THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 LIRA 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY ALICE CAREY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'CLOVERNOOK, OR RECOLLECTIONS OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE WEST," 
 
 AND ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF 
 
 " POEMS BY ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY." 
 
 REDFIELD, 
 
 CLINTON HALL, NEW YORK. 
 1852.
 
 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, 
 In the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-two, by 
 
 J. S. EEDFIELD, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United 
 States, for the Southern District of New York.
 
 L98 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 LYRA : A LAMENT . , 
 
 WINTER . . . 
 
 WRITTEN IN ILLNESS . 
 
 HYMN TO THE NIGHT . 
 
 THE POET . . , 
 
 LILY LEE . . 
 
 DEATH SONG . . 
 
 WOOD NYMPHS . . 
 
 THE DAUGHTER . < 
 
 DESPAIR . . . 
 
 YESTERNIGHT . . , 
 
 To THE SPIRIT OF SONG . 
 PROPHECY . . , 
 
 PERVERSITY . . 
 
 ANNUARIES . . , 
 
 ANNIE CLAYYILLE . 
 
 MILNA GREY . . ( 
 
 THE MURDERESS . 
 
 THE CONVICT . . , 
 
 OF ONE ASLEEP . . 
 
 JESSIE CARROLL . 
 
 DISSATISFIED . . 
 
 AGATHA TO HAROLD . < 
 
 THE SPIRIT HAUNTED . 
 
 WURTHA . . , 
 
 MADELA . ," . 
 
 THE SHEPHERDESS 
 THE KECLAIMING OF THE ANGEL 
 YOUNG LOVE . 
 THE BETROTHED . 
 GOING TO SLEEP 
 
 PAGE 
 5 
 9 
 
 14 
 17 
 21 
 23 
 25 
 27 
 80 
 83 
 85 
 87 
 89 
 41 
 48 
 52 
 55 
 60 
 63 
 65 
 69 
 79 
 81 
 85 
 89 
 91 
 93 
 95 
 97 
 99 
 101 
 
 626043
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OF ONE DYING ..... 103 
 
 THE GOOD ANGEL ..... 105 
 
 OCTOBEB . . . . . 107 
 
 A KETROSPECT ..... 109 
 
 MY FRIEND AND I .... Ill 
 
 A DREAM UNTOLD ..... 113 
 
 ULALIE . . v ; f ' ," y ? ' . . 116 
 
 PARTING SONG ' . - ; ! ' . . . 117 
 
 THE BROKEN HOUSEHOLD . . . . 119 
 
 FlRE-PlCTURES ... . . . 121 
 
 To THE WINDS ..... 123 
 
 To THE SPIRIT or GLADNESS . . . .125 
 
 A CHRISTMAS STOEY . . . -. 127 
 
 THISBE . . . . . .129 
 
 OUT BY THE WATERS . . . . 181 
 
 LOVE'S CHAPEL - . . . . . 138 
 
 THE TRYST ..... 135 
 
 THE BRIDAL OF Wo . . . . .137 
 
 FALLEN GENIUS ..... 139 
 
 DYING SONG ...... 141 
 
 DYING . . .. . . . 143 
 
 MAY VERSES ...... 145 
 
 PARTING WITH A POET . . . . 147 
 
 HARRIET . . . . . r _ . 149 
 
 To THE HOPEFUL ..... 151 
 
 RESPITE . . . . . . 153 
 
 THE DYING MOTHEK . . . . 155 
 
 THE LAST SON& . . . .j- : . 157 
 
 FALMOUTH HALL .... . 159 
 
 GLENLY MOOR ..... 161 
 
 KOSEMARY HILL . . . . . 163 
 
 ADELIED ...... 166 
 
 MULBERRY HILL . . . . . 167 
 
 SONG . ^ . . ... .169 
 
 LIVE AND HELP LIVE .... 171 
 
 DOOMED ...... 178 
 
 WEARINESS . . . . . 174 
 
 To ELMTNA . . . . . .175 
 
 HOMESICK ...... 176 
 
 KINDNESS . . . . , . .177 
 
 MY MOTHER . . . 178
 
 POEMS BY ALICE CARET. 
 
 LYEA: A LAMENT, 
 
 I 
 
 MAIDENS, whose tresses shine, 
 
 Crowned with daffodil and eglantine, 
 
 Or, from their stringed buds of brier roses, 
 
 Bright as the vermeil closes 
 
 Of April twilights after sobbing 'rains, 
 
 Fall down in rippled skeins 
 
 And golden tangles low 
 
 About your bosoms, dainty as new snow ; 
 
 While the warm shadows blow in softest gales 
 
 Fair hawthorn flowers and cherry blossoms white 
 Against your kirtles, like the froth from pails 
 
 O'er brimmed with milk at night, 
 When lowing heifers bury their sleek flanks 
 In winrows of sweet hay or clover banks 
 Come near and hear, I pray, 
 My plained roundelay.
 
 6 LYRA. 
 
 Where creeping vines o'errun the sunny leas, 
 Sadly, sweet souls, I watch your shining bands, 
 Filling with stained hands 
 
 Your leafy cups with lush red strawberries ; 
 Or deep in murmurous glooms, 
 In yellow mosses full of starry blooms, 
 Sunken at ease each busied as she likes, 
 
 Or stripping from the grass the beaded dews, 
 Or picking jagged leaves from the slim spikes 
 
 Of tender pinks with warbled interfuse 
 Of poesy divine, 
 
 That haply long ago 
 
 Some wretched borderer of the realm of wo 
 Wrought to a dulcet line ; 
 If in your lovely years 
 There be a sorrow that may touch with tears 
 The eyelids piteously, they must be shed 
 FOR LYRA, DEAD. 
 
 The mantle of the May 
 
 Was blown almost within the summer's reach, 
 And all the orchard trees, 
 
 Apple, and pear, and peach, 
 Were full of yellow bees, 
 
 Flown from their hives away. 
 The callow dove upon the dusty beam 
 
 Fluttered its little wings in streaks of light, 
 
 And the gray swallow twittered full in sight ; 
 Harmless the unyoked team 
 
 Browsed from the budding elms, and thrilling lays 
 
 Made musical prophecies of brighter days j
 
 LYRA. 
 
 And all went jocundly. I could but say, 
 
 Ah ! well-a-day ! 
 
 What time spring thaws the wold, 
 
 And in the dead leaves come up sprouts of gold, 
 
 And green and ribby blue, that after hours 
 
 Encrown with flowers ; 
 
 Heavily lies my heart 
 
 From all delights apart, 
 
 Even as an echo hungry for the wind, 
 
 When fail the silver-kissing waves to unbind 
 
 The music bedded in the drowsy strings 
 
 Of the sea's golden shells 
 That, sometimes, with their honeyed murmurings 
 
 Fill all its underswells ; 
 For o'er the sunshine fell a shadow wide 
 When Lyra died. 
 
 When sober Autumn, with his mist-bound brows, 
 
 Sits drearily beneath the fading boughs, 
 
 And the rain, chilly cold, 
 
 Wrings from his beard of gold, 
 
 And as some comfort for his lonesome hours, 
 
 Hides in his bosom stalks of withered flowers, 
 
 I think about what leaves are drooping round 
 
 A smoothly shapen mound; 
 
 And if the wild wind cries 
 
 Where Lyra lies, 
 
 Sweet shepherds softly blow 
 
 Ditties roost sad and low 
 
 Piping on hollow reeds to your pent sheep 
 
 Calm be my Lyra's sleep,
 
 8 LYRA. 
 
 Unvexed with dream of the rough briers that pull 
 
 From his strayed lambs the wool ! 
 
 Oh, star, that tremblest dim 
 
 Upon the welkin's rim, 
 
 Send with thy milky shadows from above 
 
 Tidings about my love ; 
 
 If that some envious wave 
 
 Made his untimely grave, 
 
 Or if, so softening half my wild regrets, 
 
 Some coverlid of bluest violets 
 
 Was softly put aside, 
 
 What time he died ! 
 
 Nay, come not, piteous maids, 
 
 Out of the murmurous shades ; 
 
 But keep your tresses crowned as you may 
 
 With eglantine and daffodillies gay, 
 
 And with the dews of myrtles wash your cheeks, 
 
 When flamy streaks, 
 
 Uprunning the gray orient, tell of morn 
 
 While I, forlorn, 
 
 Pour all my heart in tears and plaints, instead, 
 
 FOR LYRA, DEAD.
 
 WINTER. 
 
 Now sits the twilight palaced in the snow, 
 
 Hugging away beneath a fleece of gold 
 Her statue beauties, dumb and icy cold, 
 
 And fixing her blue steadfast eyes below, 
 Where, in a bed of chilly waves afar, 
 
 With dismal shadows o'er her sweet face blown, 
 Tended to death by eve's delicious star, 
 
 Lies the lost Day alone. 
 
 Where late, with red mists bound about his brows, 
 
 Went the swart Autumn, wading to the knees 
 Through drifts of dead leaves, shaken from the boughs 
 
 Of the old forest trees, 
 The gusts upon their baleful errands run 
 
 O'er the bright ruin, fading from our eyes 
 And over all, like clouds about the sun, 
 
 A shadow lies. 
 
 For, fallen asleep upon a dreary world, 
 Slant to the light, one late October morn, 
 
 From some rough cavern blew a tempest cold, 
 And tearing off his garland of ripe corn,
 
 10 WINTER. 
 
 Twisted with blue grapes, sweet with luscious wine, 
 And Ceres' drowsy flowers, so dully red, 
 
 Deep in his cavern leafy and divine, 
 Buried him with his dead. 
 
 Then, with his black beard glistening in the frost, 
 
 Under the icy arches of the north, 
 And o'er the still graves of the seasons lost, 
 
 Blustered the Winter forth 
 Spring, with your crown of roses budding new, 
 
 Thought-nursing and most melancholy Fall, 
 Summer, with bloomy meadows wet with dew, 
 
 Blighting your beauties all. 
 
 Oh heart, your spring-time dream will idle prove, 
 
 Your summer but forerun your autumn's death, 
 The flowery arches in the home of love 
 
 Fall, crumbling, at a breath ; 
 And, sick at last with that great sorrow's shock, 
 
 As some poor prisoner, pressing to the bars 
 His forehead, calls on Mercy to unlock 
 
 The chambers of the stars 
 You, turning off from life's first mocking glow 
 
 Leaning, it may be, still on broken faith, 
 Will down the vale of Autumn gladly go 
 
 To the chill winter, Death. 
 
 Hark ! from the empty bosom of the grove 
 I hear a sob, as one forlorn might pine 
 The white-limbed beauty of a god is thine,
 
 WINTER. 11 
 
 King of the seasons ! and the night that hoods 
 
 Thy brow majestic, brightest stars enweave 
 
 Thou surely canst not grieve ; 
 But only far away 
 
 Makest stormy prophecies ; well, lift them higher, 
 Till morning on the forehead of the day 
 
 Presses a seal of fire. 
 Dearer to me the scene 
 
 Of nature shrinking from thy rough embrace, 
 Than Summer, with her rustling robe of green, 
 
 Cool blowing in my face. 
 
 The moon is up how still the yellow beams 
 
 That slantwise lie upon the stirless air, 
 Sprinkled with frost, like pearl-entangled hair, 
 
 O'er beauty's cheeks that streams! 
 How the red light of Mars their pallor mocks, 
 
 And the wild legend from the old time wins, 
 Of sweet waves kissing all the drowning locks 
 
 Pf Ilia's lovely twins ! 
 
 Come, Poesy, and with thy shadowy hands 
 
 Cover me softly, singing all the night 
 In thy dear presence find I best delight ; 
 
 Even the saint that stands 
 Tending the gate of heaven, involved in beams 
 
 Of rarest glory, to my mortal eyes 
 Pales from the blest insanity of dreams 
 
 That round thee lies.
 
 12 WINTER. 
 
 Unto the dusky borders of the grove 
 
 Where gray-haired Saturn, silent as a stone, 
 
 Sat in his grief alone, 
 Or, where young Venus, searching for her love, 
 
 Walked through the clouds, I pray, 
 
 Bear me to-night away. 
 
 Or wade with me through snows 
 
 Drifted in loose fantastic curves aside, 
 
 From humble doors where Love and Faith abide, 
 And no rough winter blows, 
 
 Chilling the beauty of affections fair, 
 
 Cabined securely there, 
 Where round their fingers winding the white slips 
 
 That crown his forehead, on the grandsire's knees, 
 Sit merry children, teasing about ships 
 
 Lost in the perilous seas ; 
 Or listening with a troublous joy, yet deep, 
 
 To stories about battles, or of storms, 
 Till weary grown, and drowsing into sleep, 
 
 Slide they from out his arms. 
 
 Where, by the log-heap fire, 
 
 As the pane rattles and the cricket sings, 
 I with the gray -haired sire 
 
 May talk of vanished summer-times and springs, 
 And harmlessly and cheerfully beguile 
 
 The long, long hours 
 The happier for the snows that drift the while 
 
 About the flowers.
 
 WINTER. 13 
 
 Winter, wilt keep the love I offer thee? 
 
 No mesh of flowers is bound about my brow ; 
 From life's fair summer I am hastening now. 
 
 And as I sink my knee, 
 Dimpling the beauty of thy bed of snow 
 
 Dowerless, I can but say 
 
 Oh, cast me not away !
 
