is thy once proud name accurst through all the lapse of years,
By wrongs that never may Ite sp<ike, by Treason, Death, and Tears!

ON THE INDIAN' MASRACRRS.

« THE LOST."

Far in the midnight heaven the little clondletH nleep;
Sweet peace \n with the tIrn>?,nK<fnt, Hweet cahn upon the deep.
How Rtill they rext upon their th\ ones, those nionarchn of the sky.
Bright emblemfl of the glad repose of them that dwell on high.

Not so for thee, child of earth! for thee there comes no rest^
And weaiy is thy saddened life, e'en from thy mother's l-east.
Hold up thy cup of joy I Oh, fool ! ere thou canst hold it up
Death hurls his whirlwinds o'er thy head and dashes down the cup.

And so there comes no hope — not one — to aid thy sorrows cease.
What boots it that they talk of peace ? thou know'st there is no peace.
The Holy One whodwells on high alone can dry the tear:
Cry, till the heavens hear thy woe, if heaven will deign to hear.

Oh,nearohesl loved and mourned too well ! what fiower shall All your

place?
Who shall bring back to us who weep the long-remembere<l face ?
Ye live,oiir bleeding hearts know well, in perfect joy above.
We are but nu-n, we feel Vmt this, the loss of those we love.

Oh, Father! Father! pity us whose griefs are but begun;
Teach us, who chafe beneath Thy rod to say " Thy will be done " ;
And bring us to Thee, e'en through paths that teem with bitterest woe>
That we may meet with those above we ne'er shall see below.

Lol scenes of glory greet mine eyes; the heavens arc rolled away;
All sorrow flitteth as the night before that blaze of day.
Tea, Lord, we will not doubt, Uiy truth whate'er may be in store :
The earth shall perish, but thy love shall last for evermore.

DELHI.

On all the stately city the autumn sun is bright ;
A thousand spires are glittering beneath the glare of light:
And may a lofty minaret, and many a haughty fane,
Gives proudly back the happy rays it ne'er may see again.

For lo ! there comes a nmrmur upon the languid breeze,

An when one hears the droning of a mighty swarm of bees ;

And those who listen shudder at the sullen far-ofT sound,

That whispers through the heavenF, and that mutters o'er the ground.

ON THE INDIAN MASSACRES.

And ever when the wind grows high it seenis to wail and moan,

Till from its depth of sadness it draws a fiercer tone ;

And surges on and maddens, till at last it sweeps along

With a dreadful shout of vengeance for more than mortal wrong.

No more a dim, confused sound, as erst it came before :

It rises o'er the booming of the sullen cannon-roar,

With blare of bugle ringing out upon the startled ear,

And tramp of armies, and a shout — the good old English cheer I

Hurrah for the stout English cheer I In many a well-fought field
The goo<l old crj' has risen o'er tlie clang of sword and shield.
Hurrah for the brave English arms that struggle in the van I
That strike so gaUantly and well for justice and for man 1

Well mayst thou quail, proud city I Thy meteor race is run.
E'en now thy blood-red glories pale before the rising sim ;
For those that strike no woman's blow are gathering round thy walls^
And spirits of the murdered ones are brooding o'er thy halls.

Oh, withered be thy coward hearts, and palsied be thy bands,
That dyed in hapless maidens' blood, their trebly-cursed hands I
Ho, men of England I spare the wolf that snufts the tainted breeze ;
But, as ye value life and soul, strike deep — spare none of these.

Hurrah I hurrah I The vulture shell have dainty feasts, I ween ;
The grass that's fed with traitors' blood shall glitter still more green.
Hurrah I the slinking wolf shall have a palace for his den.
And jackals hide among the courts that lield the treacherous men.

Nay I leave not e'en one blade of grass in all th' accursed place.
No stone to tell the fearful doom of yonder fated race ;
Aud, should your hearts grow sickened at the slaughter of the foe.
Think on fair maidens wronged and alain, and lay the cowards low ;

That 80 for aye the desert place, where once the city stood.

May seem as wken a fire had swept along a stately wood ;

And through the years strong men may quail and shudder as they tell

What fullest vengeance England took, how quick she struck and well.

«* TRIUMPH."

Yes I when the gloom is deepest, and darkness over all
Draws closest round the still-struck earth her dull funereal pall,
Bright rays come dancing from the East athwart the heavy night.
And through the sullen clouds there pours the happy morning light,

ON THE IVDIAir IIA8SA0RB8.

Till all the hiMs grow purple, and the heavens are unrolled
In many tinted hues of blood, of azure and of gol<^;
And silence flies aflVighted, for the breeze that glides along
Grows joyous with the low of herds and gush of morning song.

More fiery day has burst our gloom, a dawning still more red,
And haughty shouts sweep on the breeze o*er reeking henps of dead ;
Tet echo back, oh heavens, and join the fierce exulting cry ;
The meteor brand is quenched in blood, and hisses to the sky.

Hurrah 1 Their guilty masses broke, in terror and despair.
As when the levin Y I'sts the clouds that freight the sullen air ;
Like chaff*, when wintry winds blow strong along the quaking plain,
They fled before th' avengers, and the spectres of the slain.

The vultures heanJI the well*known din and gathered from afar,
And flapped their heavy wings and soared above the mists of war;
But noH' they gorge and rend the prey 'mid carnage and 'mid mire,
Or sit, in ghastly-glutted sleep, on minaret and spire.

Break out in shouts, happy earth,''from all thy thousand hills.
Where, chattering to the lazy air, leap down the merry rills ;
And answer, all ye seas, and break upon the answering shore,
With crested wave on crested wave, in long triumphal roar.

And bellow forth, ye cannon, with your ever-swelling boom,
Shake all the nations with your notes of victory and doom ;
For well your deep-mouthed voices spread dismay among the foe^
When heaven helped the right of man and laid the boasters low.

Yes I not to us the victory, and not to us the praise :

He struck for us who showed His might in Israel's favored days.

Bow ' jwn, silver-coasted isle, in reverence and fear.

For God hath spoken from on high — the Lord of Hosts is near.

CAWNPORB.

Dark mist oo the horizon, and darker still on high,
Heaven's cloudy pall is lowering o'er all the saddened sky .-
The chill winds writhe and struggle with their sorrow as they go.
And earth is wet with Nature's tears for those who lie below.

For there, in yonder court-yard, gapes the very mouth of Hell —
Accursed through ages yet to come — the dark and silent well ;
And there the stately palm-tree rears its horrid growth above,
Fat with the daehed-out brains of babes and tears of those we love.

ox THE INDUX MAS8ACREH.

Hark to the cry, Heaven, and ope your nliudilerin^ portals wide t
0}), Earth ! Eartlil yawn not to drink up the full ensanguined tide I
From mountain and from valley, from river and from creek,
Give the mute blood of martyral saints a thousand tongues to speak.

Thank God, our clouds are breaking I List to the cannon's roar,
That wakens from a hundred palms the echoes of Cawnpore ;
Sweet voice in your iron throats I sweet incense in your wrath
Tiiat marks in storms of flame and blood the brave avengers' path I

Seel itigh altore the battle-clouds, the lion standard blows I

Small liope, I ween, for those who darenl to break its grim repose ;

The bugle-call rings sharp and clear upon the startled air,

And Englii'h hands grasp tight the sword, and English hearts are there.

Hurrah I the dark earth quakes and reels beneath their chargers' tread ;
Their pquatlrons rush in living light o'er heaps of traitor deail :
Shout out, cannon ! bellow forth your notes of fiery glee
When England's sons, in blood and ntire, grasp such full victory I

Now blessings on the good stout hands that struck for England's right.
And blessings on the gray-haired head that planned that noble fight ;
For many a glorious victory has graced our scrolls before,
But none so bright as that one field of vengeance at Cawnpore.

SCOTLAND.

Fierce strife in all the sounding town, and round the quaking towers
That hold young babes, and hoary heads, and beauty's fairest flowers ;
And louder swell the shouts of foes, and higher still and higher
All day the Avar-cloud rolls aloft, all night the pillared fire.

Like those dry l»ones of ancient writ, the few defenders stand ;
The fire lias left the dauntless eye, its niight hath left the hand :
But, better than all numV^ers, and Itetter than the sword.
The living corpses move l)eneath the Spirit of the Lord.

They gaze! No helper conieth, no rescue seenieth nigh.

And thicker broods the horrid smoke, and darker frowns the sky ;

And solemnly and fearfully upon the ear there falls

The booming of the heavy guns, the crashing of the walls.

But lol the combat thickens, and the battle closes round
With rapid roll of musketry, and trembling of the ground ;
And low and stern amid the din is loorne upon the breeze
A sharp, shrill droning, as the voice of angry swarms of bees.

ox THE INDIAN' MASSACRES.

Fufh I 'tip a woman's sudden scream I " Oh joy 1 they come, they come!
" I hear the bonnic Hieland pipes, the Saxon's rolling drum !
** Hold well your own, ye gallant nven I A few short moments more
" Shall see your foemen scattered, as the breakers on the shore."

They listen ! All around them raves the thunder of the fight,
The groans and shrieks and shouts and yells, that tear the startled night t
They hear the deep guns l)ellow, but they hear not through the trees
The sharp, shrill droning, as the threats of angry swarms of liees.

" Ye dinnahear it, comrades? No! nol I dinna rave:
" Full weel I know the distant voice of them that come to save.
" Ah ! oft in happier days I've heard and kenned the Campbells' ca',
'' And good McGreggors' slogan fierce, the grandest of them a'."

They look I and far to right and left the battle-clouds are broke,
And ridge on ridge of dark-blue steel gleams coldly through the smoke;
And sharper still, and shriller yet, is borne upon the breeze
The droning of the Hieland pipes, like angry swarms of bees

And as the mountain torrent, when it« icy chain hath gone.
Sweeps down with roar of angry v/ave and crash of rock and stone,
They burst through struggling foes, they breast the flames of traitor guns.
The sttirdy hearts, the good right hands, of bonnie Scotland's sons.

Oh, flourish long, the good old land I Though rugged to the view,
Not England's gallant self can boast of sons more brave and true ;
And long be heard where Scotland's cliffs are washed by foaming seas
The droning of the Hieland pipes, like angry swarms of bees.

Mil

« HAVELOCK."

Oh brightly breaks the welcome day, and proudly bursts the light
O'er rolling clouds of burnished gold upon the sullen night;
And, like the ocean's distant roar, the swift winds sweeps along
Through bending tops of pine-trees, with its load of morning song.

But not for us the joyousness that greets the happy rays ;
Our hearts are all untuned to join the grat*ful hymns of praise,
Alas I oh weary, weary earth, thy children better know
The voice of lamentation, and the bitter wail of woe.

ON THE IXUIAN MASSACRKS.

«6

A thoxiRand heroes j^race our pcrolls, Imt none more brave than he
Who taught u» in our dirent need to granp the victory :
Now who will hear us when we call, and help us in otir pain ?
The sword lies idly in the sheath that never struck in vain.

Oh ! true stout Iieart, that heat so firm when all the reeking air
Was fraught with cries of deadly wrong, of terror and despair I
Oh ! strong right hand, that ecattere<l death among the serried foe,
How is our tower fallen 1 how is the mighty low I

Ah me! thy place is vacant now, dear hope of the distres3e<l
That brought'st to anxious bosoms peace, to weary eyelids rest. "
No more thy well-remembered voice shall cheer thy little band ;
No more on battle-field thine arm shall wield the avenging brand.

Hushed be the strains of triumph; trea<l noiselessly around;
The spot that hohls a hero's corpse may well be holy grotmd .
A mightier conqueror than he hath l)Owed the gallant head;
Tlie flag he led to victory droops sadly o'er the dead.

Not sol unconquered in his life, unconquered e'en in death,
He fought his proudest battle-field in that last parting breath,
Shoxit cannon that he knew so well, till all the echoes ring:
*'0h grave, where is thy victory? oh death, where is thy sting?"

He is not dead, nor sleepeth. He who set the captive free

Joins Him, who^ rising to the skies, le<l liound Captivity.

Not this the meanest, mother-land, of all thy haughty lK)asts, —

The Chief who le<l thine armies here reigns with the Lord «)f Hosts.

I i

GWALIOR.

The canno.i's roar had died away, the battle clang was o'er;
A soldier knelt beside his friend, by blood-stained Gwalior ;
The cold, death-sweat was on his brow, the life wa« ebbing fa«t ;
In many a stricken field he'd fought — he lay upon his last.

" Raise me a little, comrade : I fain would see again
The good old flag wave haughtily upon the well won plain.
And see once more the friend'* who stoo<l l>eside me on this day,
And hear their shouts of victory before I pass away.

ON THE INDIAN MA88ACRE8.

" Before I pass away I Ali me ! the sorrow that will come,
When tidings reach them of my death, upon my village home :
The little cot, that nestled in its ivy robe of green.
Shall change its happy smiles for tearn, and breaking hearts, I ween.

" My grayhaired mother, comrade I I was her pride and joy :
I know she's thinking now of me, and clasps in thought her boy.
If e're you should get'back again go seek her out. from me,
And say I wait her in the land where death shall never be.

" Tell her I died without a grief, for that I f\ill well knew
The words she used to read to me were holy words and true.
The large old Bible of my sires — she'll find there, in her pain,
A comfort for the loss of me till we shall meet again.

" And bid her speak to Lucy, and tell her not to weep
(She best can comfort aching hearts whose sorrow is as deep).
Ah well I He orders all things well 1 but had He spared my life.
And I had got back home again, I^ucy had been my wife.

" She must not grieve I my pretty one! — although I come no more ;
She must not mourn my fall beneath the heights of Gwalior.
The English b!oo<l is in her veins — IIh Hre lights up her eye;
Say I struck well for woman's wrongs — she'll triumph though I die.

" Die ! I shall liee ! With all her faults, our noble England knows
Full well to honor those who fall in battle with her foes.
Go, tell my darling, when she weeps, to turn and find my name
Where England decks her precious dead in all her ancient fame.

Ah me I A mist is on my eyes I and yet methinks I see
The little homestead, ivy-clad, that nestles on the lea ;
My mother knits within the porch; my darling, in the flowers.
Kisses the rose I planted there, and counts the lingering hours.

" They smile I They dream of my return, when I shall tread again
The grand old hill I loved so well, the daisy-covered plain ;
And still the hill shall tower aloft, but they shall bow the head
Where yonder yew-tree bends its boughs to whisper to the dead.

" Be still t the mist has cleared away — a light breaks through the air
It teems with strange and lovely shapes, and I too should be there.
I hear the shrill-drawn clarions' sound, the mustering squadron's hum;
Comrade I the roll is being called I Lord of all Hosts, I come I"

ON TBC INDUV MASSAORRS.

«r

SONG.

One thought for the soldier who lieH far away,

In the land he's ennobled for ages;
Though his name be not writ in our scroll of daj,

Rich with heroes, and martyrs, and sages.

Unknown though he be, yet for him the deep sigh
Shall be breathed from the proud lips of beauty ;

For he died — as an Englishman ever would die —
For his country, his Ood, and his dut^

On the graves of his fathers the grass groweth high,
And the yew o'er their tombstone is sighing;

But the pahn that shoots up to the Indian sky
Marks the spot where a conqu'ror is lying.

His sisters shall weep in the old village home.
Until death of their sorrows relieve them ;

But he sleeps far away, o'er the lone ocean's foam.
With the glory that never shall leave him.

■m

THB BAST WIND.

THE EAST WIND.

There came a wind up out of the sea,

Out of its living and teeming breast,
Where the great whales sport in their uncouth glee,

And flying-fish skims o'er the waters* crest.
All day long had the sunbeams played

Hide-and-seek with the clouds of the sky.
And the waves had leapt up from light to shad*,

And from shade to light alternately.
The wind sprang up from the foaming crest

Of a wave as it broke in the joy of day j
The life of th« ocean was in his breast,

And his wings were wet with the ocean's spray :
His breath was fresh with the sea-flowers' scent,

And his eyes were clear with the blue sea-light.
And over the waters awhile he bent.

Ere he rose like a giant to take his flight.

!■■

The earth lay heavy and bleak and cold

Under a cloudy and sullen sky ;
Dead leaves and grasses covered the wold.

And the maple tossed skeleton arms on high.
Skeleton arms and fingers bare.

That clutched at a robin's deserted nest.
No bird-notes thrilled through the dead struck-air,

And the babbling streamlets were all at rest*
Over the head of each sleeping flood.

Cold in the clasp of its icy tomb
Like funeral plumes, the great pines stood

Silent, and solemn, and full of gloom.
There was not a sound to disturb a sleep

That seemed like the awful sleep of death,
Till the East wind rose up out of the deep

And the pines on the high peaks felt hia breath.

THE EAST WIND.

Up fruin the breant of the tosning deep

With a runh and a Hwirlcaine the living breeze,
Over the face of the barren steep,

Over the lieads of the wak'ning trees.
There was thunder of waters upon the sliore ;

There was crashing of falling rock and stonet
In the tops of the pine-trees a long, low roar.

And the chains of the hill-streams were broken and gone
Down to the valleys they flowed apace,

Down to the valleys the East wind swept.
The wide plains shook with the sound of their race^

And into the air the dead leaves leapt ; —
Into the air, as the curlews wheel.

When they scent the coming storm from afar;
Swash on the brooks, like a covey of teal,

When tlie hawk in the heavens hangs poise<i like a star.

Deep in the heart of the woods the crow

Heard the tumult and joyous shout.
Branches were tossing abovje and below

As he spread his broad wings and sallieil out :
Branches were tossing, and tree-tops were bending,

As the bird went shooting out into the air.
Now curving on high, now sharply descending,

Speeding he knew not, and cared not, where.
Branches were tossing and rending and crashing

As the strong wind rushed through the trees of the wood,
But the current of life in their pulses was flashing

And the heart of the maples grew sweet with new blood ;
Whilst underneath, at their very feet.

The frost-heaps began to heave and toss.
Till there came a stealthy tremor and beat.

And the violets glanced ftrom under the moss.

The robins, hid in the Southern glade.

Scented the salt sea-breeze of spring :
■•* Let us go," said they, " to the nest we made

Mid the sweet-voiced maple's covering.
Dear are the Southern woods, and dear

Is the tender grace of the Southern flowers ;
But the home that we love lies far from here.

Vacant and sad through the wintry hours I"

10 THB BART WIND.

And the Hwallowii pauMd in their arrowy flight,

As they iiaw, far off in the Northern nky,
The dun clouds scattered to left and right

At the sound of the East wind's clarion-ory.
"Farewell," said they, " to the Southern domes,

Farewell to the flow'ry Southern sod,
For a voice cries out * Come back to your homes

That cling to the walls of the houses of Ood.' "

Out of the depths of the heaving sea

Yearly there conieth up life to the earth ;
Out of the depths of Eternity

Every moment is added a birth,
When the days are dark, and tlie ground is bare,

When the desolate land is a wild-lieasts' den,
From the rolling sea comes the brooding air.

From the womb of Eternity spring up men.
Out of the depths of Ood'n fathomless love,

Out of His hidden Eternal mind.
So, too, there come the winds that move

Ears to the deaf and eyen to the blind ;
Though the heart be frozen, the soul be dead,

And the foul fiends play in and out of the brain,
The Spirit of Ood shall raise up the head, ,

And the sere, dry skeleton live again.

/ So be it, oh Lord, in Thy mercy : so be it, oh Lord, in Thy truth;

Come Thou to the souls that are dying, and breathe in them vigor and youth ;

Oh Wind of the Star of the Eastl^Oh Breath of the Heavenly Tide I
« Come up from the womb of the morning, and scatter our winter aside.'

if
i

THK R1LL8.

•1

THE RILLS.

IM.

Lol leaping from their giddy height.
And gliiling down the rugged hills

Through all the silent gloom of night.
Forever play the happy rills :

They sparkle in the cold moonlight

With silvery lustre, clear and bright;
They chatter down a thousand gills.

All day the sunbeams kiss the wave,
All day the waters kiss the flowers ;

All day their plumes the wild birds lave.
And drench the heath with glittering showers :

While on the streamlets foam and rave,

They glance through many a hollow cave ;
They loiter round a thousand bowers.

So, lit by sun, and moon, and star.
Loved well by bird, and deer, and bee.

By flowery banks, o'er shingly bar.
They glide in gladness to the sea.

Our life flows on, o'er rock and scar,

A glooniy stream of endless war.
That rests not till we cease to be.

■m

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Hiotographic

Sciences
Corporation

■^

"<b^

23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 873-4503

^'' ^.

.<?

THE MAPI-E TREH.

THE MAPLE TREE.

O'er barren hill, o'er valley,

The blazoned lions wave;
They greet the sun from earliest rise

To where he seeks his grave.
The terror of the tyrant,

The hope of freeborn man :
In many a bloody fight.
For liberty and right,

They've flashed amid the van.

But ours is not the blazon

That tells of life-blood shed ;
Our standards float not on the breeze

That wails o'er heaps of dead.
No lions grace our banners.

No kingly bird have we;
But ours the stately forms
That have braved a thousand storms,-

Our is th« maple tree.

A hundred hills are glancing

Beneath the sun's glad rays ;
A hundred plains are echoing

Bird-hymns of joy and praise ;
And, o'er them all, the maple

Lifts high his noble head :
No fairer sight, I ween,
Than his many-tinted sheen

Of emerald and red.

All other things are fleeting.

All other boasts shall cease;
Our victories shall last for aye.

The victories of peace.
Oh, hallowed is each leaflet

That decks the good old tree,
For he towers to Him above.
Who alone is perfect love,

And Father of the free.

■•If

SPRIXG

SPRING.

Light upon the wild-flowers dawning from on hiWiI
Light upon the white clouds floating in the sky I °
Light upon the green fields, light upon the riU!
Happy n.orn is breaking o'er each lofty hill.

Music in the rustling of the summer trees I
Music in tlie many tones that sweep along the breeze f
Music in the little birds that haunt the budding spray!
Winter s snows are melting-Spring is on its way.