 WRITTEN IN ILLNESS. 
 
 Now in the field of sunset, Twilight gray, 
 
 Sad for the dying day, 
 
 With wisps of shadows binds the sheaves of gold, 
 
 And Night comes shepherding his starry fold 
 
 Along the fringed bottom of the sky. 
 
 Alas, that I 
 
 Sunken among life's faded ruins lie 
 
 My senses from their natural uses bound ! 
 
 What thing is likest to my wretched plight 1 ? 
 A barley grain cast into stony ground, 
 
 That may not quicken up into the light. 
 
 Erewhile I dreamed about the hills of home 
 Whereon I used to roam ; 
 
 Of silver-leaved larch, 
 
 And willow, hung with tassels, when like bells 
 Tinkle the thawing runnel's brimming swells ; 
 
 And softly filling in the front of March 
 The new moon lies, 
 
 Watching for harebells, and the buds that ease 
 Hearts lovelorn, and the spotted adder's tongue, 
 Dead heaped leaves among
 
 WRITTEN IN ILLNESS. 15 
 
 The verdurous season's cloud of witnesses ; 
 
 Of how the daisy shines 
 
 White, i' the knotty and close-nibbled grass ; 
 
 Of thickets full of prickly eglantines, 
 
 And the slim spice-wood and red sassafras, 
 
 Stealing between whose boughs the twinkling heats 
 
 Suck up the exhaled sweets 
 From dew-embalmed beds of primroses, 
 That all unpressed lie, 
 Save of enamored airs, right daintily, 
 
 And golden-ringed bees; 
 Of atmospheres of hymns, 
 
 When wings go beating up the blue sublime 
 From hedgerows sweet with vermeil-sprouting limbs, 
 
 In April's showery time, 
 
 When lilacs come, and straggling flag-flowers, bright, 
 As any summer light 
 
 Ere yet the plowman's steers 
 Browse through the meadows from the traces free, 
 Or steel-blue swallows twitter merrily, 
 With slant wings shaving close the level ground, 
 Where with his new-washed ewes thick huddled round, 
 
 The careful herdsman plies the busy shears. 
 
 But this fond seeming now no longer seems 
 Aching and drowsy pains keep down my dreams ; 
 
 Even as a dreary wind 
 
 Within some hollow, black with poison flowers, 
 
 Swoons into silence, dies the hope that lined 
 My lowly chamber with illumined wings,
 
 16 WRITTEN IX ILLNESS. 
 
 In life's enchanted hours, 
 
 When, tender oxlips mixed through yellow strings 
 Of mulleinstars, with myrtles interfused, 
 Pulled out of pastures green, I gaily used 
 To braid up with my hair. Ah, well-a-day ! 
 Haply the blue eyes of another May 
 Open from rosy lids ; I shall not see 
 For the white shroud-folds. If it thus must be, 
 O Father, Son, and Spirit ! Holy Three ! 
 As death is closing round me into night, 
 Comfort the darkness with religious light !
 
 HYMN TO THE NIGHT. 
 
 MIDNIGHT, beneath your sky, 
 
 Where streaks of soft blue lie 
 
 Between the starry ranks 
 
 Like rivers with white lilies on their banks, 
 
 Frown not that I am come, 
 A little while to stay 
 From the broad light of day. 
 
 My passion shall be dumb, 
 Nor vex with faintest moan 
 For my life's summer flown 
 The drowsy stillness hanging on the air. 
 Therefore, with black despair 
 Let me enfold my brow 
 I come to gather the gray ashes now 
 That in the long gone hours 
 Were blushing flowers. 
 Give me some gentle comfort, gentle Night, 
 For their untimely blight, 
 Feeding my soul with the delicious sounds 
 Of waters washing over hollow grounds 
 Through beds of hyacinths, and rushes green 
 With yellow ferns and broad-leaved flags between;
 
 18 HYMN TO THE NIGHT. 
 
 Where the south winds do sleep, 
 Forgetting their white cradles in the deep. 
 No harsh complaint, nor rude unmannered wo 
 Shall jar discordant in the dulcet flow 
 Of music raining from the milky wings 
 
 Of the wild, plaining dove, 
 The while I touch my lyre's late shattered strings 
 
 Singing about my love. 
 
 The future is all dim, 
 No more my locks I trim 
 
 With myrtles or gay pansies as I used, 
 Or with slim jesmines string with pretty flowers 
 As in the blessed hours 
 
 Ere yet I sadly mused, 
 Or covered up from my lamenting eyes 
 The too sweet skies, 
 With withered holly or the bitter rue, 
 As now, alas, I do. 
 
 Since he for whose sweet sake the world was fair 
 Heeds not my tearful prayer, 
 Ah me ! my sweetest song 
 Must do his beauty wrong 
 To whose white hands I give my heavy heart, 
 Saying, Lovely as thou art, 
 Be kindly piteous of my hapless wo ! 
 Full well I know 
 
 How changed I am since all my young heart-beats 
 Were full of joyance, as of pastoral sweets 
 The long bright summer times 
 When Love first taught me rhymes.
 
 HYMN TO THE NIGHT. 19 
 
 Yet, dear one, in thy smile 
 
 The light they knew erewhile 
 
 My eyes would gather back, and in my cheek, 
 
 The flush of spring would break. 
 
 Come thou, about whose visionary bier 
 
 I strew in softest fear 
 
 Pale flowers of mandrakes in my nightly dreams, 
 
 That fly when morning streams 
 
 Slant through my casement and fades off again, 
 
 Soothing no jot my pain 
 
 Come back and stay with me 
 
 And we will lovers be ! 
 
 In the brown shadows of the autumn trees, 
 
 Lingering behind the lees 
 
 Till the rough winds do blow 
 
 And blustery clouds are full of chilly snow, 
 
 We'll sing old songs, and with love ditties gay 
 
 Beguile the hours away. 
 
 And I with ivy buds thy locks will crown, 
 And when in all their lovely lengths of gold 
 Straightened with moisture cold 
 
 Sorrowfully drop they down, 
 My hands shall press them dry, the while I keep 
 Soft watches for thy sleep, 
 Weaving some roundelay, 
 Of that pale huntress, haply, whose blue way 
 
 Along the heavens was lost, 
 Finding the low earth sweeter than the skies 
 Kissing the love-lit eyes 
 
 Of the fair boy Endymion, as he crossed
 
 20 HYMN TO THE NIGHT. 
 
 The leafy dimness of the woods alone, 
 
 In the old myth-time flown ; 
 
 Haply of Proteus, all his dripping flocks 
 
 Along the wild sea-rocks 
 
 Driving to pastures in fresh sprouting meads, 
 
 His sad brows crowned with green murmurous reeds 
 
 For love of Leonora she for whom 
 
 The blank blanched sands were shapen to a tomb, 
 
 Where, under the wild midnight's troubled frown, 
 
 With his pale burden in his arms, went down 
 
 Her mortal lover. Meaningly the waves 
 
 Wash by two lonesome graves ; 
 
 One holds the ashes of the beauteous boy 
 
 Whose harmless joy 
 
 Of playing the fifth season in the sun, 
 
 Was all untimely done. 
 
 Away, my dream, away ! 
 
 Like young buds blackened in the front of May 
 
 And wasted in the rude unpitying frost, 
 
 My early hopes are lost. 
 
 Night, send the angel of the dark to spread 
 
 With daintiest sheets my bed 
 
 In that low chamber where for evermore 
 
 Love's cruel pain is o'er.
 
 THE POET. 
 
 UPON a bed of flowery moss, 
 With moonbeams falling all across 
 Moonbeams chilly and faint and dim, 
 (Sweet eyes I ween do watch for him) 
 Lieth his starry dreams among, 
 The gentlest poet ever sung. 
 
 The wood is thick 't is late in night, 
 
 Yet feareth he no evil sprite, 
 
 Nor vexing ghost such things there be 
 
 In many a poet's destiny. 
 
 Haply some wretched fast or prayer, 
 
 Pained and long, hath charmed the air. 
 
 Softer than hymenial hymns 
 
 The fountains, bubbling o'er their rims, 
 
 Wash through the vernal reeds, and fill 
 
 The hollows : all beside is still, 
 
 Save the poet's breathing, low and light. 
 
 Watch no more, lady no more to-night !- 
 
 Heavy his gold locks are with dew, 
 
 Yet by the pansies mixed with rue
 
 22 THEPOET. 
 
 Bitter and rough, but now that fell 
 From his shut hand, he sleepeth well. 
 He sleepeth well, and his dream is bright 
 Under the moonbeams chilly and white. 
 
 The night is dreary, the boy is fair 
 Hath he been mated with Despair, 
 Or crossed in love, that he lies alone 
 With shadows and moonlight overblown 
 Shadows and moonlight chilly and dim 7 
 And do no sweet eyes watch for him 1 
 
 Nay, rather is his soul instead 
 
 With immortal thirst disquieted, 
 
 That oft like an echo wild and faint 
 
 He makes to the hills and the groves his plaint? 
 
 That oft the light on his forehead gleams, 
 
 So troubled under its crown of dreams ? 
 
 Watch no more, lady, no more, I pray, 
 He is wrapt in a lonely power away ! 
 Sweet boy, so sleeping, might it be 
 That any prayer I said for thee 
 Could answer win from the spirit shore, 
 This were it, " Let him wake no more !"
 
 LILY LEE. 
 
 f 
 
 I DID love thee, Lily Lee, 
 As the petrel loves the sea, 
 As the wild bee loves the thyme, 
 As the poet loves his rhyme, 
 As the blossom loves the dew 
 But the angels loved thee, too ! 
 
 Once when twilight's dying head 
 Pressed her golden-sheeted bed, 
 And the silent stars drew near, 
 White and tremulous with fear, 
 While the night's repellent frown 
 Strangled the young zephyr down, 
 Told I all my love to thee, 
 Hoping, fearing, Lily Lee. 
 
 Fluttered then her gentle breast 
 With a troubled, sweet unrest, 
 Like a bird too near the net 
 Which the fowler's hand hath set ; 
 But her mournful eyes the while, 
 And her spirit-speaking smile, 
 Told me love could not dispart 
 Death's pale arrow from her heart.
 
 24 LILY LEE. 
 
 Hushing from that very day 
 Passion pleading to have way " 
 Folding close her little hand, 
 Watched I with her, till the sand, 
 Crumbling from beneath her tread, 
 Lowered her softly to the dead, 
 Where in peace she waits for me 
 Sweetest, dearest Lily Lee. 
 
 As the chased hart loves the wave, 
 As blind silence loves the grave, 
 As the penitent loves prayer, 
 As pale passion loves despair, 
 Loved I, and still love I thee, 
 Angel-stolen Lily Lee.
 
 DEATH-SONG. 
 
 FRIEND, if there be any near, 
 
 Is the blessed summer here ? 
 
 Is 't the full moon, are they flowers, 
 
 Make so bright, so sweet the hours ? 
 
 Is 't the wind from cowslip beds, 
 
 That such fragrance o'er me sheds 1 
 
 Oh my kindred, do not weep ; 
 Never fell so sweet a sleep 
 Over mortal eyes. At night, 
 All the hills with snow were white, 
 And the tempest moaning drear 
 But I wake with summer here. 
 
 Haste, and take my parting hand ! 
 We are pushing from the land, 
 And adown a lovely stream 
 Gently floating is't a dream ? 
 For the oarsman near me sings, 
 Keeping time with snowy wings.
 
 26 DEATH SONG. 
 
 b 
 
 On the dim shore, within hail, 
 I can see a reaper pale, 
 With his bosom full of sheaves 
 Many are the stocks he leaves, 
 Fair and ripe enough to bind 
 Pallid reaper, art thou blind ? 
 
 Stranger, with the wings of snow, 
 Singing by me as we row, 
 Tell my dear ones on the shore, 
 I have need of them no more ; 
 Weeping will not let them see 
 That an angel goes with me.
 
 WOOD NYMPHS. 
 
 WOOD NYMPHS, that do hereabouts 
 Dwell, and hold your pleasant routes, 
 When beneath her cloak so white, 
 Holding close the black-eyed Night, 
 Twilight, sweetly voluble, 
 Acquaints herself with shadows dull ; 
 While above your rustic camp, 
 Hesperus, his pallid lamp 
 For the coming darkness trims, 
 From the gnarled bark of limbs 
 Rough and crabbed slide to view ! 
 I have work for you to do. 
 
 To this neighborhood of shade 
 Came I, the most woful maid 
 That did ever comfort glean 
 From the songs of birds, I ween ; 
 Or from rills through hollow meads, 
 Washing over beds of reeds, 
 When, to vex with more annoy, 
 Found I here this sleeping boy.
 
 28 WOOD NYMPHS. 
 
 I must learn some harmless art, 
 That will bind to mine his heart. 
 Never creature of the air 
 Saw I in a dream so fair. 
 Wood nymphs, lend your charmed aid- 
 Underneath the checkered shade 
 Of each tangled bough that stirs 
 To the wind, in shape of burs, 
 Rough and prickly, or sharp thorn 
 Whence the tame ewe, slimly shorn. 
 Stained with crimson, hurries oft, 
 Bleating toward the distant croft 
 Dew of potency is found 
 That would leave my forehead crowned 
 With the very chrisms of joy 
 The sweet kisses of this boy. 
 These quaint uses you must know 
 Poets wise have writ it so. 
 
 When the charm so deftly planned, 
 Shall be wrought, I have in hand, 
 Work your nimble crew to please, 
 Mixed alone of sweetnesses. 
 This it is to bring to me 
 Fairest of all flowers that be 
 Oxlips red, and columbines, 
 Ivies, with blue flowering twines, 
 Flags that grow by shallow springs, 
 Purple, prankt with yellow rings ; 
 Slim ferns, bound in golden sheaves ; 
 Mandrakes, with the notched leaves ;
 
 WOOD NVilPHS. 29 
 
 Pink and crowbind, nor o'erpass 
 The white daisies in the grass. 
 Of the daintiest that you pull, 
 I will tie a garland full, 
 And upon this oaken bough 
 Dropping coolest shadows now, 
 Hang it, 'gainst his face to swing, 
 Till he wakes from slumbering ; 
 Evermore to live and love 
 In this dim consenting grove. 
 
 Shaggy beasts with hungry eyes 
 Ugly, spotted, dragonflies 
 Limber snakes drawn up to rings, 
 And the thousand hateful things 
 That are bred in forests drear, 
 Never shall disturb us here ; 
 For my love and I will see 
 Only the sweet company 
 Of the nymphs that round me glide 
 With the shades of eventide. 
 
 Crow of cock, nor belfry chime, 
 Shall we need to count the time 
 Tuneful footfalls in the flowers 
 Kinging out and in the hours.
 
 THE DAUGHTER. 
 
 ALACK, it is a dismal night 
 
 In gusts of thin and vapory light 
 
 The moonshine overbloweth quite 
 
 The fretful bosom of the storm, 
 
 That beats against, but cannot harm 
 
 The lady, whose chaste thoughts do charm 
 
 Better than pious fast or prayer 
 
 The evil spells and sprites of air 
 
 In sooth, were she in saintly care 
 
 Safer she could not be than now 
 
 With truth's white crown upon her brow- 
 
 So sovereign, innocence, art thou. 
 
 Just in the green top of a hedge 
 That runs along a valley's edge 
 One star has thrust a golden wedge, 
 And all the sky beside is drear 
 It were no cowardice to fear 
 If some belated traveller near, 
 To visionary fancies born, 
 Should see upon the moor, forlorn, 
 With spiky thistle burs and thorn ;
 
 THE DAUGHTER. 31 
 
 The lovely lady silent go, 
 
 Not on a " palfrey white as snow," 
 
 But with sad eyes and footstep slow ; 
 
 And softly leading by the hand 
 
 An old man who has nearly spanned 
 
 With his white hairs, life's latest sand. 
 
 Hope in her faint heart newly thrills 
 As down a barren reach of hills 
 Before her fly two whippoorwills ; 
 But the gray owl keeps up his wail 
 His feathers ruffled in the gale, 
 Drowning almost their dulcet tale. 
 
 Often the harmless flock she sees 
 
 Lying white along the grassy leas, 
 
 Like lily-bells weighed down with bees. 
 
 Sometimes the boatman's horn she hears 
 
 Rousing from rest the plowman's steers, 
 
 Lowing untimely to their peers. 
 
 And now and then the moonlight snake 
 
 Curls up its white folds, for her sake, 
 
 Closer within the poison brake. 
 
 But still she keeps her lonesome way, 
 
 Or if she pauses, 'tis to say 
 
 Some word of comfort, else to pray. 
 
 For 'tis a blustery night withal, 
 
 In spite of star or moonlight's fall, 
 
 Or the two whippoorwills' sweet call.
 
 32 THE DAUGHTER. 
 
 What doth the gentle lady here 
 Within a wood so dark and drear, 
 Nor hermit's lodge nor castle near ? 
 See in the distance robed and crowned 
 A prince with all his chiefs around, 
 And like sweet light o'er sombre ground 
 A meek and lovely lady, there 
 Proffering her earnest, piteous prayer 
 For an old man with silver hair. 
 
 But what of evil he hath done 
 O'erclouding beauty's April sun 
 I know not nor if lost or won. 
 The lady's pleading, sweet and low 
 About her pilgrimage of wo, 
 Is all that I shall ever know.
 
 DESPAIR. 
 
 COME, most melancholy maid, 
 From thy tent of woful shade, 
 And with hemlock, sere and brown, 
 Keep the struggling daylight down. 
 From thy pale unsmiling brow 
 Wind the heavy tresses now, 
 And in whispers sad and low 
 I will tell thee all my wo. 
 
 The path watched and guarded most, 
 By an evil star is crossed, 
 And a dear one lies to day 
 Sick, in prison, far away 
 Naked, famished, suffering wrong ; 
 Dreamed I of him all night long, 
 And each dreary wind o'erblown 
 Seemed an echo of his moan. 
 
 When he left me, long ago, 
 Brown locks, touched of summer's glow, 
 Beautified his boyish brow 
 Thinned and faded are they now.
 
 34 DESPAIR. 
 
 Seeing clouds like oxen stray 
 Through the azure fields all day, 
 And the lengthening sunbeams lie 
 Like bright furrows of the sky, 
 Underneath an oaken roof 
 We were sitting, sorrow-proof 
 Cheating I with tales the hours, 
 Heaping he my lap with flowers. 
 
 As yon elm, the ivied one, 
 Came between us and the sun, 
 And the lambs went toward the fold, 
 I remember that I told, 
 How the robin and the wren, 
 Friendless and unburied men 
 Cover with the leaves of flowers 
 From the twilight's chilly hours. 
 
 Now along the level snow 
 Glistening the frost specks glow, 
 And the trees stand high and bare, 
 Shivering in the bitter air. 
 Come, oh melancholy maid, 
 From thy tent of woful shade, 
 That in whispers, sad and low, 
 I may tell thee all my wo.
 
 YESTERNIGHT. 
 
 YESTERNIGHT how long it seems ! 
 Met I in the land of dreams, 
 One that loved me long ago 
 Better it had not been so. 
 
 No, we met not as of old 
 
 I was planting in the mould 
 
 Of his grave, some flowers to be, 
 
 When he came and talked with me. 
 
 White his forehead was, and fair, 
 With such crowns as angels wear, 
 And his voice but I alone 
 Ever heard so sweet a tone ! 
 
 All I prized but yesterday 
 In the distance lessening lay, 
 Like some golden cloud afar, 
 Fallen and faded from a star. 
 
 Hushed the chamber is, he said, 
 Hushed and dark where we must wed, 
 But our bridal home is bright 
 Wilt thou go with me to-night ?
 
 36 YESTERNIGHT. 
 
 Answering then, I sadly said, 
 I am living, thou art dead ; 
 Darkness rests between us twain, 
 \Yho shall make the pathway plain? 
 
 Ah ! thou lovest not, he cried, 
 Else to thee I had not died ; 
 Else all other hope would be 
 As a rain-drop to the sea. 
 
 Farther, dimmer, earth withdrew, 
 Lower, softer bent the blue, 
 And like bubbles in the wine 
 Blent the whispers, I am thine. 
 
 Angels saw I to their bowers 
 Bearing home the sheaves of flowers, 
 And could hear their anthem swells, 
 Reaping in the asphodels. 
 
 O'er my head a wlldbird flew, 
 Shaking in my face the dew ; 
 Underneath a woodland tree, 
 I, my love, had dreamed of thee.
 
 TO THE SPIRIT OF SONG. 
 
 COME, sweet spirit, come, I pray, 
 Thou hast been too long away ; 
 Come, and in the dreamland light, 
 Keep with me a tryst to-night. 
 
 "When the reapers once at morn 
 Bound the golden stocks of corn, 
 Shadowy hands, that none could see, 
 Gleaned along the field with me. 
 
 Come, and with thy wings so white 
 Hide me from a wicked sprite, 
 That has vexed me with a sign 
 Which I tremble to divine. 
 
 At a black loom sisters three 
 Saw I weaving ; Can it be, 
 Thought 1, as I saw them crowd 
 The white shuttles, 'tis a shroud? 
 
 Silently the loom they left, . 
 Taking mingled warp and weft, 
 And, as wild my bosom beat, 
 Measured me from head to feet. 
 2*
 
 38 TO THE SPIRIT OF SONG. 
 
 Liest thou in the drowning brine, 
 Sweetest, gentlest love of mine, 
 Tangled softly from my prayer, 
 By some Nereid's shining hair ? 
 
 Or, when mortal hope withdrew, 
 Didst thou, faithless, leave me too, 
 Blowing on thy lovely reed, 
 Careless how my heart should bleed 1 
 
 By this sudden chill I know 
 That it is, it must be so 
 Sprite of darkness, sisters three, 
 Lo, I wait your ministry.
 
 PKOPHECY. 
 
 I THINK thou lovest me yet a prophet said 
 
 To-day, Elhadra, if thou laidest dead, 
 From thy white forehead would he fold the shroud, 
 
 And thereon lay his sorrow, like a crown. 
 The drenching rain from out the chilly cloud, 
 
 In the gray ashes beats the red flame down ! 
 And when the crimson folds the kiss away 
 
 No longer, and blank dulness fills the eyes, 
 Lifting its beauty from the crumbling clay, 
 
 Back to the light of earth life's angel flies. 
 
 So, with my large faith unto gloom allied, 
 Sprang up a shadow sunshine could not quell, 
 
 And the voice said, Would'st haste to go outside 
 This continent of being, it were well : 
 
 Where finite, growing toward the Infinite, 
 Gathers its robe of glory out of dust, 
 
 And looking down the radiances white, 
 Sees all God's purposes about us, just. 
 
 Canst thou, Elhadra, reach out of the grave, 
 And draw the golden waters of love's well ? 
 
 His years are chrisms of brightness in time's wave 
 Thine are as dewdrops in the nightshade's bell !
 
 40 PROPHECY.' 
 
 Then straightening in my hands the rippled length 
 
 Of all my tresses, slowly, one by one, 
 I took the flowers out. Dear one, in thy strength 
 
 Pray for my weakness. Thou hast seen the sun, 
 Large in the setting, drive a column of light, 
 
 Down through the darkness ; so, within death's night, 
 Oh, my beloved ! when J shall have gone, 
 If it might be so, would my love burn on.
 
 PERVERSITY. 
 
 IF thy weak, puny hand might reach away 
 And rend out lightnings from the clouds to-day, 
 At little pains, as, with a candle flame 
 
 Touching the, flax upon my distaff here 
 Would fill the house with light, it were the same 
 A little thing to do. It is the far 
 Makes half the poet's passion for the star, 
 
 The while he treads the shining dewdrop near. 
 
 Of mortal weaknesses I have my share 
 
 Pining and longing, and the madman's fit 
 Of groundless hatreds, blindest loves, despair 
 
 But in this rhymed musing I have writ 
 Of an infirmity that is not mine : 
 My heart's dear idol were not less divine 
 That no grave gaped between us, black and steep ; 
 Though, if it were so, I could oversweep 
 
 Its gulf all gulfs though ne'er so widely riven; 
 Or from hot desert sands dig out sweet springs j 
 For I believe, and I have still believed, 
 That Love may even fold its milk-white wings 
 
 In the red bosom of hell, nor up to heaven 
 Measure the distance with one thought aggrieved.
 
 42 PERVERSITY. 
 
 Why should I tear my flesh, and bruise my feet, 
 Climbing for roses, when, from where I stand, 
 Down the green meadow I may reach my hand, 
 
 And pluck them off as well 1 sweet, very sweet 
 This world which God has made about us lies, 
 Shall we reproach him with unthankful eyes ?
 
 ANNUARIES. 
 
 A TEAR has gone down silently 
 
 To the dark bosom of the Past, 
 Since I beneath this very tree 
 
 Sat hoping, fearing, dreaming, last ; 
 Its waning glories, like a flame, 
 
 Are trembling to the wind's light touch 
 All just a year ago the same, 
 
 And I oh ! I am changed so much ! 
 
 The beauty of a wildering dream 
 
 Hung softly round declining day ; 
 A star of all too sweet a beam 
 
 In Eve's flushed bosom trembling lay ; 
 Changed in its aspect, yet the same, 
 
 Still climbs that star from sunset's glow, 
 But its embraces of pale flame 
 
 Clasp not the weary world from wo. 
 
 Another year shall I return, 
 
 And cross this solemn chapel floor, 
 
 While round me memory's shrine-lamps burn 
 Or shall this pilgrimage be o'er ?
 
 44 ANNUARIES. 
 
 One that I loved, grown faint with strife, 
 When drooped and died the tenderer bloom, 
 
 Folded the white tent of young life 
 For the pale army of the tomb. 
 
 The dry seeds dropping from their pods, 
 
 The hawthorn apples bright as dawn, 
 And the pale mullen's starless rods, 
 
 Were just as now a year agone ; 
 But changed is everything to me, 
 
 From the small flower to sunset's glow, 
 Since last I sat beneath this tree, 
 
 A year a little year ago. 
 
 I leaned against this broken bough, 
 
 This faded turf my footstep pressed ; 
 But glad hopes that are not there now, 
 
 Lay softly trembling in my breast 
 Trembling, for though the golden haze, 
 
 Rose, as the dead leaves drifted by, 
 As from the Vala of old days, 
 
 The mournful voice of prophecy. 
 
 Give woman's heart one triumph hour. 
 