Gladness in the mountains I gladness in the plains I
Gladness m all nature, bursting from her chains '
Gladness in the waters, rippling down their streams f
Heaven and eartli rejoicing in the sun's bright beams.

Happy, happy spring-time I Happy age of "vouth I
Rich in aspiration, rich in love and truth !
Use it well, lest siimmer scorch ye with its sun,
And your budding beauties droop, ere yet l.egun.

"is

Hi!

EVENING.

** Come to her waking, find her asleep,
Powers of the height, powers of the deep.
And comfort her. Tbnkt80H.

Eve sleeps upon the waters, and tlie cloudlets up on high
Mourn, lover-like, the fading rays that gladdened all their sky.
I hail the dreamy twilight, that, swooning o'er the deep.
Leads softly to beloved eyes God's well-beloved sleep.

Yes I for the fevered glories of the fierce hot day have fled ;
A gentler lustre wraps the earth, and guards the precious head.
Ah, dearest one, so bright and pure I more like to thee, I ween.
Than all the golden sunlight, is the moonbeams' silver sheen.

Far o'er the weary city a soothing stillness reigns.
And hushed is now the low of herds, and jar of clattering wains ;
But where the violets scent the glen, and heath-bells deck the height,
Rise up the angel whispers of ths ever-wakeful Night.

Oh, sweet, calmn night, watch o'er her ; oh, angels, hover nigh !
Oh, breezes, waft your stores of health from man}' a distant sky ;
Oh, happy heavens, pour down on her sweet fancies from above.
And, God of Love, protect her, who is worthy of all love. j

, «

MORVINO.

MORNING.

Oh, golden sunlight, stream along frc i every wind that blows,
Roll back the soft grey curtains that veiled the night's repose ;
Blush timidly o'er fleecy clouds, 0, Morning, calm and mild.
Like some young mother when she rains sweet kisses on her child.

The rosy heavens break forth in joy, and, clad in living light,
Flash back the dawning splendors far o'er valley and o'er height,
Till all the coy glens blush again, and on the purple hills
The heath-bells give Love's conscious red to all the wooing rills.

And music bursts upon the gale, and hails the welcome day

From many a lowly cottage eave, and many a budding spray ;

And where the flow'rets glad the earth, where bright rays glance above,

All Nature swells the anthem high of joyousness and love.

Yet from her gems of greatest price fair Nature misseth one.
That lends fresh beauties to the earth, fresh radiance to the sun :
Shake off" sweet slumbers, dearest one, and greet the loving skies ;
The birds are pining for thy voice, — the flow'rets for thine eyes.

Oh, children of the giddy air, breathe lightly round her way !
Beam down upon her tenderly, fierce ruler of the day I
Sheeet angels guard her every step, and ward off every pain,
Till light hath played itself to sleep, and eve hath come again ;

Till the breezes die away, and all the birds are still,

And Silence holds her solemn reign, in valley and on hill }

And gleaming from the firmament, where clouds lie lightly curled.

Heaven's million eyes keep sleefJess watch upon the sleeping world.

SITMMKR.

SUMMER.

Come swiftly o'er the eastera wave, pleasant sumnier wind;
Leave jungly plains, and spicy groves, and stately towns behind;
Breathe gently on the deep blue eea, sweet breezes, in your flight.
And bring soft showers and balmy airs to hail the western light.

The maple dons her garb of green o'er every lofty hill ;

The May-flower blooms in shady nooks beside the purling rill ;

The violets in the velvet moss shrink coyly from the gaze :

Come, pleasant winds, and woo them forth to meet the summer rays.

Where'er ye sweep, the loving sun a milder blessing sheds,
The flowers pour forth a thousand sweets, and lift their tender heads j
Where'er ye touch the glancing streams and kiss the wavelets' lips,
They splash the bee that robs the buds, and grumbles as he sips.

The wild-birds know the rustle, as ye rush in joy along,

And hill and dale, and swamp and grove, give hack the gladsome song;

Yet, happy, happy summer winds, breathe sadly, for ye blow

O'er heads that ache, and hearts that burst, and eyes grown dim with woe»

Oh, summer winds 1 In ancient times, before ye sprang to life,

A holi( r breath than yours can be brought rest to fiercer strife ;

When through the night that brooded thick, o'er seas that boiled and roared.

Moved calmly o'er the tossing deep, the Spirit of the Lord.

Oh, winds I Though'with a million tongues, from r*. vrulet and sod,
All nature cries aloud to man, and name a lovin^r ^od.
Emblems are ye of Him who bids the mourners' sorrow cease ;
Go, whisper to the breaking hearts His me8sa<;,es of peace.

TUK LKGICM) OK TIIK rANhV.

THE LEGEND OF T IE PANSY.

In oldeu tiineH, as the poetn sing,

When there dwelt a spirit in every thin^,

When every stick and stone,
And every breeze, and every beam,
And every valley, and every ^'tream

Had at least one soul of its own.

A spirit there was that haunted the bowerc^,
(See Tennyson) hid in the leaves and the fiowern,

But his home was not merely there ;
He dwelt wherever water ran
Or breezes blew, and they called him Pan,

For the rascal was everywhere.

A strange and antic spirit was he.
Full of whAt we call diablerie,

And all sorts of quips and quirks,
With a leering face and a shaggy coat.
And legs like the hinder legs of a goat,

And a beard like the Turkov-est Turk's.

But the strangest of all were his eyes. Their hue
Wa« the sweetest, tenderest violet-blue,

Full of deep thought and weird,
Whosoever saw them his pulses stirred
Like the passionate heart of a handled bird,

Loving, although it feared.

The laborer wending his homeward way
Through the scented fields, at the close of dajr,

Would start with a sudden fear.
Silence his whistling, and turn to fly
With Parthian glances, he knew not wby,

But was sure that Pan was near.

THE LKHEND OK THK PANST.

And the youth that, deep in some forest gljuit-,
Wooed with soft whispers some half-coy maid,

Would drown her 8hi'iek with his shout
As they saw a stealthy tremor and beat
Jn the velvet mosses beneath their feet,

And the eye of Pan peep out.

Nay, more! When the battle was all but won,
The victors themselves would turn and run

A' fast ae the vanquislied ran.
Seized with a va;^ue but strong alarm.
For, sheltered beneath some dead man's arm.

Were the violet eyes of Pan.

But the children, hunting the flowers that hide
In sunny nooks by the burnie's side,

Would utter a joyous cry.
And rush to secure the^elusive prize,
With tremulous hands and rounded eye.".

Whenever the rogue was nigh.

Till one day Jove, who was making his court
In a manner no decent immortal ought,

Stopped short in his naughty ways,
For then, (it gave even him a shock)
He spied half-hidden behind a rock

That mischievous, twinkling gaze.

He shook for a second or two, no more.
Then, vexed at his terror, Jupiter swore

As only that heathen can.
And the twinkling suddenly changed to a ?<tare.
For the angry god had fixed it there,

The beautiful eye of Pan.

ii'ii

Alas, poor Pan ! Has not Milton said

That a voice cried out : " Great Pan is dead " ?

Though I fancy 'twas Pan himself
Who volunteered the sad information
For the fun of making his fun'ral oration,

He was such a mischievous elf.

' THK I.KiiKSV OF THK PANSY.

Rut the Piumy knowotl. the name it hore
Jn flic jr,„„j uM-fHMl,iono(l ages no uur.r,

Awl in our elegant way
The flower that typiHes hidden tliought,
And sudden faneies that ome unsought,
We have re-haptized Peuzee.

F'clin^' to the ol(} name. Methinks f see
In the uncouth heathen fantaHy

A meaning more deep and rare,
A hint of Love with his searcliing eyes,
l-ove, even in rugged and lowly g^iise, "

The Pun that is ever_y v.-here ;

The .Mischievous Love, with his groundless fears,
U.e trohcsun)e Love, with his quips an.l jeers,

I lie torment of youth and maid ;
Love staying tlie cruel, inurdero.is arm,
Love, of whose witchery and charm

The children are never afraid.

I»S>

Jhen, turning my eyes to the heavens uijove,
I think of the everything, truest Love,

That came to the earth to die ;
1 tliink of His tender hnmilitv,
And the violet carries my fancies free

Beyond the violet sky.

100

HA}<TKK MI. IKS.

KASTEU LILIES.

When the gray <>f evening creeps upon the gloric ^ of the wky,
Ami the oIoikIh hegm to gather ut the cloning of the day,
Ami tlie robin in the ehu-tree wliistles out liis parting lay

Ah the sliadowH grow and deepen, and the cool wind rushes by.

When the eartli is wrapt in slumber in tlie midnight calm and still,
And the sick man counts life's ebbing by the ticking of the clock,
Tn the barn some «lream of victory stirs up the sleeping cock,

And he crows a lusty war-note, triumphant, loud and shrill.

VThen the chill of night is coldest, and the darkness very dark,
And the silence broods and presses like a weight upon the world.
Comes a tremor in the lieavens where the heavy cloiids are curled,

And tlie shadow of a light, as if behind tliem were a spark

Growing ever bright and brighter till there shot great spears of tire
Through their black and sullen masses, and the heavens are unrolled
In a many-tinted banner, sown with azure, red and gold,

And the day-break flames upon the cross that tops the tall church spire.

In n chamber, on his death-bed, at the closing of the day,

As the shadows grew and deepened, and the wind began to blow,
Far from all the city's turmoil, in the peace of Fontainebleau,

The great painter Leonardo, the far-fanted Da Vinci, lay.

As the lalwred breath canie shorter, and the death-dews decked his head,
And the sunken hand grew feebler, and all closer came the night,
Onee again the scene he painted seemed to rise before his sight.

The disciples, and the Master, and the Paschal supper spread.

But the Master's eyes were lifted, and beneath their tender sadness
8hone the gleam of foreseen victory, as clouds at break of day
y^, yet half disclose, the sec^t of the fast approaching ray

WHh its promises of life and light, and heraldings of gladness.

3B»»

KASTKR I.IMES.

101

So the MuHter nate before lii)ii, and the norrow ii» Hi.M even

For the loved oiien tliiit deiiieil Him, and the traitor tliat hetrayed,
And the men that jeered andHnioteHim, neemeti to hold heneath its shade

The full joy of finished lalMjr and the dawn of Kaster skies.

Ae lie gazed upon the vision, all the chamher seemed aglow
With a hiaze of sudden splendor, and he saw, as in a dream.
Through the open door a wondrous Held of golden lilies gleam,

Raising up their lovely U'lls upon a field of driven snow.

And they nearer drew, and nearer, till he saw thenj wave and glance
Close beside him, and around him, and above the dying head,
Till he felt them drooping, lowering, bending downwai'd to the bed, —

All the glorious golden lilies of the Oriflamme of France.

And before him stooil famed warriors and fair ladies in a ring,

All unmarked, for round his vvaste<l form his master's arms were pres.sed.
And his heart grew very joyous, then forever was at rest

'Neath the golden bells of France, and in the arms of France's King.

So before that fading sight, for all life's duties fairly done,

Earthly King and Heavenly Master in the dying (chamber met.
Met to cheer him and sustain him ere his eyes in death should .<et,

And the golden lilies ri.se above a Held of battle won.