 Even on the borders of the grave, 
 And thou hast given her strength and power 
 
 The saddest ills of life to brave ; 
 Crush that far hope down, thou dost bring 
 
 To the poor bird the tempest's wrath, 
 Without the petrel's stormy wing 
 
 To beat the darkness from its path.
 
 ANNUARIE6. 45 
 
 Once knowing mortal hope and fear, 
 
 Whate'er in heaven's sweet clime thou art, 
 Bend, pitying mother, softly near, 
 
 And save, O save me from ray heart ! 
 Be still, pale-handed memory, 
 
 My knee is trembling on the sod 
 The heir of immortality, 
 
 A child of the eternal God. 
 
 n. 
 
 When last year took her mournful flight, 
 
 With all her train of wo and ill, 
 As pale processions sweep at night 
 
 Across some lonesome burial hill 
 My soul with sorrow for its mate, 
 
 And bowed with unrequited wrong, 
 Stood knocking at the starry gate 
 
 Of the wild wondrous realm of song. 
 
 For hope from my poor heart was gone, 
 
 With all the sheltering peace it gave, 
 And a dim twilight stealing on, 
 
 Foretold the night-time of the grave. 
 Past is that time of wild unrest, 
 
 Hope reillumes its faded track, 
 And the soft hand of love has prest 
 
 Death's deep and awful shadows back 
 
 A year agone, when wildly shrill 
 
 The wind sat singing on this bough, 
 The churchyard on the neighboring hill 
 
 Had not so many graves as now.
 
 46 ANNUARIES. 
 
 Yet still beneath the golden hours, 
 That like a roof the woods o'erspread, 
 
 Among the few and faded flowers, 
 Musing this idle rhyme I tread. 
 
 When the May-mom, with hand of light, 
 
 The clouds about her bosom drew, 
 And o'er the blue, cold steeps of night 
 
 Went treading out the stars like dew 
 One, whose dear joy it had been ours 
 
 Two little summer times to keep, 
 Folded his white hands from the flowers, 
 
 And, softly smiling, fell asleep. 
 
 And when the northern light streamed cold 
 
 Across October's moaning blast, 
 One whose brief tarrying was foretold 
 
 All the sweet summer that was past, 
 Meekly unlocked from her young arms 
 
 The scarcely faded bridal crown, 
 And in death's fearful night of storms 
 
 The dim day of her life went down. 
 
 Above yon reach of level mist 
 
 Bright shines the cross-crowned spire afar, 
 As in the sky's clear amethyst 
 
 The splendor of some steadfast star ; 
 And still beneath its steady light 
 
 The waves of time heave to and fro, 
 From night to day, from day to night, 
 
 As the dim seasons come and go.
 
 ANNUARIES. 47 
 
 Some eager for ambition's strife, 
 
 Some to love's banquet hurrying on, 
 Like pilgrims on the hills of life 
 
 We cross each other, and are gone ; 
 But though our lives are little drops, 
 
 Welled from the infinite fount above, 
 Our deaths are but the mystic stops 
 
 In the great melody of love. 
 
 in. 
 
 Vailing the basement of the skies 
 
 October's mists hang dull and red, 
 And with each wild gust's fall and rise, 
 
 The yellow leaves are round me spread ; 
 'Tis the third autumn, aye, so long ! 
 
 Since memory 'neath this very bough, 
 Thrilled my sad lyre strings into song 
 
 What shall unlock their music now ? 
 
 Then sang I of a sweet hope changed, 
 
 Of pale hands beckoning, glad health fled, 
 Of hearts grown careless or estranged, 
 
 Of friends, or living, lost, or dead. 
 O living lost, forever lost, 
 
 Your light still lingers, faint and far, 
 As if an awful shadow crossed 
 
 The bright disk of the morning star. 
 
 Blow, autumn, in thy wildest wrath, 
 
 Down from the northern woodlands, blow ! 
 
 Drift the last wild-flowers from my path 
 What care I for the summer now !
 
 48 ANNUARIES. 
 
 Yet shrink I, trembling and afraid 
 
 From searching glances inward thrown ; 
 
 "What deep foundation have I laid, 
 For any joyance not my own 1 
 
 "While with my poor, unskilful hands, 
 
 Half hopeful, half in vague alarm, 
 Building up walls of shining sands 
 
 That fell and faded with the storm, 
 E'en now my bosom shakes with fear, 
 
 Like the last leaflets of this bough, 
 For through the silence I can hear, 
 
 " Unprofitable servant, thou !" 
 
 Yet have there been, there are to-day 
 
 In spite of health, or hope's decline, 
 Fountains of beauty sealed away 
 
 From every mortal eye but mine ; 
 Even dreams have filled my soul with light, 
 
 And on my way their beauty left, 
 As if the darkness of the night 
 
 Were by some planet's rising cleft. 
 
 And peace hath in my heart been born, 
 
 That shut from memory all life's ills, 
 In walking with the blue-eyed morn 
 
 Among the white mists of the hills. 
 And joyous, I have heard the wails 
 
 That heave the wild woods to and fro, 
 When autumn's crown of crimson pales 
 
 Beneath the winter's hand of snow.
 
 ANKUARIE8. 49 
 
 Once, leaving all its lovely mates, 
 
 On yonder lightning-withered tree, 
 That vainly for the springtime waits, 
 
 A wild bird perched and sang for me ; 
 And listening to the clear sweet strain 
 
 That came like sunshine o'er the day, 
 My forehead's hot and burning pain 
 
 Fell like a crown of thorns away. 
 
 But shadows from the western height 
 
 Are stretching to the valley low, 
 For through the cloudy gates of night 
 
 The day is passing, solemn, slow, 
 While o'er yon blue and rocky steep 
 
 The moon, half hidden in the mist, 
 Waits for the loving wind to keep 
 
 The promise of the twilight tryst. 
 
 Come thou, whose meek blue eyes divine, 
 
 What thou, and only thou canst see, 
 I wait to put my hand in thine 
 
 What answer sendest thou to me 1 
 Ah ! thoughts of one whom helpless blight 
 
 Had pushed from all fair hope apart, 
 Making it thenceforth hers to fight 
 
 The stormy battles of the heart. 
 
 Well, I have no complaint of wrath, 
 
 And no reproaches for my doom ; 
 Spring cannot blossom in thy path 
 
 So bright as I would have it bloom.
 
 50 AKNUARIES. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh, sorrowful and faded years, 
 
 Gathered away a time ago, 
 How could your deaths the fount of tears 
 
 Have troubled to an overflow ? 
 I muse upon the songs I made 
 
 Beneath the maple's yellow limbs, 
 When down the aisles of thin cold shade 
 
 Sounded the wild bird's farewell hymns. 
 
 But no sad spell my spirit binds 
 
 As when, in days on which it broods, 
 October hunted with the winds 
 
 Along the reddening sunset woods. 
 Alas, the seasons come and go, 
 
 Brightly or dimly rise and set 
 The days, but stir no fount of wo, 
 
 Nor kindle hope, nor wake regret. 
 
 I sit with the complaining night, 
 
 And underneath the waning moon, 
 As when the lilies large and white 
 
 Lay round the forehead of the June. 
 What time within a snowy grave 
 
 Closed the blue eyes so heavenly dear, 
 Darkness swept o'er me like a wave, 
 
 And time has nothing that I fear. 
 
 The golden wings of summer's hours 
 Make to my heart a dirge-like sound, 
 
 The spring's sweet boughs of bridal flowers 
 Lie bright across a smooth-heaped mound.
 
 A.NNUARIE8. 51 
 
 What care I that I sing to-day 
 
 Where sound not the old plaintive hymns, 
 And where the mountains hide away 
 
 The sunset maple's yellow limbs'?
 
 ANNIE CLAYVILLE. 
 
 IN the bright'ning wake of April 
 
 Comes the lovely, lovely May, 
 But the step of Annie Clay ville 
 
 Falleth fainter day by day. 
 In despite of sunshine, shadows 
 
 Lie upon her heart and brow : 
 Last year she was gay and happy 
 
 Life is nothing to her now ! 
 
 When she hears the wild bird singing, 
 Or the sweetly humming bee, 
 
 Only says she, faintly smiling, 
 What have you to do with me ? 
 
 Yet, sing out for pleasant weather, 
 
 Wild birds in the woodland dells 
 Fly out, little bees, and gather 
 
 Honey for your waxen wells. 
 Softly, silver rain of April, 
 
 Come down singing from the clouds, 
 Till the daffodils and daisies 
 
 Shall be up in golden crowds ;
 
 ANNIE CLAYVILLK. 53 
 
 Till the wild pinks hedge the meadows, 
 
 Blushing out of slender stems, 
 And the dandelions, starry, 
 
 Cover all the hills with gems. 
 From your cool beds in the rivers, 
 
 Blow, fresh winds, and gladness bring 
 To the locks that wait to hide you 
 
 What have I to do with spring ? 
 
 May is past along the hollows 
 
 Chime the rills in sleepy tune, 
 While the harvests yellow chaplefc 
 
 Swings against the face of June. 
 
 Very pale lies Annie Clayville 
 
 Still her forehead, shadow-crowned, 
 And the watchers hear her saying, 
 
 As they softly tread around : 
 Go out, reapers, for the hill tops 
 
 Twinkle with the summer's heat 
 Lay from out your swinging cradles 
 
 Golden furrows of ripe wheat ! 
 While the little laughing children, 
 
 Lightly mixing work with play, 
 From between the long green winrows 
 
 Glean the sweetly-scented hay. 
 Let your sickles shine like sunbeams 
 
 In the silver-flowing rye, 
 Ears grow heavy in the cornfields 
 
 That will claim you by and by.
 
 54 ANNIE CLATVILLE. 
 
 Go out, reapers, -with your sickles, 
 Gather home the harvest store ! 
 
 Little gleaners, laughing gleaners, 
 I shall go with you no more. 
 
 Round the red moon of October, 
 
 White and cold the eve-stars climb, 
 Birds are gone, and flowers are dying 
 
 'Tis a lonesome, lonesome time. 
 Yellow leaves along the woodland 
 
 Surge to drifts the elm-bough sways, 
 Creaking at the homestead window 
 
 All the weary nights and days. 
 Dismally the rain is falling 
 
 Very dismally and cold ; 
 Close, within the village graveyard, 
 
 By a heap of freshest mould, 
 With a simple, nameless headstone, 
 
 Lies a low and narrow mound, 
 And the brow of Annie Clayville 
 
 Is no longer shadow crowned. 
 Rest thee, lost one, rest thee calmly, 
 
 Glad to go where pain is o'er 
 Where they say not, through the night-time, 
 
 " I am weary," any more.
 
 MILNA GREY. 
 
 BURNED the blushing cheek of morning 
 
 Soft, beneath the locks of Day, 
 As within his noble garden 
 
 Stanley mused of Milna Grey. 
 Heedless of the bright laburnums 
 
 Raining on his path in showers ; 
 Of the lilacs faint and tender, 
 
 And the peach-wands full of flowers ; 
 Of the red-winged thrush's singing ; 
 
 Of the wind, whose separate trills 
 Broke the mists to golden furrows 
 
 Up and down the peaked hills 
 Heedless of the huntsmen riding 
 
 With their hawks and hounds away, 
 If the lattice lights be darkened 
 
 With the locks of Milna Grey. 
 " Ere the sun, so brightly rising, 
 
 Dimly down the west shall go, 
 I will tell her all my story 
 
 It can add not to my wo."
 
 56 MILNAGREY. 
 
 Warmer, broader, fell the sunshine, 
 
 Birds and bees about him flew, 
 And the flower-stocks on the borders 
 
 Dript no longer with the dew. 
 Suddenly his wan cheek flushes, 
 
 And his step turns half away ; 
 Slowly down the alder shadows 
 
 Walks the lovely Milna Grey ; 
 Sadly then his heart misgave him, 
 
 And his lip an utterance found, 
 Only said, " Why, gentlest Milna, - 
 
 Is thy brow with sorrow crowned ?" 
 Not as his, her bosom trembled 
 
 Not as his, her glances fell, 
 As she answered, sweetly, meekly, 
 
 " Though the tale be sad to tell ; 
 Something in the slips so silken 
 
 Fallen uncurled adown thy cheek 
 Something" in thy blue eyes, Stanley, 
 
 Wins what else I would not speak. 
 A bright path through years of darkness 
 
 Is cleft open by thy smile, 
 And I feel life's blossoms slipping 
 
 Through my fingers as erewhile, 
 As my thoughts in pensive gladness 
 
 Over barren reaches flow 
 To a shrine of wondrous beauty, 
 
 Broken, ruined long ago. 
 By the gray wall of the churchyard 
 
 Where the red-stalked creeper clings,
 
 MILXA GREY. 57 
 
 And the wild-breeze in the larch-boughs 
 
 Oft in summer stops and sings ; 
 In the rains of seven dim autumns 
 
 Has the throstle sadly cried, 
 And the white grass fallen above him, 
 
 Who to me has never died. 
 Yet my love was not as mortals', 
 
 In hope's sweetest passion nursed 
 Dreams and prophecies forewarned me 
 
 Of our dark doom from the first. 
 Oft my lost one smiled, to soothe me, 
 
 Saying, faith is strong to save, 
 And though life, he knew, was turning 
 
 The dark furrow of the grave, 
 Seemed he scarce to heed the fading 
 
 Of the day, or night hard by 
 Folding down the golden shadows 
 
 Of love's twilight in our sky 
 But, more leaning on God's mercy, 
 
 As the mortal fainter grew, 
 Went he close to death's still water, 
 
 And the angels took him through. 
 Even as some young bough of blossorna 
 
 Stricken into pallid stone, 
 Was my heart transformed thenceforward, 
 
 And my nature left alone." 
 
 Sorrow fixed the brow of Stanley, 
 And his cheek grew white with wo, 
 
 A s he answered oh, how sadly ! 
 " Miliia, this was long ago.
 
 58 MILNA GRET. 
 
 Life is charmed is there nothing 
 
 For which thou would'st love recall 
 Or, alas, too fondly faithful, 
 
 Hast thou, Milna, buried all ? 
 Wilt thou, when the star of twilight 
 
 Breaks in beauty through the blue, 
 Meet me here beneath the alders "? 
 
 I would tell a story too." 
 
 So, from out the pleasant garden 
 
 Passed they, as the lingering mist 
 From the eastern hill-tops lifted, 
 
 Musing of the twilight tryst. 
 Slowly to the sad, and gaily 
 
 To the gay, sped on the hours, 
 Till the bees went humming homeward 
 
 From the softly closing flowers ; 
 Till the daylight waned and faded, 
 
 And the sun grew large and set, 
 And the rooks in long rows gathered 
 
 Gloomily on the parapet. 
 In the blue wake of the twilight 
 
 Brings the star the trysting hour 
 On her knees her white hands folded, 
 
 Milna waits within her bower. 
 Scarcely heeding how the shadows 
 
 Dark and darker round her fall 
 Haply she but hears the throstle 
 
 Singing by the churchyard wall !
 
 MILNAGRKY. 59 
 
 With the dews the red laburnums, 
 
 And the golden rods were bent, 
 But no step disturbed the silence, 
 
 And the midnight came and went. 
 
 Stanley, blue-eyed, gentle Stanley, 
 
 If he liveth, none may say, 
 But within the pleasant garden 
 
 Never walked he from that day. 
 In his stall his black steed fasted, 
 
 Drooping lowly from his pride, 
 And his lithe hound stayed from trailing, 
 
 Crouching, whining, till he died. 
 And the mournful tears of Milna 
 
 Often for lost Stanley fell, 
 As in part she guessed the story 
 
 That he never came to tell.
 
 THE MURDERESS. 
 
 ALONG the still cold plain o'erhead, 
 
 In pale embattled crowds, 
 The stars their tents of glory spread, 
 
 And camped among the clouds ; 
 Cinctured with shadows, like a wraith, 
 
 Night moaned along the lea ; 
 Like the blue hungry eye of Death, 
 
 Shone the perfidious sea ; 
 The moon was waxen to the wane, 
 
 The winds were wild and high, 
 And a pale meteor's golden mane 
 
 Streamed from the northern sky. 
 
 Hush ! did a shiver of pale fear 
 
 Along the gray air run ? 
 Much I roisguess me, else anear 
 
 Some murderous work is done. 
 This way, I heard a smothered call, 
 
 If that mine ear be true 
 Mother of God, protect us all ! 
 
 What vision meets my view !
 
 THE MURDERESS. 61 
 
 Across the black and barren moor, 
 
 Her dainty bosom bare, 
 And white lips sobbing evermore, 
 
 Rides Eleanor the fair. 
 So hath the pining sea-maid plained 
 
 For love of mortal lips, 
 Riding the billows, silver-reined, 
 
 Hard by disastrous ships. 
 
 Why covers she her mournful eyes ? 
 
 Why do her pulses cease, 
 As if she saw before her rise 
 
 The ghost of murdered Peace 1 
 Her sunken cheek still keeps the wave 
 
 Of tresses long and bright, 
 As the dim hollow of the grave 
 
 Cradles the starry light. 
 From out her path the ground-bird drifts 
 
 With wildly startled calls, 
 The moonlight snake its white fold lifts 
 
 From where her shadow falls. 
 
 Ah me ! that delicate hand of hers, 
 
 Now trembling like a reed, 
 Like to the ancient mariner's 
 
 Hath done a hellish deed ; 
 And full of mercy were the frown 
 
 Which might the power impart 
 To press the eternal darkness down 
 
 Against her bleeding heart. 
 3*
 
 62 THE MURDERESS. 
 
 Oh, Innocence ! above thy fall 
 
 Flow waves of agony 
 From mortals, to the utmost wall 
 
 Of dim infinity. 
 Over thy dust the poet's fire 
 
 Lies fadingly and wan, 
 The goldenest chord of all his lyre 
 
 Is dumb when thou art gone.
 
 THE CONVICT. 
 
 THE first of the September eves 
 
 Sunk its red basement in the sea, 
 And like swart reapers, bearing sheaves, 
 
 Dim shadows thronged immensity. 
 Then from his ancient kingdom, Night 
 
 Wooing the tender Twilight, came, 
 And from her tent, of soft blue light, 
 
 Bore her away, a bride of flame. 
 
 Pushing aside her golden hair, 
 
 And listening to the Autumn's tread, 
 Along the hill-tops, bleak and bare, 
 
 Went Summer, burying her dead ; 
 The frolic winds, out-laughing loud, 
 
 Played with the thistle's silver beard, 
 And drifting seaward like a cloud, 
 
 Slowly the wild-birds disappeared. 
 
 Upon a hill with mosses brown, 
 Beneath the blue roof of the sky, 
 
 As the dim day went sadly down, 
 Stood all the friend I had, and I
 
 64 THE CONVICT. 
 
 Watching the sea-mist of the strand 
 
 Wave to and fro in Evening's breath, 
 Like the pale gleaming of the hand 
 
 That beckons from the shore of Death, 
 Talking of days of gladness flown, 
 
 Of Sorrow's great o'erwhelming waves, 
 Of friends loved well as they were known, 
 
 Now sleeping in their voiceless graves ; 
 And as our thoughts o'erswept the past, 
 
 Like stars that through the darkness move, 
 Our hearts grew softer, and at last 
 
 We talked of friendship, talked of love. 
 Then, as the long and level reach 
 
 Back to our homestead slow we trod, 
 We gave our fond pure pledges each, 
 
 Of truth unto ourselves and God. 
 
 Forth to life's conflict and its care, 
 
 Doomed wert thou, Oh my friend, to go, 
 Leaving me only hope and prayer 
 
 To shelter my poor heart from wo. 
 "A little year, and we shall meet!" 
 
 Still at my heart that whisper thrills 
 The spring-shower is not half so sweet, 
 
 Covering with violets all the hills. 
 
 Dimly the days sped, one by one, 
 
 Slowly the weeks and months went round, 
 
 Until again September's sun 
 
 Lighted the hill with moss embrowned.
 
 THECONVIOT. 65 
 
 That night we met my friend and I 
 
 Not as the last year saw us part : 
 He as a convict doomed to die, 
 
 I with a bleeding, breaking heart 
 Not in our homestead, low and old, 
 
 Nor under Evening's roof of stars, 
 But where the earth was damp and cold, 
 
 And the light struggled through the bars. 
 
 Others might mock him, or disown, 
 
 With lying tongue : my place was there, 
 And as I bore him to the throne 
 
 Upon the pleading arms of prayer, 
 He told me how Temptation's hand 
 
 Pressed the red wine-cup to his lip, 
 Leaving him powerless to withstand 
 
 As the storm leaves the sinking ship ; 
 And how, all blind to evil then, 
 
 Down from the way of life he trod, 
 Sinning against his fellow-men 
 
 Reviling the dear name of God.
 
 OF ONE ASLEEP. 
 
 THE woods beneath the western sky- 
 Were reddening in the light, 
 As long ago my friend and I 
 
 Went down to meet the night. 
 Like yellow violets springing bright 
 
 From furrows newly turned, 
 Among the nut-brown clouds the light 
 
 Of sunset softly burned ; 
 Then veiling up her pensive face 
 
 In clouds of golden flame, 
 The silent child of the embrace 
 
 Of light and darkness came; 
 And when from off the hills we missed 
 
 The long and sloping bars, 
 We saw the tents of amethyst 
 
 Unfolded for the stars, 
 That like a train of glory fill 
 
 The reach of blue above, 
 And with their barren beauty still 
 
 Win from us half our love ; 
 
 We heard the wind beneath the frown 
 Displacing twilight's smile.
 
 OF ONE ASLEEP. C7 
 
 Laughingly running up and down 
 
 The green hills all the while ; 
 We saw the waves' embracing fold 
 
 Like lovers when they meet ; 
 But oh ! 'twas naught my rhyme has told 
 
 Which made the time so sweet ; 
 Love to our hearts had newly brought 
 
 Sweeter than Eden gleams, 
 And no dark underswejl of thought 
 
 Troubled its sea of dreams. 
 But now as memory sadly stops, 
 
 And all our story tells, 
 Pale Beauty from her forehead drops 
 
 The shining asphodels. 
 
 Low down beneath an oaken roof 
 
 Of dim leaves by the sea, 
 Where then we lingered, sorrow-proof- 
 
 My gentle love and me 
 While sunset softly lights the bower, 
 
 And wave embraces wave, 
 The shadow of the passion flower 
 
 Lies darkly on his grave. 
 And musing of his pillow low, 
 
 His slumber deep and long, 
 My heart keeps heaving to and fro 
 
 Upon the waves of song. 
 No more through sunset's sinking fire 
 
 Are Eden-gleams descried, 
 The sweetest chord of all life's lyre 
 
 Was shattered when he died.
 
 OF ONE ASLEEP. 
 
 Yet not one memory would I sell, 
 
 However woful proved, 
 For all the brightest joys that dwell 
 
 In souls that never loved.
 
 JESSIE CARROL. 
 
 AT her window, Jessie Carrol, 
 
 As the twilight dew distils, 
 Pushes back her heavy tresses, 
 
 Listening toward the northern hills. 
 " I am happy, very happy, 
 
 None so much as I am blest 
 None of all the many maidens 
 
 In the valley of the West," 
 Softly to herself she whispered ; 
 
 Paused she then again to hear 
 If the step of Allen Archer, 
 
 That she waited for, were near. 
 " Ah, he knows I k>ve him fondly ! 
 
 I have never told him so ! 
 Heart of mine, be not so heavy, 
 
 He will come to night, I know." 
 
 Brightly is the full moon filling 
 All the withered woods with light, 
 
 " He has not forgotten surely 
 It was later yesternight !"
 
 70 JESSIE CARROL. 
 
 Shadows interlock with shadows 
 
 Says the maiden, " Woe is me !" 
 In the blue the eve-star trembles 
 
 Like a lily in the sea. 
 Yet a good hour later sounded, 
 
 But the northern woodlands sway ! 
 Quick a white hand from her casement 
 
 Thrust the heavy vines away. 
 Like the wings of restless swallows 
 
 That a moment brush the dew, 
 And again are up and upward, 
 
 Till we lose them in the blue, 
 Were the thoughts of Jessie Carrol 
 
 For a moment dim with pain, 
 Then with pleasant waves of sunshine, 
 
 On the hills of hope again. 
 
 " Selfish am I, weak and selfish," 
 
 Said she, " thus to sit and sigh ; 
 Other friends and other pleasures 
 
 Claim his leisure well as I. 
 Haply, care or bitter sorrow 
 
 'Tis that keeps him from my side, 
 Else he surely would have hasted 
 
 Hither at the twilight tide. 
 Yet sometimes I can but marvel 
 
 That his lips have never said, 
 When we talked about the future, 
 
 Then, or then, we shall be wed ! 
 Much I fear me that my nature 
 
 Cannot measure half his pride,
 
 JESSIE CARKOL. 71 
 
 And perchance he would not wed me 
 
 Though I pined of love and died. 
 To the aims of his ambition 
 
 I would bring nor wealth nor fame. 
 Well, there is a quiet valley 
 
 Where we both shall sleep the same !" 
 So, more eves than I can number, 
 
 Now despairing, and now blest, 
 Watched the gentle Jessie Carrol, 
 
 From the Valley of the West. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Down along the dismal woodland 
 
 Blew October's yellow leaves, 
 
 And the day had waned and faded, 
 
 To the saddest of all eves. 
 
 \ 
 
 Poison rods of scarlet berries 
 
 Still were standing here and there, 
 But the clover blooms were faded, 
 
 And the orchard bows were bare. 
 From the stubble-fields the cattle 
 
 Winding homeward, playful, slow, 
 With their slender horns of silver 
 
 Pushed each other to and fro. 
 Suddenly the hound up-springing 
 
 From his sheltering kennel, whined, 
 As the voice of Jessie Carrol 
 
 Backward drifted on the wind 
 Backward drifted from a pathway 
 
 Sloping down the upland wild,
 
 72 JESSIECARKOL. 
 
 Where she walked with Allen Archer, 
 
 Light of spirit as a child ! 
 All her young heart wild with rapture 
 
 And the bliss that made it beat 
 Not the golden wells of Hybla 
 
 Held a treasure half so sweet ! 
 But as oft the shifting rose-cloud, 
 
 In the sunset light that- lies, 
 Mournful makes us, feeling only 
 
 How much farther are the skies, 
 So the mantling of her blushes, 
 
 And the trembling of her heart, 
 'Neath his steadfast eyes but made her 
 
 Feel how far they were apart. 
 