Nor alone for task accowiplished, nor alone for ended rtght,
Come to men the lily-visions and the promise that they bring.
Come the clear eyes of the Master, and the presence of the King,

As the glories gild the clou<llets at the fading of the light ;

Btit to eyea grown dim with sorrow, antl to breasts dead-sick with s;in.
All the Master's loving sadness, all the Master's victory,
Bring the Oriflamme of Heaven with its lilies from the sky.

Droop them down upon the sinner, and enfold the heart within.

i!!l
'i"i

Till the burden drops from off" it, and the weary soul, at rest
From its errors and its sinnings, enters into holy peace.
Finds its Resurrection morning as its carnal struggles cease,

Passes out from death to life, claspe<] to its Master's breast.

•it- x,§

1(1-2

THK SIXIK.

THE NIXIE.

jil;

"The Nixio."* were vvutcr-spirits that were lieliev"! N) sit ni>!:litly l>y
tlie rivers and lakes of Germany, mourning for the retle. iplioii tliat was
promiseti to muij, l>nt denied to tliem."

I lieuni a"cry in tlie still twilight,

Wlien the aspenn danced in the breath of night,

And the pla(!id nheen of the cold moonlight

Came down in a Hilver flood ;
When its hrilliani luies had left the West
Aft the sun sank down to his watery rest.
And the towering height of the mountain crest

liost its last stain of Mood.

Close hy, the turbulent sea lay spread,

Like a n)ighty sheet of molten lead,

And the fouin that liad whitened his hoary head

Had died in his calm repose.
But mightier still, and still more nigii.
With peaks that shot up to the uttermost sky.
The hills loomed mightily, grand and high,

Like warriors watching their foes.

It came with a sad, mellifluous flow,
And the sound of a wailing, deep and low.
Till it maddened to shrieks of the bitterest woe.

Like a spirit that wrestled with pain ;
And echo woke up from lier rock-nursed sleep
And shouted them out from valle> and steep.
Till they writhed and moaned o'er the startled deep,.

That roared back an answering strain.

But the spirit-like voice, so woe-begone.
Through the dark'ning night went solemnly on,
Till it wearied of earth, and fled up to the throne
Of Eternal Majesty.

THK NIXIK.

108

Struj;>,'Iinff, anrl fijihtin^r, and laden with carf,
It laliored up through the ntar-lit air,
Bearin«^ aloft its aj^oiiized prayer

To Him who dwelleth on lii^h.

" All round a happy silence reigns ;
Thy love is hrooding o'er the plains,

Thy love upon the hills :
The forests know thy calm, O Lord;
Thy sloep is on the flowery sward,

T.'i/ bleasing on the rills.

R'en thy rebellious creafure, miin,
Whose sins with earliest lift w.raM.

Looks to the promised lest;
But we who sinned havo fall'n for aye.
No tears m.iy wash oi. guilt awav.

We never mav be blest

The meanest things have hope ; but we,
Though Time itself shall cease to be,

May never respite know ;
For us no blood has e'er been shed ;
For us no God has bowed his iiead,

And trod the earth below :
Thou, who liv'st enthroned on hi"h.
Take back this immortality.

This heritage of woe."

It died away, with a long-drawn sigh ;

But the clouds rolled back from the pitying sky

And sweet from the throne of God's Majesty

Came words of pardon and peace.
Spirit of woe, hear the will of Heaven :
Thy tears are accepted, thy past forgiven,
And the chain that bound thee to earth is riven

Cease to mourn. Spirit, cease.

104

OUT IX THE IIR.

OUT IN THE AIR.

" I have read fiomewhere of a custom in the Highlands, which, in
Connection witli the principle it involves, is exceedingly beautiful. It is
believed that to the ear of the <lying, which just before death always be-
comes exquisitely acute, the perfect harmony of the voices of Nature is
80 ravishing as to make him forget his sufferings and die like one in a

gleasant trance. A nd so, when the last moment approaches, they take
im from within and l>ear him out into the open sky." — N. P. WiMils.

Not here, not here, in the liot, close room

Where the tainted air is heavy and tliick,
Not here, in the sad and solemn gloom

That drapes in the couch of the deacily sick ;
Not here, with the sobe^hat pierce my heart

From the well-loved mourners standing by.
Not here, 'mil such sights and sounds would I part,-

Oh, carry me out, dear friends, till I die.

For out in the light of tlie pleasant sun

The breezes sin;; as they flutter by,
, And the rivulets, njurmuring as they run,

Join in the pleasant melody.
And a thousand birds in the budding spray

Chirrup the whispering leaves among.
And the light that blesses and gladdens the day

Comes down, though ye hear it not, with a song.

The birch-tree rustles, the alder sings,

And far in the chattering woods the oak,
Wak'ning the noisy echoes, rings

A bass to the shrill of the woodman's stroke i
And there where the village school is out.

From the happy urchins, deep in their play,
Comes many a merry laugh and shout

To cheer my heart a« I pass away.

i ^gjw .'Li-i ii i. ' i >'iijtii"j.r.i ?S

OUT IN THE im.

A littlo while lon-or, and I «l,all have done

Witli all on thi.s beautiful, God-iven earth,
And yet, though my sands f)e nearly run.

My heart still answers to innocent mirth,
And Nature's voice is as dear to me,

Waiting here for the call from at)o've, '
Afl wlien she talked with me secretlv

In youth's bright hours of joy and love.

But now some marvellous power is near

That quickens my ear, though my eyes grow .lira,
An.1 I Jiear, though ye cannot, distinct and clear

The voice of a sweet and glorious hvmn.
Was it the violet whispered to me.

Or the glowing buttercup bending down,
Of the priaae that rings tlirough eternity,
And the Blest One's peace and their golden crown?

Where am I? Lo! all around me swells

As it were an immortal n)elodv;
Forests and flowers and streams and bells

Blend in unspeakable harmony.
This in heavenly bliss, not dying pain.
And the angels, too, what was it thev sai.l ?—
-Carry him back to the room again.
He knows what the angels say'now. He is dead

.106

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ANCIKNT KUNKRAL HYMN.

ANCIENT FUNERAL HYMN.

"We give thee hearty thanks for it hath pleased thee to deliver this
our brother out of the iniserieH of this sinful world." — Burial Service.

Wake thee, brother ! wake thee, now !
O'er thee brighter day is breaking :
Though death's seal has stamped thy l)row,
Tiife was sleep, and death the waking :
Far away has fled the night,
Breaks on thee the heavenly light.

Wake thee, brother ! We, bereft,

Here are prey to care and sorrow ;

But, though thou thy friends hast left.

We shall join thee on the morrow ;

Though thou sleep'st thy last long sleep,
Dear one, not for thee we weep.

Not for thee ! Thy soul on high
Soars, its fleshly fetters riven :
Ours is earth's captivity,
Thine the liberty of heaven.

Brother, hear the strains we raise,
Mingled hymns of joy and praise.

. Brother ! in thy last sharp pain.
When the Angel spoke in thunder,
Christ, the Conqueror, again
Buret death's prison-bars asunder I
Raise the song of triumph high :
Grave ! where is thy victory T

Vain the seal, and vain the tomb.

When they sought to stay the sleeper ;
Vain the watch in midnight gloom,
Vain the mourning of the weeper :

Seal and tomb, and watch and sword
Fled before the living Lord.

Brother I in thine upward flight

Bear no parting words of sadness ;
Earth shall herald thee to light

With her holiest hymns of gladness ;
We, bereaved though we be,
Praise our loving God for thee.

NOT THE RIGHTEOUS, BUT SINNERS.

107

"NOT THE lilGHTEOUS, BUT SINNEES."

CoinrmU'H tliat fight ifi life's desperate battle,

Marching in inud and mire, laden with care,
Hearing tiie cries that rise over war's rattle,

Blind with its smoke, and confused with its glare,
TJjough ye he stricken sore, lo, where the standards soar

Faith, Hope and Charity, Duty and Right,
Close round each precious flag, e'en though it be a rag

Tattered and rent, bear it on in the tight.
Stumble and rise again, let the blood drop like rani.

Wounds in the battle have no time to smart.
Flight is but folly, give volley for volley.

Got! helps the soul tliat does bravely its part.

Ay! and His love raises up e'en the dying,

Puts in the timid a heart that won't quail.
Cheers the despairing, and calls back the flying,

Comforts us, strengthens us, knows not to fail.
Comrades, with such a guide, say sliall we turn aside.

Lay down our arms and submit to be slaves,
After our heavy pains put on still heavier chains.

Chains that shall bind ns when cold in our graves?
No 1 step out lighter, boys, grasp the sword tighter, boya.

Shoulder to shoulder press on to the prize.
Help one another, and should some poor brother

Fall, though we totter, let's aid him to rise.

What? shall a wound, a false step or fall daunt ua,
Things that are common to one and to all

Give to the foeman fresh reason to taunt u^
As cowards that fly at the very first call ?

Not so! we live or die for our own Lord on high,
Trusting His mercy, and pity, and love.

108

NOT THE RIGHTEOUS, BUT SIXNERS.

Welcoming sorrow, fore-knowing to-morrow

ChangCH our pangs for the gladness above.
On to the thickest fray ! Stout men and strong, make way,

Way for the charge of the halt and the maim I
Not unto us, oh Lord, that we bear conquering sword,

Not unto us. Lord, but unto Thy name.

Ah ! who can tell of His might but the weakest?

Who know His life if not those who were dead 7
Who boast in Him if not those who are meekest?

Who trust in Him if not those whom Hope fled ?
Water from out the stones, flesh on the dry dead bonei,

These are His works, our Redeemer and God.
Press to the battle-field, His is our sword and shield.

On, though our hearts' blood ensanguine the sod, —
On, o'er remorse and pain 1 on, for our way is plain,

We, who were last, must be first in the fight.
Courage 1 our sinning was but the beginning,

God bless our ending for him and for Right.

•EATH.

DEATH.

A thousand voices hail the day,

From town and field and budding spray,

And never yet has morning ray

A fairer radiance shed.
Bow the head !

For the victor claims hia own ;
And the crop will soon be mown ;
And his loved ones be alone
With the dead 1

His glazing eyes no longer trace
The sorrow in each well-known face;
Hie arms have given their last embrace.

His lips their latest sound.
Close around !

Though your loving hearts l>e sore.
Yet his woes will soon be o'er,
And his grave, for evermore,
Holy ground !

The hatints he loved, o'er vale and height,

Are basking in the summer light;

New paths grow clearer through his night,

Paths that are yet untrod.
Cut the sod (

For the life is fleeting fast,
And the jouAey o'er at last,
And the weary spirit passed
To its God !

PABTINO.

PARTING.

Take back your letters and lock of hair,

Treasured till now, 'tis your own request.
Not mine, believe me, 'twill be to bear

The pang of obeying your behest.
It seems to me that in days gone by

We both of us vowed our hearts were one.
On my side, at least, I told no lie,

So your will is mine, and your bidding dont

Forgive you ? What have I to forgive?

Knowing your heart I know my own.
This thing won't kill you, and I sliall live.

And neither, I fancy, will live alone.
Pleasing yourself you please me best.