 "Allan," said she, "I will tell you 
 
 Of a vision that I had 
 All the livelong night I dreamed it, 
 
 And it made me very sad. 
 We were walking slowly seaward, 
 
 In the twilight you and I 
 Through a break of clearest azure 
 
 Shone the moon as now on high ; 
 Though I nothing said to vex you, 
 
 O'er your forehead came a frown, 
 And I strove, but could not soothe you- 
 
 Something kept my full heart down ; 
 When, before us, stood a lady 
 
 In the moonlight's pearly beam, 
 Very tall and proud and stately 
 
 (Allan, this was in my dream ! )
 
 JESSIE CARROL. 73 
 
 Looking down, I thought, upon me, 
 
 Half in pity, half in scorn, 
 Till my soul grew sick with wishing 
 
 That I never had been born. 
 ' Cover me from wo and madness !' 
 
 Cried I to the ocean flood, 
 As she locked her milk-white fingers 
 
 In between us where we stood, 
 All her flood of midnight tresses 
 
 Softly gathered from their flow, 
 By her crown of bridal beauty, 
 
 Paler than the winter snow. 
 Striking then my hands together, 
 
 O'er the tumult of my breast, 
 All the beauty waned and faded 
 
 From the Valley of the West 1" 
 
 In the beard of Allan Archer 
 
 Twisted then his fingers white, 
 As he said, " My gentle Jessie, 
 
 You must not be sad to-night ; 
 You must not be sad, my Jessie, 
 
 You are over kind and good, 
 And I fain would make you happy, 
 
 Very happy if I could !" 
 Oft he kissed her cheek and forehead, 
 
 Called her darling oft, but said, 
 Never, that he loved her fondly, 
 
 Or that ever they should wed ; 
 But that he was grieved that shadows 
 
 Should have chilled so dear a heart j
 
 74 JESSIE CARROL. 
 
 That the time, foretold so often, 
 
 Then was come and they must part ! 
 Shook her bosom then with passion, 
 
 Hot her forehead burned with pain, 
 But her lips said only, " Allan, 
 
 Will you ever come again ?" 
 And he answered, lightly dallying 
 
 With her tresses all the while, 
 Life had not a star to guide him 
 
 Like the beauty of her smile ; 
 And that when the corn was ripened 
 
 And the vintage harvest prest, 
 She would see him home returning 
 
 To the Valley of the West. 
 
 When the moon had veiled her splendor, 
 
 And went lessening down the blue, 
 And along the eastern hill-tops 
 
 Burned the morning in the dew, 
 They had parted each one feeling 
 
 That their lives had separate ends ; 
 They had parted neither happy 
 
 Less than lovers more than friends. 
 For as Jessie mused in silence, 
 
 She remembered that he said, 
 Never, that he loved her fondly, 
 
 Or that ever they should wed. 
 
 Twas full many a nameless meaning 
 My poor words can never say, 
 
 Felt without the need of utterance, 
 That had won her heart away.
 
 JESSIECAKEOL. 75 
 
 O ! the days were weary ! weary ! 
 
 And the eves were dull and long, 
 With the cricket's chirp of sorrow, 
 
 And the owlet's mournful song. 
 Out of slumber oft she started 
 
 In the still and lonesome nights, 
 Hearing but the traveller's footstep 
 
 Hurrying toward the village lights. 
 
 So, moaned by the dreary winter 
 
 All her household tasks fulfilled 
 Till beneath the last year's rafters 
 
 Came the swallows back to build. 
 Meadow-pinks, in flakes of crimson, 
 
 Through the pleasant valleys lay, 
 And again were oxen ploughing 
 
 Up and down the hills all day. 
 Thus the dim days dawned and faded 
 
 To the maid, forsaken, lorn, 
 Till the freshening breeze of summer 
 
 Shook the tassels of the corn. 
 Ever now within her chamber 
 
 All night long the lamp-light shines, 
 But no white hand from her casement 
 
 Pushes back the heavy vines. 
 On her cheek a fire was feeding, 
 
 And her hand transparent grew 
 Ah, the faithless Allen Archer! 
 
 More than she had dreamed was true. 
 
 No complaint was ever uttered, 
 Only to herself she sighed,
 
 76 JESSIE CARROL. 
 
 As she read of wretched poets 
 
 Who had pined of love and died. 
 Once she crushed the sudden crying 
 
 From her trembling lips away, 
 When they said the vintage harvest 
 
 Had been gathered in that day. 
 Often, when they kissed her, smiled she, 
 
 Saying that it soothed her pain, 
 And that they must not be saddened 
 
 She would soon be well again ! 
 Thus nor hoping nor yet fearing, 
 
 Meekly bore she all her pain, 
 Till the red leaves of the autumn 
 
 Withered from the woods again ; 
 Till the bird had hushed its singing 
 
 In the silvery sycamore, 
 And the nest was left unsheltered 
 
 In the lilac by the door ; 
 Saying, still, that she was happy 
 
 None so much as she was blest 
 None of all the many maidens 
 
 In the valley of the West. 
 
 ra. 
 
 Down the heath and o'er the moorland 
 Blows the wild gust high and higher, 
 
 Suddenly the maiden pauses 
 Spinning at the cabin fire, 
 
 And out from her taper fingers 
 Falls away the flaxen thread,
 
 JESSIE CARROL. 77 
 
 As some neighbor entering, whispers, 
 
 " Jessie Carrol lieth dead." 
 Then, as pressing close her forehead 
 
 To the window-pane, she sees 
 Two stout men together digging 
 
 Underneath the church-yard trees ; 
 And she asks in kindest accents, 
 
 " Was she happy when she died ? n 
 Sobbing all the while to see them 
 
 Void the heavy eapth aside ; 
 Or, upon their mattocks leaning, 
 
 Through their fingers numb to blow, 
 For the wintry air is chilly, 
 
 And the grave-mounds white with snow. 
 And the neighbor answers softly, 
 
 " Do not, dear one, do not cry ; 
 At the break of day she asked us 
 
 If we thought that she must die ; 
 And when I had told her, sadly, 
 
 That I feared it would be so, 
 Smiled she, saying, 'Twill be weary 
 
 Digging in the churchyard snow !' 
 * Earth,' I said, " was very dreary 
 
 That its paths at best were rough ; 
 And she whispered, she was ready, 
 
 That her life was long enough. 
 So she lay serene and silent, 
 
 Till the wind, that wildly drove, 
 Soothed her from her mortal sorrow, 
 
 Like the lullaby of love." 
 4
 
 Thus they talked, while one that loved her 
 Smoothed her tresses dark and long, 
 
 Wrapped her white shroud down, and simply 
 Wove her sorrow to this song : 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sweetly sleeps she : pain and passion 
 
 Burn no longer on her brow 
 Weary watchers, ye may leave her 
 
 She no more will need you now ! 
 While the wild spring bloomed and faded, 
 
 Till the autumn came and passed, 
 Calmly, patiently, she waited 
 
 Rest has come to her at last ! 
 Never have the blessed angels, 
 
 As they walked with her apart, 
 Kept pale Sorrow's battling armies 
 
 Half so softly from her heart. 
 Therefore, think not, ye that loved her, 
 
 Of the pallor hushed and dread, 
 Where the winds, like heavy mourners, 
 
 Cry about her lonesome bed, 
 But of white hands softly reaching 
 
 As the shadow o'er her fell, 
 Downward from the golden bastion 
 
 Of the eternal citadel.
 
 
 DISSATISFIED. 
 
 FOR me, in all life's desert sands 
 
 No well is made, no tent is spread ; 
 Even the cool dews of Mercy's hands, 
 
 Like fires have fallen upon my head; 
 For I have been with Fate at war, 
 
 And shall be so till life shall cease, 
 Worshipping the unattained and far, 
 
 And there, and only there, at peace. 
 On every life, at times, save mine, 
 
 Beauty has gathered like a crown 
 Oh desolate, reft, it must be thine 
 
 When all thy burdens are laid down ! 
 
 Night, night ! make gentle the embrace, 
 
 Which still the light of joyance bars, 
 While through the cloudy realms I trace 
 
 The eternal wanderings of the stars. 
 Light, lightly, thou of murmurous lip, 
 
 Twine round my neck thy breezy arm- 
 Hope, like a frail dismasted ship, 
 
 Drifts at the mercy of the storm. 
 The radiance of my mortal star 
 
 Is crossed with signs of wo to me ; 
 And all my thoughts and wishes are 
 
 Pale wanderers toward eternity.
 
 80 DISSATISFIED. 
 
 Stricken, riven helplessly apart 
 
 From all that blest the path I trod ; 
 Oh tempt me, tempt me not, my heart, 
 
 To arraign the goodness of my God ; 
 For suffering hath been made sublime, 
 
 And souls that lived and died alone, 
 Have left an echo for all time, 
 
 As they went wailing to the throne. 
 
 There have been moments when I dared 
 
 Believe life's mystery a breath, 
 And deem Faith's milky bosom bared 
 
 To the betraying arms of Death j 
 For the immortal life but mocks 
 
 The soul that feels its ruin dire, 
 And like a tortured demon rocks 
 
 Upon the cradling waves of fire. 
 But when, in half reluctant prayer, 
 
 We raise our blindly selfish eyes, 
 Peace, clasping close the cross, is there, 
 
 And singing songs of Paradise.
 
 
 AGATHA TO HAROLD. 
 
 COME there ever memories, Harold, 
 
 Like a half remembered song 
 From the time of gladness vanished 
 
 Down the distance, oh, so long ! 
 Come they to me not in sadness, 
 
 For they strike into my soul, 
 As the sharp axe of the woodsman 
 
 Strikes the dead and sapless bole. 
 
 Just across the orchard hill-top, 
 
 Through the branches gray and bare, 
 We can see the village church-yard 
 
 I shall not be lonesome there. 
 When the cold wet leaves are falling 
 
 On the turfless mound below, 
 You will sometimes think about me, 
 
 You will love me then, I know. 
 In the window of my chamber 
 
 Is a plant with pale blooms crowned 
 If the sun shines warm to-morrow, 
 
 In that quiet church-yard ground 
 I will set it ; and at noontimes, 
 
 When the school-girls thither wend,
 
 82 AGATHA TO HAROLD. 
 
 They '11 see it blossom by my grave, 
 
 And think I had a friend. 
 I cannot bear the nameless spot 
 
 Should be with weeds o'ergrown, 
 To tell upon death's stormy wave 
 
 I drifted out alone. 
 
 Think'st thou ever, oh my Harold, 
 
 Of that blessed eventide 
 When our footsteps, thither straying, 
 
 Turned the golden light aside ? 
 When the skies of June above us 
 
 Hung so lovingly and blue, 
 And the white mists in the meadows 
 
 Seemed like fleeces full of dew 
 While the stars along the heavens 
 
 In illumined furrows lay 
 As if some descending angel 
 
 Pushed them from his path away, 
 And the west was faintly burning, 
 
 Where the cloudy day was set, 
 Like a blushing press of kisses 
 
 Ah, thou never canst forget ! 
 
 " Thou art young" thou saidst, " thy future 
 
 All in sunlight seems to shine 
 Art content to crown thy maytime 
 
 Out of autumn love like mine 1 
 Couldst thou see my locks a lading 
 
 With no sorrow and no fears ? 
 For thou know'st I stand in shadows 
 
 Deep to almost twice thy years."
 
 AaATHAfOHAROLB. 83 
 
 In that time my life-blood mounted 
 
 From my bosom to my brow, 
 And I answered simply, truly 
 
 I was younger then than now-^ 
 " Were it strange if that a daisy 
 
 Sheltered from the tempest stroke, 
 Bloomed contented in the shadow 
 
 Of the overarching oak ?" 
 
 When the sun had like a herdsman 
 
 Clipt the misty waves of morn, 
 By the breezes driven seaward 
 
 Like a flock of lambs new-shorn ; 
 Thou hadst left me, and oh, Harold, 
 
 Half in gladness, half in tears, 
 I was gazing down the future 
 
 O'er the lapses of the years ; 
 To what time the clouds about me 
 
 All my night of sorrow done 
 Should blow out their crimson linings 
 
 O'er the rising of love's sun. 
 And I said in exultation, 
 
 " Not the bright ones in the sky, 
 Then shall know a deeper pleasure 
 
 Than, my Harold, thou and I." 
 
 Thrice the scattered seed had sprouted 
 
 As the spring thaw reappeared, 
 And the winter frosts had grizzled 
 
 Thrice the autumn's yellow beard ; 
 When that lovely day of promise 
 
 Darkened with a dread eclipse,
 
 84 AGATHA TO HAROLD. 
 
 And my heart's long clasped joyance 
 
 Died in moans upon my lips. 
 Silent, saw I other maidens 
 
 To a thousand pleasures wed 
 " Save me from the past, good angel,"- 
 
 This was all the prayer I said. 
 Sometimes they would smile upon me 
 
 As their gay troops passed me by 
 Saying softly to each other, 
 
 How is she content to die ? 
 