And therefore I have no fault to find ;
You have your way, and as for the rest

Be satisfied — still we are of one mind.

Oh, child! Had I seen you dead at my feet

All my life long had been one moan,
Losing the treasured heart that beat

In closest union with my own ;
Now — ^you yourself have deadened the smart

That love bereft of its love will feel :
Sorrow, 'tis true, may break a heart.

But treason tempers it into steel.

Scorn you? Why should you deprecate
What can never be your desert ?

Hate you ? Why should you dream of hate
If, as I say, I receive no hurt?

PARTING.

A thousand tiroes, no I Have you then fDi-got
So soon the beautiful dream that is pawt?

No foul scorn-cancer or angry spot
Shall blur its image while life shall last.

I loved you- Think of that if I seem

Other than what I used to be ;
I loved you. Ponder it well ere you dream

That scorn and hatred find room with nje.
Yet love that cannot bind with a chain,

But only with bonds no stronger than twine.
Is faulty itself. Have no more pain ;

I could not keep you : the blame is mine.

Could I have shown you my inmost heart,

And taught you how very dear you were,
You never, perchance, would have wished to part.

Mine is the blame : you are free as air.
Be happy ; so shall your after life

For this sad parting make full amends,
And since you never can be my wife.

Let us be all the heartier friends.

MORNING HTMN.

MORNING HYMN.

Lo! the Holeiim night has past,
Day hath dawned on earth at last,
And around uie .sounds the voice,
Bidding all thy works rejoice ;
Yet for ine my rest has gone,
Conies my battle with the sun :
Master I as I greet the light,
Arm me for the coming fight.

As this morn I leave my bed
Snares on every side are spread.
Evil spirits in their wrath
Lie in wait around my path.
In the weary contest, Lord,
Guide me by Thy mighty word;
Quell the foeman's haughty boasts ;
Give me strength, Lord of Hosts.

Lord ! through many a long past day
Sin hath led my feet astray ;
Now I know my feebleness,
Now I dread the wilderness.
When the wolves of sin are nigh.
Hear the pack's accursed cry :
Shepherd, let Thy power keep
Me, a wand'ring, feeble sheep.

Through the darkness, as I slept.
Me Thy tender love hath kept ;
As-Thou then didst ward off ill,
Through the daylight keep me still ;
Though I hail the light again,
Sin is worse than dying pain ;
Thou, who on the cross didst bleed,
Help me in my utmost need.

And when on a brighter day
Heaven and earth shall pass away,
And the light that breaks on m*
Shines through all eternity, —
Through the blood that opens Heaved
Saviour ! be my sins forgiven ;
Father I wake me from my sleep ;
Shepherd ! claim Thine erring sheep.

A SUMMER DAY-DREAM.

lis

A SUMMER DAY-DREAM.

Here, where I lie in rest outspread
With mossy carpet girt around,

The great trees green above my head.
And flowers bespangle all the ground.

Low, drowsy murmurs go and come
Among the spikelets of the pines :

Close by I hear the wild bees hum
*Mid strawberry and arbutus vines.

Above my head the woodpecker
Drives coffin nails in giant boles ;

And all the maples are astir

With clear-pitched notes of orioles.

And somewhere near, I know not where.
But, like the voices of a dream.

Far off, yet near, the hazy air
Shakes with the laughter of a stream ;

A little noisy rill, that brawls

In mimic cataracts through the woods.
And whirls its pebbles over falls

Of inches into inch-deep floods.

I cannot see it, but the ear

Can track its thousand fantasies.

Now rippling on distinct and clear,
Now loud with petulant little cries ;

I know that, as it flows along

With dancing sand-specks in its train.
Some stone has jarred upon its song.

And turned its gold-motes back again :

And there it thrusts, and pants, aad raves,
(As we too rave o'er little woes),

Till myriad foam-drops fleck its waves
And gather, whirling, round its throes.

.;.fiill

'' I

A SIT.MMKR DAY-DKEAM.

But hark I a ruHli, a fairy cry,
A cra^h, along itH water-ways,

And all it8 rage anc] agony
Are drowned in wongH of peace and praise.

There conieH a butterfly and Hits

To yonder fern-top's dizzy height,

Folds for a wliile his wings, and sits,
Then shakes them, quivering, in tlie light.

And dallies with the sunbeam's kiss.
And shuts his wings, and opes again.

In such great ecstacy of bliss
It almost seems a throb of pain

So fair I so frail I so weak ! so strong
For happiness in little tilings !

So mute 1 yet e'en the voice of song
Sounds poor, by those 'wing-quiverings.

Either and thither, in and out
Amid the wilderness of grass,

The little ants, a busy rout,
la never-ending concourse pass.

And as I watched them hurrying by
With eager footsteps to and fro,

I seem to wonder lazily

What mighty passion moves them so.

Not love, nor anger ; each alone
Pursues his independent way ;

None gather by some corner stone
To pass in scandal half the day.

Nor see I in the varying throng

That passes and repasses by.
Some portly insect pace along,

Slow-stepped, in wealth's own dignity.

Some aim directs the zigzagged ways

Of all the insect multitude ;
Some business that allows no stays.

Some pleasure eagerly pursued.

And yet, methinks their rush of feet
Is with a stronger passion rife.

And through their slender pulses beat
The dancings of the joy of life.

* Wl'MMKB I)AY-I)REA.M.

In>;ocrotl,ftuntHofHwi.i.tpo,.f„„H.
To work or phiy ti.e l.curH away,

to.npunionHofu world of Mu..in, '
And fl()W(M-.sIimli'<l from tJu- day.

To feel the tangled grasses stirred
Wjth the cool breeze's soft caress

Ami hear, high up, the brooding bird,
Croon little notes of tenderness.

And 'niid such scenes as these to take
And do their work, however small,

For Huu who made ant, flower and brake
And loves the serviceof them all.

And as in deepest sympathy
With all tJiis little world I lie

The san.e strange spell comes too on me,

_ And pierces me with ecstacy.

So great, that when I fain woul.l seek

For words, they loom up faint and dim,
And well I ween them all too weak .

For simplest notes of Life's glad hymn.
O Lord, omnipotent I how just,

How stong in love are all Thv ways
Whopeopleste'enagrainofdiist, '

And from such world, perfectest praise I

115

Itl

IILDHOODt

CHILDHOOD.

BlufihcH are now on the snow

Where the Western 8un is dying,
Am. niglit conies creeping aV)Ove and below,

And the evening breeze is sigliing;
I sit by my little one'H bed

Watching her quiet sleep,
While around on the fire-lit wall and o'erhead

The flickering shadows creep ;

Watching the blaze that streams

From the ruddy lips of the fire,
And my child that sleeps, while its mother dreams

Of her darling babe and its sire —
What in the days to come,

Shall my own little one be ?
The pride and the joy of her happy home,

And her God's to eternity ?

How sweetly the downcast lid

On the sleeping eye reposes,
And the bloom of her cheek, half seen, half hid.

Gleams like the buds of roses.
The little hand is at rest.

Under the golden hair,
And the snow-white coverlet over her breast

Seems scarce with her breath to stir.

What does my baby see.

That a smile comes over her face ?
Does my pretty one think of her father and me»

And her little sister's grace ?
What childish fancy pleases her now

That she looks so sweet and mild,
And brightens up from lip to brow.

With the grave calm smile of a child ?

<'HIM)H«)On.

A smile, uiid nothing more,

Quiet ami Hoft, unci Heldoni seen,
Stealing lil-e Hiuuiner Lreezes u'er,

Anu icaving the baby fuce Herene j
A npple upon the wave,

Fading away in the joy of it^ birth,
And leaving the water calm and grave.
In a beauty not known by earth.

Is elie not mine, God-given ?

An,l now, when nhe laughs in her dream.-, I know
Her angel speaks with her Father in heaven

Of her who sees Him in visions Ik-Iow ■ '
I gaze with awe, and with half-staye<l breath

For methinkH, not faintly shadowed, I trace
The peace that I pray u.uy be hers till death,

And the joy that rests on an angel^ face

117

118

NORTHERN^ LIGHTS.

•I

NORTHEEN LIGHTS.

Oil, lot me dreatii for awhile
' Under the winter pky,

Dream of the light of a vanished smile,
And the hope of a day gone by :

Dream of a lovely face,

And the grace of a lovely head.

And the form tlxat I clasped in a fond embraces-
Let me dream for awhile of the dead .

Dead ! can it be I am here

Whispering this to my heart ?
Dead ? and I have not one welcome tear

To soften the inward smart ?
Dead 1 and I cannot pray,

For I think of my love that is gone.
And the hope that was withered in one short day

Has blasted niv heart to stone.

Wliat have I left but to dream

Of my love that is laid in lier rest,
To live as I lived, for my life's years seem

But an empty dream at the best?
Everything round is still,

And white as a new made shroud.
From the snow-clad lea to the pines on the hill,

And the fleecy veil of the cloud.

Here on the snow I lie

Seeking a balm for care.
Looking up to the blank of the sky

And the blue of the fathomless air.
Hark ! how the chill winds wail.

And shiver and moan in their flight.
What a depth of woe in the sorrowful tale

They tell in tlie ear of night.

NORTHtRN LIGHTS.

119

What i8 it that makes them sad ?

Do they misa the grace of the flowers?
And Higli for the time when their breath wa3 glad

With the aweets of the summer hours.
Ye do well, chill winds, to rave,

For the day of your brides has flel,
Tlxe earth lies heavy and cold on their grave.

They are dead and she too is dead !

II. ^

Swoon into sleep, oh Night,

For the air is heavy and still,
And the shimmering glance of the moonbean-'s light

Comes down with a deadly chill.
Oh sink, pale orb, in the west,

Sink down in the west till I see
Her who lies cold in her la^t long re-it.

Waiting alone for ire.
Last eve in my dreams thv^ veil

Of the frost-bound earth was gone,
And I saw her lying all cold and pale
Like an angel fashioned in stone :
The glance that could give me life

Was asleep in the downcast eye.
But the rose of thy lips, oh love, oh wife I
Was bright with a smile from on high.
How sweet wa."* her calm repose

And the smile that told of Heaven,
No passion, no tear, no fears, no woes.

But the bliss of sin forgiven.
I heard the flakes of thes now

Fall soft through the winter air.
And the foul worm crawl from his couch below,
But I knew that her God was there.

There, in the silent grave,

Whence everything else has fled.
Was the presence of Him who had died to save,

Watching the sleep of the dead.
There was the Lord of Hosts

Guarding the rest of my sweet,
And Death, with his conqueror's pride and boasts,

Crouched down at her Father's feet.

120

NORTHERN LIGHTS.

Let me dream thus again

Seeing her under the sward :
What better relief for my heavy pain,

Than to know her there with her Lord ?
Farewell ibr a time, dear love,

Methinks I have much to learn
For a strange light moves in the heavens above,

And a voice that bids me return.

III.