 Oh, they little guess the barren 
 
 Wastes on which my visions go, 
 And the conflicts fierce but silent 
 
 That at last have made me so. 
 Shall the bright-winged bird be netted 
 
 Singing in the open fields, 
 And not struggle with the fowler, 
 
 Long and vainly ere it yields ? 
 But the days of my life's pilgrimage 
 
 Are wearing down to hours, 
 My burning brow will cool no more 
 
 In summer's lap of flowers. 
 And from dying hands I send thee 
 
 My forgiveness full and free, 
 For the fount of grief struck open 
 
 In my young glad heart by thee ; 
 And may there be still some healing 
 
 For all pains you ever know, 
 In this latest chrism I send thee 
 
 From the fountain of my wo.
 
 THE SPIRIT-HAUNTED. 
 
 O'ER the dark woods, surging, solemn, 
 
 Hung the new moon's silver ring ; 
 And in white and naked beauty, 
 
 Out from Twilight's luminous wing, 
 Peered the first star of the eve ; 
 'Twas the time when poets weave 
 Radiant songs of love's sweet passion, 
 
 In the loom of thought sublime, 
 And with throbbing, quick pulsations 
 
 Beat the golden web of rhyme. 
 
 On a hillside wide and lonely, 
 
 Bending toward the fearful wave, 
 Whose cold billows still are breaking 
 
 Through the still door of the grave, 
 Where the lip from love is bound, 
 And the forehead napkin-crowned, 
 On a hill-side, where like ruins 
 
 Slanted columns of pale fire, 
 And the mist from off life's river 
 
 Quivered like a glittering wire, 
 O'er the white arm of some maid 
 Muffled in the folding shade, 
 4*
 
 86 THE SPIRIT HAUNTED. 
 
 Once, ah me ! I once beheld him 
 
 Whom no mortal love could bind, 
 From a path of desolate grandeur 
 
 Beating back the chilling wind ; 
 Sinking, as he onward prest, 
 Death's sharp arrow in his breast. 
 In the leash of an enchantment 
 
 Followed his black spaniel ghoul, 
 Cowering toward the rocky kennels 
 
 With a wailing, wistful howl, 
 While his hunger-glittering eyes 
 Burned like fire that never dies. 
 
 Into silence his pale fingers 
 
 Crushed the sweet chords of his lyre, 
 Like a phantom-hand caressing 
 
 Some lost meteor's mane of fire ; 
 While his heart made vocal Night, 
 Knocking at the gates of Light. 
 On a dream of awful splendor 
 
 His abraded soul was stretched, 
 And across the heart's pale ruins 
 
 Winged imaginations reached 
 O'er the glory and the gloom 
 Of life's opening gate, the tomb. 
 
 As the poor hind, hunted, panting, 
 On the weary chase for hours, 
 
 In some wilderness of beauty 
 
 Winds its silver horns with flowers, 
 
 Gathered he deep peace unsought 
 
 In the glorious realms of thought.
 
 THE SPIRIT HAUNTED. 87 
 
 In a tower, shadow-laden, 
 
 With a casement high and dim, 
 Years agone there dwelt a maiden, 
 
 Loving and beloved by him. 
 But while rifling Hybla's bees 
 A bold masker crossed the seas. 
 
 Then her bosom softly trembling 
 
 Like a star in morning's light 
 Faithless to her mortal lover 
 
 Fled she forth into the night, 
 A great feast for her was spread 
 In the Kingdom overhead. 
 Wo, oh wo ! for the abandoned, 
 
 Dim his mortal steps must be, 
 Death's high priest his soul has wedded 
 
 Unto immortality ! 
 Twilight's golden fall, or morn, 
 Finds him, leaves him, weary, lorn. 
 
 Weary, lorn, I once beheld him, 
 
 With his wild eyes full of light, 
 Under midnight's roof of planets 
 
 Feeding with his smile the night, 
 As each vision, fancy -wooed, 
 Faded back to solitude. 
 Sometimes by the lonely sea side, 
 
 Sometimes in the wilderness, 
 Half his rapture-shaken bosom 
 
 Feels a white arm gently press 
 Vain, 'tis vain ! 
 Round him darkness aches again.
 
 88 THE SPIRIT HAUNTED. 
 
 In her cave lay Silence, hungry 
 
 For the beauty of his song ; 
 Echoes, locked from mortal waking, 
 
 Trembled as he passed along, 
 And for love of him pale maids 
 Leaned like lilies from the shades. 
 But the locks of love unwinding 
 
 From his bosom as he might, 
 Buried he his soul of sorrow 
 
 In the cloud-dissolving light 
 Of the spirit peopled shore 
 Ever, ever, evermore.
 
 WURTHA. 
 
 THROUGH the autumn's mists so red 
 Shot the slim and golden stocks 
 
 Of the ripe corn ; Wurtha said, 
 " Let us cut them for our flocks." 
 
 Answered I, " When morning leaves 
 Her bright footprints on the sea, 
 
 As I cut and bind the sheaves, 
 Wurtha, thou shalt glean for me." 
 
 " Nay, the full moon shines so bright 
 
 All along the vale below, 
 I could count our flocks to-night ; 
 
 Haco, let us rise and go. 
 For when bright the risen morn 
 
 Leaves her footprints on the sea, 
 Thou may'st cut and bind the corn, 
 
 But I cannot glean for thee." 
 
 And as I my reed so light 
 
 Blowing, sat, her fears to calm, 
 
 Said she, " Haco, yesternight 
 In my dream I missed a lamb ;
 
 90 WURTHA. 
 
 And as down the misty vale 
 
 Went I pining for the lost, 
 Something shadowy and pale, 
 
 And phantom-like, my pathway crossed, 
 Saying, " In a chilly bed, 
 
 Low and dark, but full of peace, 
 For your coming, softly spread, 
 
 Is the dead lamb's snowy fleece." 
 
 Passed the sweetest of all eves 
 
 Morn was breaking, for our flocks : 
 " Let us go and bind to sheaves, 
 
 All the slim and golden stocks ; 
 Wake, my Wurtha, wake" but still 
 
 Were her lips as still could be, 
 And her folded hands too chill 
 
 Ever more to glean for me.
 
 MADELA. 
 
 " OH, my dear one ! oh, my lover ! 
 
 Comes no faintest sound to you, 
 As Icall your sweet words over, 
 
 All the weary night-time through ! 
 Drearily the rain keeps falling 
 
 I can hear it on the pane ; 
 Oh, he cannot hear my calling 
 
 He will never come again !" 
 So a pale one, lowly lying 
 
 On her sick bed, often cried 
 " Come, my dear one, I am dying !" 
 
 But no lover's voice replied. 
 
 " When the morning-light is shining 
 
 Over all the eastern hills, 
 Thou, whose heart is still divining 
 
 Every wish in mine that thrills 
 If he come, and I am dying, 
 
 If my hands be cold as clay, 
 And my lips make no replying 
 
 To the wild words he will say, 
 As he fondly bends above me, 
 
 Just as you are bending now, 
 Saying how he used to love me, 
 
 Pressing kisses on my brow
 
 92 M A D E L A . 
 
 Take this ringlet ere from twining 
 
 Dampened in that dew so near ; 
 He has often praised its shining 
 
 Will he when I cannot hear ? 
 Give it softly to his keeping, 
 
 Saying, as 1 would have said, 
 ' Go not through the world a-weeping 
 
 For the dear one who is dead ;' 
 And, as you the shroud upgather, 
 
 That shall hide me from his eyes, 
 Tell him of the pitying Father 
 
 Of the love that never dies." 
 
 Through the eastern clouds, the amber, 
 
 Burning, tells the night-time o'er : 
 Watchers, you may leave her chamber 
 
 She hath need of you no more ! 
 Is't the white hand of her lover 
 
 Puts her curtain's fold away ? 
 Is it he that bends above her, 
 
 Saying, " Dear one, wake, 'tis day !" 
 - No ; the wind, despite Death's warning, 
 
 'T is, that in her curtain stirs, 
 And the blue eyes are the morning's, 
 
 That are bending down to her's. 
 Lay the hands, for love's sake lifted 
 
 Oft in prayer, together bound, 
 While the unheeded ringlet drifted 
 
 Lightly, brightly, to the ground.
 
 THE SHEPHERDESS. 
 
 SAT we on the mossy rocks 
 
 In the twilight, long ago, 
 I and Ulna keeping flocks 
 
 Flocks with fleeces white as snow. 
 Beauty smiled along the sky ; 
 
 Beauty shone along the sea ; 
 " Ulna, Ulna," whispered I, 
 
 This is all for me and thee !" 
 
 Brushing back my heavy locks, 
 
 Said he, not, alas ! in glee, 
 " Art content in keeping flocks 
 
 With a shepherd boy like me ?" 
 Shone the moon so softly white 
 
 Down upon the mossy rocks, 
 Covering sweetly with her light 
 
 Me and Ulna, and our flocks. 
 
 Running wild about our feet 
 
 Were the blushing summer flowers 
 " Ulna," said I, " what is sweet 
 
 In this world that is not ours?"
 
 94 THE SHEPHERDESS. 
 
 Thrice he kissed my cheek, and sighed, 
 These are dreary rocks and cold 
 
 Oh, the world is very wide, 
 And I weary of my fold ! 
 
 Now a thousand oxen stray 
 
 That are Ulna's, down the moor, % 
 And great ships their anchors weigh, 
 
 Freighted with his priceless ore. 
 But my tears will sometimes flow, 
 
 Thinking of the mossy rocks 
 Where we sat, so long ago, 
 
 I and Ulna, keeping flocks.
 
 THE RECLAIMING OF THE ANGEL. 
 
 OH smiling land of the sunset, 
 
 How my heart to thy beauty thrills 
 Veiled dimly to-day with the shadow 
 
 Of the greenest of all thy hills ! 
 Where daisies lean to the sunshine, 
 
 And the winds a plowing go, 
 And break into shining furrows 
 
 The mists in the vale below; 
 Where the willows hang out their tassels, 
 
 With the dews all white and cold, 
 Strung over their wands so limber, 
 
 Like pearls upon chords of gold ; 
 Where in milky hedges of hawthorn 
 
 The red-winged thrushes sing, 
 And the wild vine, bright and flaunting, 
 
 Twines many a scarlet ring ; 
 Where, under the ripened billows 
 
 Of the silver-flowing rye, 
 We ran in and out with the zephyrs 
 
 My sunny-haired brother and I. 
 
 Oh, when the green kirtle of May time, 
 Again over the hill-tops is blown,
 
 96 THE RECLAIMING OF THE ANGEL. 
 
 I shall walk the wild paths of the forest 
 
 And climb the steep headlands alone 
 Pausing not where the slopes of the meadows 
 
 Are yellow with cowslip beds, 
 Nor where, by the wall of the garden, 
 
 The hollyhocks lift their bright heads. 
 In hollows that dimple the hill-sides, 
 
 Our feet till the sunset had been, 
 Where pinks with their spikes of red blossoms, 
 
 Hedged beds of blue violets in, 
 While to the warm lip of the sunbeam 
 
 The cheek of the blush rose inclined, 
 And the pansy's white bosom was flushed with 
 
 The murmurous love of the wind. 
 
 But when 'neath the heavy tresses 
 
 That swept o'er the dying day, 
 The star of the eve like a lover 
 
 Was hiding his blushes away, 
 As we came to a mournful river 
 
 That flowed to a lovely shore, 
 " Oh, sister," he said, " I am weary 
 
 I cannot go back any more !" 
 And seeing that round about him 
 
 The wings of the angels shone 
 I parted the locks from his forehead 
 
 And % kissed him and left him alone. 
 But a shadow comes over my spirit 
 
 Whenever I think of the hours 
 I trusted his feet to the pathway 
 
 That winds through eternity's flowers.
 
 YOUNG LOVE. 
 
 LIFE hath its memories lovely, 
 
 That over the heart are blown, 
 As over the face of the Autumn 
 
 The light of the summer flown ; 
 Rising out of the mist so chilling, 
 
 That oft life's sky enshrouds, 
 Like a new moon sweetly filling 
 
 Among the twilight clouds. 
 
 And among them comes, how often, 
 
 Young love's unresting wraith, 
 To lift lost hope out of ruins 
 
 To the gladness of perfect faith ; 
 Drifting out of the past as lightly 
 
 As winds of the May -time flow : 
 And lifting the shadows brightly, 
 
 As the daffodil lifts the snow. 
 
 For even life's withered winter, 
 With all its fearful power, 
 
 Blights not from immortal beauty 
 The heart's bright passion-flower.
 
 98 YOUNG LOVE. 
 
 I know I shall be benighted 
 Full soon in a valley low, 
 
 But beyond is the love that lighted 
 The beautiful long ago.
 
 THE BETROTHED. 
 
 I HAVE acted as they bid me, 
 
 He said that he was bless'd, 
 And the sweet seal of betrothal 
 
 On my forehead has been press'd ; 
 But my heart gave back no echo 
 
 To the rapture of his bliss, 
 And the hand he clasped so fondly 
 
 Was less tremulous than his. 
 
 They praise his lordly beauty, 
 
 And I know that he is fair 
 Oh, I always loved the color 
 
 Of his sunny eyes and hair ; 
 And though my bosom may have held 
 
 A happier heart than now, 
 I have told him that I love him, 
 
 And I cannot break the vow. 
 
 He called me the fair lady 
 
 Of a castle o'er the seas, 
 And I thought about a cottage 
 
 Nestled down among the trees ;
 
 100 THE BETROTHED. 
 
 And when my cheek beneath his lip 
 Blushed not nor turned aside, 
 
 I thought how once a lighter kiss 
 Had left it crimson-died. 
 