Over all the shrouded mountain reigns the death-like calm of sleep
HuHhed the murmur of the fountain, and the winds have ceased to weep.
Not a moan or voice of sighing echoes through the silent night.
And the western moon lies dying in a flood of silver light :

But where yonder stars reclining on their thrones gleam bright and clear
Strange mysterious rays are shining, and a rustle strikes my ear.
Comes a whisper pure and saintly, as of angels speaking low,
oomes a lustre pale and faintly, gleaming o'er the sparkling snow.

Now retreating, now advancing, seeming now to faint and die, -
Tongues of lambent fire are glancing o'er the azure of the sky.
Rustling as the flags when nation meeteth nation in the fight,
Lo ! the wonder of creation ! lol the 8olen\n Northern Light I

Once ! heard its wondrous story, and it fell upon my soul
Full of might and awful glory, like the sound where planets roll,
Bearing me where Jordan poureth down his waters with a shout,
And the palm tree upward soareth, and the desert opens out.

Back through all the lapse of ages to the bygone days of old.
Turning over Hist'ry's pages, rich with purer wealth than gold.
When with travel worn and weary, torn with many an aos-ious pang,
Slept through all the midnight dreary, he from whom a nation sprang

In his dreams (as I am dreaming) there he saw a wond'rous utair.
Formed of waving fire and streahiing through the regions of the air,
Tlioughts of earth and heaven blending in its flood of loving light,
And the angel shapes, descending and ascending through the night ;

As he rose the morn was breaking, and its glories bathed his head —
** God was with me till my waking and I knew it not," he said,
** God was near me and around me, and I heard the angel's song,
** But the sleep of Earth had bound me, and its chain was very strong.

NORTHERN LIGHTS. — WORK.

121

But the dream has left its traces, and the ladder gleams on high
When the northern meteor races o'er the sleeping of the sky,
And the souls of the departed, whispering in the rustling air,
Speak univ, the broken-hearted comfort in their dull despair.

And our God is always nigh us, nigh in every time and spot.
Though his presence sweepeth by us, and we dream and know it not,
Lo ! my wife is in the Heaven, though her clay be 'neath the sward.
And the sleep of earth u riven in the Bethel of tlie Lord.

WOEK;

Ever there goeth up to the heavens the same sad tale, —

The complaint of weakness, seeking relief in a womanish wail ;

And hearts borne down in life's war, with troubles and griefs opppressed,

Send up the querulous cry of weariness, asking for rest.

Rest I there is none but in labor, for labor alone bringeth peace ;
And the mind that is wearied with toil hath bidden is sorrows cease.
Away with the maudlin doctrines they fain would teach in schools. —
Dreams of philosophers, follies of women, ravings of fools.

Work ye ! for all things work, — the greatest as well as the small ;
E'en He, the Mighty One, toiled, — the Lord and Creator of all, —
When through the gathered darkness of ages the mandate came.
And the sun shone on boiling seas, and mountains that melted in flame*

Is there no other refuge ? None : what else would we crave ?

Love may be lasting, or not, and friendship be broke by the grave.

Everything else bringeth sorrow, — love, hatred, or hope, or fear.

But the soul that lives only in work, neither trouble nor woe cometh near.

Set ye to work with a will I The anchor that drags on the sands
Is raised by the cheerful song that lends strength to the sturdy hands ;
And the curse that, when Adam fell, was first pronounced on tlie sod,
Sturdily grappled with, yieldeth rest, — Lhe blessing of God.

122

THANKSGIVING.

The heavens are telling of Thy glory, Lord 1 ^trrv-**"

The tirmanient declares Thy power Most High !
From rocky crag, from flower-bestudded sward,

A fong of triumph rings into the sky ;
A song that echoes through the boundless space
Where angels bow the knee and veil the face ;
Methinks I hear it now —
" Thrice Holy, Holy, Holy," is the cry,
" Lord God, art Thou,"

II.

«A* ■')

All round the dawn comes blushing from the sea.

The great white clouds are edged with gold and red

And still the flaming day lighf silently

Creeps on and on, and glances over head.

The sun

Comes from the bridal chambers of the east,

(Leaving awhile the highly favored lands

Where rivers run

By groves of spice trees over golden sands,

Mirroring on their way

The glory of the huge earth-shaking beast,

And gorgeous pheasants, and the yellow gleam

Of tawny tigers waiting for their prey ;)

Until his beam

Wakes up anew from rest

The towns and cornfields of the sleeping west.

And gilding all the sullen mountain brow,
Proclaims Thy praise :

" Thrice Holy, Holy, Holy ," cry his rays,

"Lord God, art Thou I"

THANKSGIVING.

123

III.

He sinks to rest, and over all the plains

Night spreads htr dusky mantle, tinged with grey.
All things are still, and solemn silence reigns,
Save where the moon pursues her endless way.

The raving of the deep
Dies in a hollow murmur, and the breeze.

Wearied with playing, rocks itself to sleep

Among the tresses of the trees ;
But where the great round moon, in floods of light
Like molten silver, surges on the night.

The angels hear her song of praise, and bow
With reverence as elie sweeps along :

" Thrice Holy, Holy, Holy," is her song,
" Lord God, art Thou."

IV.

He giveth snow like wool, and sendeth forth

Hoar frost like ashes ; and the crystal spears

Of diamond-pointed ice, from out the North,
Come at his mandate, and the frozen tears

Of Heaven drop down like morsels. At His word
They melt away like vapour, so
He bloweth with his windf-', and lo !

The sparkling rills beneath the ice interred

Rise from the dead, and myriad waters flow :

And ever as they rush into the sea,

From cataract leaping down the mountain brow

And little brooks that babble through the lea
Still the same melody !

" Thrice Holy, Holy, Holy," do they cry,
" Lord God, art Thou."

Deep in the bosom of the snow-clad plain
To outward seeming dead,
The little grain
Hides in the lap of Earth its buried head.

No sounds disturb its quiet: not the light.
Laden with life and heat, can bid it rise
From out the darkness of its night

124

THANKSOIVXNO.

Unto the loving skies :
The air
All chilled and frozen . passes o'er its tomb,

But comes not nigh, and yet within the gloom
Thou, Lord, are there
Watching (for naught is small before Thine eyes,

And Thine all loving care
Is over all Thy works) the little seed.
Until the time come when it shall be freed,

And then
Thou call'st it forth, and lo! the pale green blade
Has, having heard Thy mandate. Lord, obeyed,
And, in the sight of men.
Has lifted up its tender head, and now

Joins in the universal symphony,
« Thrice Holy, Holy, Holy," is the cry,
" Lord God, art Thou."

VI.

And so
Thy winds come to it, and the heavens o'erflow

With untold riches on it, dropping down
A wealth or fatness on the golden crown

Of ripening ears that catch the summer sun^
And drink in turn the dews of eve, until I
The appointed time be run.
And fertile hill
And plain are smiling with the yellow corn ;

The morn ;

Gleams on them, as it glances on the sea
That ripples in the sunlight, and the night

Brings in upon the lea
The full orb'd harvest moon in floods of light,

And from the rugged bough
Of elms beside the corn, the robin sings

Thy praise, oh God of all created thingia,

Joining the melody.
« Thrice Holy, Holy, Holy," is the cry,
"Lord God, art Thou."

THAXKSGIVIXO.

125

VII.

The Heavens declare Thy glory, oh Most High-
No speech, no language dwells among the host
Of starry worlds that make in Thee their boast.
Yet from the boundless sky.
Where myriad planets in their orbits roll.
Through all the lands
Their sound goes forth with power, from pole to pole.
To Arctic snows and torrid sands.
Where, when the fiery day
Dies slowly from the thirsty sod.
The hungry lions roaring for their prey
Seek food from thee, God.
The sea
Lifts up his tossing waves on high, and roars

A diapason of deep melody
With crash on crash upon the sounding shores
That thunder back again
The never-dying strain
« All Thy works praise Thee, Earth and Heaven abov*

" From day to day, and hour or hour
" Give thanks unto Thee for Thine endless love

" And boundless power :
" All Thy works praise Thee : good it is and right
" That we should laud Thy name by day and night,.
" Most Powerful I
" Most Merciful !
"Most Holy Lord ! that through eternity
** Shall reign when we
" Shall cease to be ;
" Yet till the time be come when we shall die,

" With loving awe before Thy throne we bow
" Thrice Holy, Holy, Holy," all things cry,
" Lord God, art thou."

126

NEW YEAR.

Deep night on the dreaming sky —

Night, frost-struck, sleeping in deadly cliill.
No cloud, nor phantom of mist on high,

And crisp snow sparkling on vale and hill :
The great moon glares, as a dead man's eye

Gleams in its passionless winter bound.
The stars as the frost comee sweeping by

Shimmer and shake in the blue profound,
And the voice of silence all around,

Coming from near and coming from far.
From frozen river, and ice veiled scar,

Is droning into the listening ear
" Lo ! Death is here !"

II.

Death I for the old year dies.

The sad old year that brought us woe ;
Place for the next ! Let another arise,

And let the old year go.
Why should we mourn ? He brought us naught

But days with trouble and sorrow fraught,
And cares that fed on the heart within,
And sin.

Let him go.

III.

Death ! for the old year dies I

Toll, oh bells, till the time be past.
Ring it out to the pitying skies.

The dear old year is flitting fast.
The dear, dear year — our year — shall we

Ever have such another as he ?
Grant that his days were tempest-wild

His very birth with sorrow begun,
The Father, because He loves the child.

Chastens His son.

wmm

NEW YEAR.

127

IV.

Oil <lear sad year, and muHt we part,
Sad j'ear, in which I saw my love
Mount to a liappier realm above,
Leaving behind u broken heart

Dear year, my last surviving friend,

Dear with her presence, in her death
Sacred till I give up the breath.

Leave me not. " All things have an end."

" An end, but not an end — The type

Fades in its season, yet survives, **
In its fulfilment — so the lives

That perish die when they are ripe,"

" Yet live by death. The old year dies
And lives in its successor, so
Ring out, oh bells, across the snow

The dead year born to happier skies."

Yes ! death is but a passing strife,

And deepest night but brings the day ;
Tho' all things alter and decay.

All things are brought again to life.

And therefore ring the marriage peal
Of Life and Death, whose union
Is blessed by hope, and brings a son,

Another year. For weal, or woe ?

Ring out, oh new year's bells, in trust

Come weal, come woe, yet what care I ?
He lives, who ever reigns on higli.

And He is merciful and just.

128

EUTHANASIA.

I heard a voice that rang throughout the night
When clouds were brooding sadly over-head,
A voice that clave the gloom on waves of light,
And came where I was lain and shouted " Write,

" How blessed are the dead."
All round I heard the sobbing of the trees.

The gloomy pines that darkened on the height,
I heard the wailing of the mournful breeze
That whispered dirges in the ear of night,

And, over all.
With eyes that pierced the darknes?' I could view
The tristful waterfall,
(For ever moaning as it sought the depths b elow)

Decking its glassy sheet of blackest hue
With clots of foam that gleamed like virgin snow.

Loom like a maiden's pall.
And while I wept with sorrow at the sight

There came a voice that spake to me and said

" Rise up and write
How blessed are the Dead !"
Far off, the surging of the troubled deep

Mellowed by distance fell upon my ears
With sounds that rang like sobs and heart- wrung tears
From those who see a loved one's last long sleep :
Ifethinks at night all nature seems to sigh.

And cower to earth, and speak beneath her breath
Of that dread tale that tells how all must die.
And how that sleep is but the type of Death ;

And I—
I too could weep,
And pour down dust and ashes on my head.

But that the voices with resistless might
Cease not, Uit come to where I lie, and cry
« Thus saith the Spirit, * Write—
" How blessed are the dead I ' "
Dead I yet we loved her, — Oh, remorseless grave ;
That ever tear'st our priceless gems away.

EUTHANASIA.

129

•v* /

If love be powerlesn, what avuiln to nave

Thr destined prey ?
Firm friend, dear wiHter, loving child, pure nmid,

And fairer than the fairest flower ;
All these was she, and yet they naught tlelayed

The inevitable hour.
How have we wrestled with our God, and prayed,
As once the prophet prayed in days of yore,
That He would listen from His throne above,

And leave a little while our precious love.
Ere she, too, should go hence and be no more.
Now all if o'er —
We lose the light that gladdened all our eyes.

The life God gave to strengthen ours and bless,
And now the Spirit comes to us and cries,
" Earth has one angel less
"But Heaven has one the njore."
I hear the word.
Blessed are those that die in Thee, oh Lord ; 40 *^ *"

Their works shall follow them, but they shall rest
Where naught can trouble them upon Thy brea«t.

Well hath the Spirit said
•' Write, blessed, blessed, blessed, are the dead
That die, oh Lord, in Thee."
And wo,
While she was one
Among us strove with Thee, like him of old,
Israel's sweet singer, yearning for his son,

Now she is gone,
And lies within her cothn pale and cold,
The victory is won, the battle o'ei',
We strive no more,
But, bowing to the ground the stricken head
All faint and bleeding from the desjj'rate fight,
We listen to the spirit saying " Write,
" How blessed are the dead I"
Oh everlasting portals of the sky

Lift up your heads, and be ye swung aside
Ye gates, and be ye lifted up on high.

That He, the Lord of Hosts, may enter in —
The Lord of Hosts that comes with pomp and pride,

And martial pageant; fiom his strife with Sin ;
The Lord of Hosts, omnipotent to save.

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RVVUirifASU.

The Lord tlint hcU the captive free,

And tears from Death his victory,
His triumph from the Grave.
Lift up your hoa«Jfl ye everlasting gates,

And lie ye Hwung asunder far and wide —
Outside your King, the King of Glory waits

The King of Glory coming with his bride ;
The King that rends the iron chains asunder,

That hears the crying of the tortured slave,
Tliat speaks His will to Death in tones of thunder,

That says * Give up my children' to the grave —
Upon the wind, upon the wind He rides,

The blood red-lightning crouches at His feet.
The clouds of Heaven are round where he abides.

Thick clouds of darkness veil His judgment seat.
The sea lies in the hollow of His hand,

The deep set-mountains tremble at His nod
His pinions cover sky and sea and land, •

The Heavens declare Thy glory, God.
But earth, more highly favored, boasts

Through anguish, death and grief and ill.
Her Saviour is the Lord of Hosts,

Her King, the King of Glory still.
What though our loved one leave us here.

To mourn her loss and deck her tomb.
Ours is no sadness dark and drear.

Ours is no unbelieving gloom ;
He, who doeth all things right.

Whispers to the*bowed-down head,
* Rise up and'write,
•* Blessed, oh Lord, of all things, are tliy dead."

TIIK I,()IU) S CtlAIM.i: MOVIi.

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THE LORD'S CRADLE SONCI.

A CIIRI.STMAS 1,1 KK CAROt,.

The long days come, and the sliort days go,

(Hurth-a-by haby, l)aby Mine,)
They come with snow and they go with nnow,

Tliougli life iH a draft of blood red wine;
Snow-white coverlet, snow on the hair,

Infants coming, and infants going.
For each of His children joy and care.

And over them Iwth the chill winds blowinii.

The chill winds blowing for life to one,

(Hush-a-by baby, baby Mine,)
And after the siunmer and autumn sun

The wintry winds to wither the vine.
In winter the frosty north-winds blow

(Hush-a-by baby, baby Mine,)
But cradled in darkness the seedlings grow.

And the dead earth nourishes life divine,

The tender seedlings grow in the dark,

(Hash-a-by babies, babies Mine,)
Till out of spring's bosom comes a spark,
^ (For life is a draught of blood-red wine)
And lo ! the heavens are all aglow,

(Hush-a-by babies, babies Mine,]
To kiss the springing leaf out of the snow,
For life is an essence all divine.

To kiss the hpringing leaf out of the snow,

(Hush-a-by babies, babies Mine,)
To sunshine and rain, to joy and to woe,
(For life is a draft of blood-red wine)

132

THK LOui)\s ctt.vnr.K .s()X(;.

To kiss my Imliy out of tlio oartli,

(Hiieli-tt-hy Imhy, l)al)y iniiJCj)
Into a new and better birth,

Bought by my drausfht of the Ijlood-red wine.

Into the new and better liirtli

(Hu8h-a-i)y baby, buby Mine,)
Yet plants have their seasons of plenty and dearth.

And death is the nurse of the Life Divine.
The coverlet melts from the baby face,

(Hush-a-by trembler, little one Mine,)
And the leaf is a plant that must run its race ;

Ah ! life is a drautrht of l»lood-red wine.

Its race from the darkness and cold of earth

(Hush-a-by baby, baby Mine,)
It springs to the heaven that gave it birth,

But life is a draught of blood-red wine.
Foster-mothers are earth and air,

(Hush-a-by baby, baby mine,)
But the Father will send it joy and care,

For life is the pouring of blood-red w ine.

Eii>e and care, and plea-^ure and toil,

(Hush-a-by liaby, baby Mine,
Till the little plant roots itself in the soil,

And life is a promise of blood-red wino ;
Till :*ummer conies with its heat and shower,

(Hush-a-by baby, l)al)y Mine,)
And the leaf bursts out into bud and tlower;

And the grapes are forn»ed for the blood-red wine.

Bud and Hower, and honey-bees,

(Ah, child 1 shall thy life be no longer Mine?)
And the soft winds wooing it under the trees.

(Life garners, yet i)res8es out the wine)
And then the crash of the thunder-cloud —

(Ah, youth! My life wis given for thine)
And the weeds to clutke it that grow in a crow<l,

For life is a draft of blood-red wine.

THE lord's ORADMi: SONG.

138

Bud and flower, and, after them, fruit ;

(Manl my life was jriven for thine)
Weeils nor storm shall injure the root

Where the blood of life is the Life Divine ;
Fruit that has sprung from the winter snow,

(Hush-a-hy hahy, haby Mine.)
Through spring and summer to autumn's glow,

(For life is a drauglit of blood-red wine).

Autumn's glow on the great grape-clusters,

(Life is a draught of blood-red wine)
And o'er them the autumn night-wind blusters,

Hush-a-by baby, baby Mine.)
The full grapes hang on the the trellis-Crosses,

(Man I My life was given for thine,)
We see the gains, shall we count the losses?

(Hush-a-by, little one, 'Ittle one mine.)

Shall we count the losses of mildew and rust,

(Hush-a-baby, baby Mine,)
When I come who am coming to tread out the must,

And press the vintage to blood-red wine?
Shall we point with pride to the clusters won,

Grapes that grew from My Life Divine,
Or mourn for the work that was left undone ?

(Hnsh-a-by, trembler, baby Mine )

* Left umlone! and the winter is here;"

(Hush-a-by baby, baby Mine,)
^ Undone I and behold the end of t.'ie year,

And only the dregs of the ', \ o ' red wine
The fruit is garnerwij Mie leaves are sere,"

(Hush-a-by baby, baby Mine,)
" And the short days speed along dark aud drear I"

(Old n:an 1 my life is answer for Thine ^

Dark and drear, and ^Lk.- winter snow,

(Cling tu M', l»,iby, baby Mine,)
But under its (nver the seedlings grow,

Nestled, be ier.th tb-: I^eace Divine ;

THE LORD .S CRADI.K SONG.

The .seedlings grow though ye do not see

And the hidden life has no earthly sign,

For tlie Father says to them and to thee,
" Hush-a-hy bahy, baby Mine."

" Hush-a-babv babv, babv Mine."

So did she sing in stable cold
To manger cradled Child Divine,

In the olden days that shall ne'er be old.
So did the Virgin-mother hush

The Babe who could see the blood-red wine
Of the Cross gleam out in her cheeks' sweet flush-

" Hush-a-by baby, baby Mine."

An<l thou, who art drawing near to-thy eml,

(Hush-a-by baby, baby Mine)
Shalt see the old and the new life blend,

The old grapes pressed into new-niade wine.
See the cradle, and see the Cross,

(ClaspMe, My baby, baby Mine,)
Reckon the gain, and discard the loss,

And know that Mv life was given for thine.

ox MILLAIS' PtOTURK.

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ON MILLAIS' PICTUKE

^" DEATH SHOOTING FLAMING ARROWS BY NIGHT INTO A WALLED CITY.

The city is fenced all round, and the Hentinel paceth tlie wall,
" Naught shall enter," t<aith he, " be it for good or fur ill ;"

But the joys and griefs of life come, as their wont i^^, to garret and liall,
For the archer outside, as he ever hath shot, is shooting still.

No coinnion archer is he, and his bow is a bow of niight;

Daintily grim, as he stands, his bones are easily seen ;
But, daintily grim as he stands, his arrows are arrows of light,

And blaze not with earthly wrath, but with Heaven's own mercy, I ween.

We make a bugbear of Death, and, lo! we cry out on Life!

Naught will suit us, it seems ; we wish to die, and yet live!
We sigh for Death's tleshless ease, yet we cling to Life's fleshly strife,

And God gives us both our wishes, as only His love can give.

For lo! in His infinite wisdom and pity. He reconciles both.
Makes Life the one road to Death, and Death Life-eternal's gate.

We fence ourselves in 'gainst His mercy, to live or die equally loth,
But His love will not be denied, and the archer hits sooner or late.

There, in tlie dark night of nuui, all gruesome and laidly he stfinds,
Guarded against, and watched, and recognized only as foe.

But Go<l gives His light to the arrows that rush from His angel's hands.
And makes us a friend of our foeinan, and sets our darkness aglow.

And still as the archer shooteth, the pilot steereth no more.
Ami the vessel of life is left to the guidance of other hands;

Good need that it should be so, for she neareth another shore.
And the land that gives her a haven is not among earthly lands.

136

ON MILLAIS' PICTURE.

The revellers sit at the banquet, and round them gathers the night,
Little reck they of the bowman that stands out there in the gloom.

Yet better for them than the music, the perfumes, the wines, and the light,
Is the bolt of the laidly archer that stays their joy with his doom.

What I hath he stricken the brain, and the animal pleasures of life,
And aimeth again ?— at what ? 0, archer ! thou airaest at Love I

Yet strike, since God bids thee strike, at the breast of husband and wife.
And fail, though thou pierce the heart. Love lies with the Throne above.

But ever the sentinel paceth his rounds, and crieth, "All's well ;"
He marks not the fla 'ng bolts that speed on the mission of Deatli,

Yet he stumbles upon th. t • M\ arid the toll of the funeral bell
Proclaims unto Heaven a' Earth that it is as the sentinel saith.

THE DEATH OF d'asSAT.

137

THE DEATH OF D'ASSAT.

The night was come, and the moon looked down
Through the struggling clouds on the sleeping town.
An hour ago, and a noisy throng
Hustled the roaring streets among:
All day their echoing pulses had stirred
To song and laughter and jesting word.
Now they lay in the silvery light
Silent, and empty, and lone as night.

The last keen bargain was closed, the kiss

Left its last lingering taste of bliss,

The last good-night and the last low prayer

Had sped through the waves of the closing air ;

The great bell up in the belfry-tower

Had long ago clanged for the day's last hour,

And fainter and fainter the sentinel

Droned out his cuckoo-cry, "All's well !"

Beyond the walls in the deepening shades

A soldier was pacing the forest glades.

Little he dreamed of beat of arms.

Of foemen near, or of war's alarms.

Yet he thought of her who had sent him to fight

For the cause of his God, and his country's right.

And he felt his heart within him burn

As he coupled the names, " Elaine " and "Auvergne."

A voice in his ear, as a nervous hand
Plucked from his grasp the half-drawn brand,
*' Silence! a motion, a word, a breath
Seals the warrant of instant death I"
Round him from under the gloomy trees

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138

IIK.WH OF D'aSSAT.— CHAMl'AUNE ClIAKME.

Cluster tlie foe like swarms of bees,

And the iiioonbeams shiver awhile ei-e they rea

On the blue-bhvck bayonets poised at his breast

Loud and clear as the bugle's blare
Kang out his words on the startled air :
"Ho, sentinels on the walls! what, lio !
Arm, arm Auvergne! 'tis the foe, the foe "

Tramp of men, and the trumpet's call.

And the watch-fires blazing along the wall,

And the deep-mouthed cannon spoke out, "All's well I

Auvergne is ready." So d'Assat fell.

CPi;Mi.».GNIi: CHARLIE.

The wind is sighing, the leaves are flying.
Low in the west the sun lies dying,
The birds are tied, and the flowers are dead.
And the evening mists gather overhead;

Far on the verge of the western sky.

Tranced in bliss, bathed in light.
Purple and gold are the clouds that lie
Waiting their death from night ;
The witch-elms sob, and the great pines throb.
And the maples shower their tears of blood.
For the year is sere, and the earth is drear,
And its glories gone like a summer flood.

The Past hath tears, and the Present fears
As the Future terror more plain appears,
Behind us a grave lies closed, before
A grave lies yawning with open door ;

"Down on the banks where the grape-vines glow//'
So Life sung when the year was young,

" Purple and gold are the grapes I grow "

A curse on her lying tongue I

CHAMPAOXE HARUB

129

I/ool for siicii gold to be bought and po
For hopes to be blasted, and friends grown so

For the wear aid tear of struggle and care,
And the pitiless life-.itreani Howing — where?

Yet still to the beat of Youth's flying feet
The swift waltz-pulses throb clear and sweet,
But under the air so glad and fair
The time-nates sigh with the soul's despair;

" Down by the banks where the yew-trees grow.

Woe is me ! oh, woe is me !
Purple and crimson and gold must go
Down to the endless sea.
The days speed on, and the years are gone.

And the mists rise up from the unseen shore,
Youtli's dreams are fled, and its hopes are dead.
To be raised up — nevermore !"

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340

MAGDALENE.

If that mine eyes were founts whose endless streams

Flowed through the ages, could they wash away

The stain of my dire pollution ? Yet methought

In earlier days they would, and wept — alas,

My tears were like the well whose bitterness

Mocked our forefathers at the halting place

Of March, on the confines of the land

Of sin — dead waters — powerless to heal.

Whose brightness was the splendor of the snake

That hides the venom. Still, e'en now I weep

Dry tears of anguish, seen by none save Him

Who sees all things — All things? Why then He sees

My spirit foul and rotten to the core,

A dwelling-place for devils. Oh, my life !

Where shall I go, and whither shall I flee?

What is there for me, wretched one, to do

Save to leave life?

If that were but the end.

Or if the end were but the endless fire

That never dies 1 I'd welcome every flame.

If haply one might burn away my filth.

And leave me through the long eternity

Pure in the midst of torrents, and alone

To bear them ; one weak woman to endure

The terrors of the Almighty — for I know

My sin, and know that it is just and right,

Being thoroughly sinful, to be thoroughly scourged.

But neither fire nor water can avail

To cleanse me ; Death, nor Hell itself, give back

My pure white soul, nor take me from that self

That is not self ; but, being what it is,

I loathe and shudder at. — There is no hope I

I know the meaning of the serpent now,
Who promised Eve that eating of the fruit
:She too should be as God, distinguishing

MAf!I)AI,ENE.

Tho evil ; for I see my very self

Beneath tlie lustre of the silks and glow

Of jevvelH and the perfumed crown of flowers.

And know that if a four-weeks' corpse should hurst

The tomb and seat itself beside me, it

It were fairer to behold and titter guest

Amid the festival and revelry

Of living things than I. My laughter rings

'Midst other laughter like the sound of sobs

In charnel houses, and my voice in songs

Is (to my hearing) like the cries of those

Who cut themselves in tombs. The very air

Is tainted when it touches me ; the skv

Grows livid at the sight of me ; the earth

Turns to foul ooze and slime beneath the feet

Of me, the plaything of the vile, the scorn

And loathing of the pure, within whose soul

Seven devils, each one filthier than the last,

Work all uncleanness. No! there is no hope I

Where shall I turn ? Whichever way I look
Lies madness. Nay I I dare not look behind
Nor call the past before me, an<l the ghosts
Of munlored Purity. I am not Ht
'J'o think upon my mother, or myself
That played ubeiut her, or my father's head
Wearing the snowy crown of upright age.
1 slew all these ; yet if I called them up
Their eyes would be so full of pitying love
I coidd not bear them ; I am all unused
Ti) gentleness or pity ; there is none
In all this worM to touch my appealing hand
As if it were a sister's — none to speak
As to a woman, none to otl'er help
As to a human being in the toils.
My way is fenced about and hedged^ and men,
Pure and impure, stand sentinels around
Lest I should leave it — No! there is no hope!

And if I look before me, what remains
lint endless living and comiianionship
With things unclean as I am? Even now
My brain reels with the load of filth I bear;
What will it be in the long years to come?
Will it endure, or will it weary out

U'l

M/<:DALENE.

And leave ii.e to unreasoning conscionsnesN
And self-oblivion — No! I know full well
'Twould leave me horror-struck and devil-mad, —
A thing still fouler — No! there is no liope !

Who have they there? My modest matron? She
That passed me in the street the other day
With lialf-averted face and scornful eyes,
And shuddering tucking-in of dainty skirts
Lest I should touch her; — Brought to light at last
And taken to the stoning. Men ! be merciful —
She's but a child, and when we women love
We are so weak, and yet so iron-strong.
Weak to resist, and mighty to endure.
And dare all things for love, e'en death and hell.
They heed me not! Yet stay : the road. they take
Leads to the temple. What new thing is this?
I have not been there since I fell — perhaps
Some new atonement has been found for sin.
And I, too, may be cleansed — I'll go with them.

Am I awake? I saw amidst the crowd

Of faces, dark with judgment. Him they call

The Nazarene : a sad, calm face that smote

The multitude to silence, as His eye

Fell on accusers and accused. No word

He spake, but stooping wrote upon the ground

As though He heard them not: they clamouring still

To have Him judge something — 1 heard not what

He said, whereat the gathered circle broke

And out they went with cowering looks, and air

Of conscience, till the mighty place was void

Of all save Him and her, and then I caught

The words — " I judge thee not; go, sin no more," —

Yet that He had the power to judge I feel ;

That He has power to pardon I have seen.

*' Go, sin no more ?" Is there indeed a hope

Forme? I'll go to Him. But how to tell

To that pure soul my own impurity, —

How meet the clearness of those sinless eyes ?

When bowed before His feet, what shall I say ?

Oh, that mine eyes were very founts whose streams
Of blessed, blessed tears might flow for aye.

MAP.DAI.KXK.

u:;

Dear Lord, upon Thy feet; that day and night,
Witli face low laid in duHt, my liappy hair
Might brush thofe tears away; that all my life,
Drawn out through endless ages, might lie Thine
To do and sutler for Thee what Thou wilt I
Oh, honored earth, whereon T}»y footsteps are.
Oh, honored dust, that overspreads Thy feet,
Oh, happy I, that lie before them, cleansed
And ptire, pure, pure, so that I touch Thee, Lord,
Dear Lord, and bring no taint or spot to Thee.
Dear Lord, whatever others deem me, not to Thee
Who art all-pure, the only Son of God.

ON THE WATERS.

Metliought I stood by a granary stored
From floor to roof with the yellow hoard,
Maize and barley and oats and whe.ot
Lay like the sands of the sea at my feet,
Oats and barley and wheat in sheaves
Glimmered high up among the eaves
And whilst my heart grew glad at the yield
A voice came unto me " Look at the field."

I turned, and lo, by my very side

Thundered and raved a troubletl tide,

Hurrying over the fertile land

Rock and pebble and tree'and sand

And ever would rise from the depths a cry

The shriek of the wild floods agony

And the'' voice came to me'again and said,

^' Cast from the granary " Lord! it is bread

144

ON' Till-: WATERS.

Early and lute unwavering toil
Ploughc'il ami howcmI and harrowed the soil,
CeaseloHS care and lalxtr untold
Wiitehed and garnered the crop of gold,
ilVnd now shall I throw away in ncorn
That which I wearied for night and morn,
The Htay of my life? " Who gave it thee?
Cast out thy hread on the hungry nea."

On to that hopeless tide I poured

The golden wealth of my gathered hoard,

Barley and oats and wheat in sheavep,

And the maize half hid in its unshocked leaves ;

Awliilj o 1 (ho waters muddy and rank

They gleanud, llien whirled in eddies and sunk

Till never a c ingle grain was left.

And the granary stood all widowed and reft.

The fields lie buried beneath flood,

Choked with u refuse of sand and mud,

And swept with destruction. Ah ! never more

ShuU I plough ami sow and harrow them o'er ;

Alas for the hanl-wou spoils of the plain !

Ah ! pitiful waste! Ah ! labor in vain!

'•Thou shall see it again." Lord! when will that l)o

" JJe it soon or late what is it to thee ?'

Ami lo ! as I looked on the water's roll

Every wave was a human soul,

Bonu' along on the river of life

Craving and guilt stained and rent with strife ;

Crying aloud to the Father above

For food and mercy and peace and love ;

And I saw among them the seed corn lie :

The words and the deeds of sympathy.

Once more the voice came unto me, " Cast,"
Lord I I have thrown iu unto the last!
" Nay, look !" and behold my garner was full
Of grain in the ear, and corn in tha hull
For the seed I had sown had taken root,
In the midst of the waters and borne its fruit,
And the waves had brought to me back again
An hundred fohl of the goodly grain.

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