 What care I for the breathing 
 
 Of wind-harps among the vines ? 
 I better love the swinging 
 
 Of the sleepy mountain pines, 
 And to track the timid rabbit 
 
 In the snow shower as I list, 
 Than to ride his coal-black hunter 
 
 With the hawk upon my wrist. ' 
 
 Fain would I leave the grandeur 
 
 Of the oaken-shadowed lawns, 
 And the dimly stretching forest, 
 
 Where the red roe leads her fawns, 
 To gather the blue thistle 
 
 And the fennel's yellow bloom, 
 Where frowning turrets cumber not 
 
 The path with gorgeous gloom. 
 
 Let them wreathe the bridal roses 
 
 With my tresses as they may 
 There are phantoms in my bosom. 
 
 That I cannot keep away ; 
 To my heart, as to a banquet, 
 
 They are crowding pale and dread, 
 But I told him that I loved him, 
 
 And it cannot be unsaid.
 
 GOING TO SLEEP. 
 
 Now put the waxen candle by, 
 
 Or shade the light away, 
 And tell me if you think she'll die 
 
 Before another day. 
 She asked me but an hour ago, 
 
 What time the moon would rise, 
 And when I told her, she replied, 
 
 " How fair 'twill make the skies." 
 Then came a smile across her face, 
 
 And though her lips were dumb 
 I think she only wished to live 
 
 Until that hour were come. 
 And folding her transparent hands 
 
 Together on her breast, 
 She fell in such a tranquil sleep 
 
 As scarce seems breathing rest. 
 
 Was that the third stroke of the clock ; 
 
 The hour is almost told. 
 Above yon bare and jagged rock 
 
 Should shine the disk of gold. 
 5
 
 102 GOING TO SLEEP. 
 
 Tis coming up ! the glow I see 
 
 Burn faint along the blue ; 
 How soft her sleep is ! shall I call, 
 
 That she may see it too ? 
 Nay, friend, she would not see the light, 
 
 Though called you ne'er so loud, 
 So bring of linen, dainty white, 
 
 The measure of the shroud. 
 The drowsy sexton may not wake, 
 
 He must be called betimes, 
 Twill take him all the day to make 
 
 Her grave beneath the limes ; 
 For when our little Ellie died, 
 
 The days were, oh, so long; 
 And what with telling ghostly tales, 
 
 And humming scraps of song, 
 To school-boys gathered curiously 
 
 About the bed so chill, 
 I heard him digging till the sun 
 
 Was down behind the hill. 
 
 Oh, do not weep my friend, I pray, 
 These beams that round her creep, 
 
 Keep all the evil things away 
 That troubled once her sleep.
 
 OF ONE DYING. 
 
 IK the blue middle heavens of June 
 
 The sun was burning bright, 
 What time we parted now ! alas, 
 
 Tis winter-time and night. 
 The swart November long ago, 
 
 With troops of gloomy hours, 
 Went folding the October's tents 
 
 Of misty gold, like flowers. 
 
 The wind hangs moaning on the pane, 
 
 The cricket tries to sing, 
 And a voice tells me all the while, 
 
 It never will be spring ; 
 It never will be spring to her, 
 
 For in the west wind's flow, 
 I hear a sound that seems to me 
 
 Like digging in the snow. 
 
 She will not have to lay away 
 The baby from her knees 
 
 The wild birds sung his lullaby 
 Last summer in the trees ;
 
 101 OF ONE DYING. 
 
 The cedars and the cypresses, 
 That in the churchyard grow 
 
 But little Alice will be left 
 How shall we make her know, 
 
 When she shall see the pallid brow, 
 The shroud about the dead, 
 
 That the beloved one is in 
 / 
 
 The azure overhead 1 
 For scarcely by the open grave, 
 
 Have we of larger light 
 And clearer faith, the strength to shape 
 
 The spirit's upward flight. 
 
 My friend, I know not as the sands 
 
 Of life are almost run, 
 If thou hast any power to say, 
 
 Thy will, not mine, be done. 
 But pray thee, Holy Comforter, 
 
 To make her weary eyes 
 To see from out the clouds of death 
 
 The Star of promise rise.
 
 THE GOOD ANGEL. 
 
 LIKE a prophetess of sorrow 
 
 Dying day foretells the night, 
 And adown the eastern hill-tops 
 
 Floats and falls the deep'ning light; 
 Floats and falls the light so golden 
 
 From, the full, uprisen moon, 
 And the little birds are nestled 
 
 In the bosom of young June. 
 
 I am sitting where so often 
 
 I have sat in summers gone, 
 Down the dim and solemn future, 
 
 Fixedly, gazing, on and on. 
 I can see sweet gleams of sunshine 
 
 Drifting through a valley wide, 
 Where a thousand hopes aforetime 
 
 Ventures of the heart have died. 
 
 Then a phantom hand of darkness 
 Comes between the moon and I, 
 
 And the stars, like pallid spirits, 
 Wander, aimless, through the sky.
 
 106 THE GOOD ANGEL. 
 
 And the dreary winds about me,. 
 
 Sigh and moan in under breath, 
 As, sometimes, unwary watchers 
 
 Hold their prophecies of death. 
 
 Rise not like a far-off planet, 
 
 Time of beauty vanished long, 
 Come not back, lost voice, to haunt me 
 
 Like a half-remembered song. 
 And if down the long, long future, 
 
 No sweet Eden smiles for me, 
 Save one from the past, good angel, 
 
 This is all I ask of thee !
 
 OCTOBER, 
 
 NOT the light of the long blue Summer, 
 
 Nor the flowery huntress, Spring, 
 Nor the chilly and moaning Winter, 
 
 Doth peace to my bosom bring, 
 Like the hazy and red October, 
 
 When the woods stand bare and brown, 
 And into the lap of the south land, 
 
 The flowers are blowing down ; 
 When all night long, in the moonlight, 
 
 The boughs of the roof-tree chafe, 
 And the wind, like a wandering poet, 
 
 Is singing a mournful waif; 
 And all day through the cloud-armies, 
 
 The sunbeams coquettishly rove 
 For then in my path first unfolded 
 
 The sweet passion-flower of love. 
 
 With bosom as pale as the sea-shell, 
 
 And soft as the flax unspun, 
 And locks like the nut-brown shadows 
 
 In the light of the sunken sun,
 
 108 OCTOBER. 
 
 Came the maiden whose wonderful beauty 
 
 Enchanted my soul from pain, 
 And gladdened my heart, that can never, 
 
 No, never be happy again. 
 Far away from life's pain and passion, 
 
 And our Eden of love, she went, 
 Like a pale star fading softly 
 
 From the morning's golden tent. 
 But oft, when the bosom of Autumn 
 
 Is warm with the summer beams, 
 We meet in the pallid shadows 
 
 That border the land of dreams. 
 For seeing my woe through the splendor 
 
 That hovers about her above, 
 She puts from her forehead the glory, 
 
 And listens again to my love.
 
 A RETROSPECT. 
 
 
 
 DOWN in the west, the sunset gold 
 
 Is fading from the sombre cloud, 
 And a fixed sorrow, hushed and cold, 
 
 Is closing round me like a shroud ; 
 Closing with thoughts of twilight hours, 
 
 When gaily, on the homestead hill, 
 Two children played among the flowers 
 
 I would that they were children still. 
 
 For as I scan with tear-dimmed eyes 
 
 The future, till life's sun hangs low, 
 No white hand reaches from the skies, 
 
 With chrisms of healing for our wo. 
 And though it may be either mind 
 
 Has grown with toil and years and strife, 
 Experience, like a blightning wind, 
 
 Has made a barren waste of life 
 
 A barren waste, whose -reach of sands 
 Lies glowing in the noontide heat, 
 
 Where no bright tree of blossoms stands, 
 Dropping cool shadows round our feet. 
 5*
 
 110 A RETROSPECT. 
 
 Only one good is ours, we feel 
 The promise written in the Word, 
 
 The might of the baptismal seal 
 To make us children of the Lord.
 
 MY FRIEND AND I. 
 
 MARCH is piping Springtime's praises, 
 
 Night by night the new moon fills 
 Soon the golden-hearted daisies 
 
 "Will be over all the hills. 
 Oh ! the winds are dreary, dreary ! 
 
 "Pis a long and lonesome night : 
 And her heart, she said, was weary 
 
 Weary, waiting for the light. 
 
 Soft the lovely Summer weather 
 
 Bloweth up the southern heights, 
 When the blue-bell in the heather 
 
 Blooms beneath our lattice lights. 
 Dismally the winds are crying ; 
 
 I am reft, she said, and lorn, 
 And my heart is sad with sighing, 
 
 Sighing for the distant morn. 
 
 Blithely will the birds keep singing, 
 Till the Autumn, sad of mien, 
 
 Comes his yellow chaplet swinging, 
 'Gainst the Summer's robe of green.
 
 MY FRIEND AND I. 
 
 Drearily the wind is blowing 
 
 Long and lonely is the night ; 
 Keep me not, she said, from going 
 
 Going where 'tis always light. 
 
 
 
 Blisses, hope has not foretasted, 
 Fill with sweetnesses the skies ; 
 
 There young love is never blasted 
 There the Summer never dies. 
 
 Have the rough winds ceased their blowing- 
 Doth the morning break ? she said ; 
 
 The life-tide was outward flowing 
 She was dying she was dead.
 
 A DREAM UNTOLD. 
 
 BENEATH the yellow hair of May 
 The blushing flowers together lay, 
 The winds along the bending lea, 
 Kept flowing, flowing, like a sea 
 
 That could not rest, 
 When first a maid with tresses brown 
 And blue eyes softly drooping down, 
 Sat in her chamber high and lone, 
 Locking a sweet dream, all her own, 
 
 Within her breast. 
 
 The elms around the homestead low 
 All night kept swaying to and fro, 
 And the young summer's silver rain 
 Kept beating^ on the window pane, 
 
 So soft and low, 
 
 It could not trouble the fair maid 
 Who tremblingly and half afraid 
 Lay gazing on the village lights, 
 That glimmered o'er the neighboring heights, 
 
 In sleepless wo.
 
 114 A DREAM UNTOLD. 
 
 The summer's tender glow is fled, 
 The early budding flowers are dead, 
 But others, with their leaves scarce paled, 
 
 And their flushed bosoms all unveiled, 
 
 In bloom remain ; 
 
 The hills are white with ripened rye, 
 The quails from out the meadows fly; 
 The mower's whistling, blithely gay, 
 Makes answer to the milkmaid's lay, 
 In vain in vain ! 
 
 'Tis one of autumn's lonesome eves, 
 And eddying drifts of withered leaves 
 Are scattered in the woods behind, 
 By the damp fingers of the wind ; 
 
 But hope dies not, 
 
 And happy maids and youths are seen 
 Together straying on the green, 
 While trembling hand and blushing cheek 
 Tell better far than words can speak, 
 
 Each other's thought. 
 
 Winter is come the homestead low 
 Is whitened by the falling snow ; 
 In the warm hearth the cricket cries, 
 And the storm-shaken bough replies ; 
 
 The watch-dog's bay 
 Is answered from the neighboring hill 
 " 'Tis very dark, the night, and chill," 
 Is by the pale lips faintly said, 
 Of her beside whose dying bed 
 They kneel to pray.
 
 A DKKAM UNTOLD. 115 
 
 Morning is up her wing of fire 
 Is shivering o'er the village spire, 
 And in the churchyard down below 
 Shining along the mounds of snow 
 
 Serenejy bright, 
 
 The maiden with the hair so brown, 
 And blue eyes softly drooping down, 
 Her dream, whate'er it was, unknown, 
 Shall lie beneath the cross of stone, 
 
 Ere close of night.
 
 ULALIE. 
 
 THE crimson of the maple trees 
 
 Is lighted by the moon's soft glow ; 
 Oh, nights like this, and things like these, 
 
 Bring back a dream of long ago. 
 For on an eve as sweet as this 
 
 Upon this bank beneath this tree 
 My lips, in love's impassioned kiss, 
 
 Met those of Ulalie. 
 
 
 Softly as now the dewdrops burned 
 
 In the flushed bosoms of the flowers, 
 Backward almost seems time to have turned 
 
 The golden axis of the hours, 
 Till, cold as ocean's beaten surf, 
 
 Beneath these trailing boughs, I see 
 The white cross and the faded turf 
 
 Above lost Ulalie.
 
 PARTING SONG. 
 
 BEHIND their cloudy curtains, 
 Over sunset's crimson sea, 
 
 Like fires along a battle field, 
 Intensely, mournfully, 
 
 The radiant stars are burning, 
 That will burn no more for me. 
 
 Ere on yon path of glory, 
 
 Which still the daylight warms, 
 
 Walks silently the midnight, 
 
 With the pale moon in her arms, 
 
 I shall be where longings trouble not, 
 Nor haunting fear alarms. 
 
 Nay, weep not, gentlest, dearest, 
 When joy should most abound, 
 
 That the dewy, tender clasping 
 Of thy arms must be unwound ; 
 
 We have journeyed long together 
 In life's wilderness profound.
 
 118 FARTING SONG. 
 
 Like the shining threads of silver 
 
 Which the showers of summer leave, 
 
 When to webs of beauty woven 
 
 By the golden loom of eve, 
 
 Is the path that lies before me now 
 
 Then, dear one, do not grieve. 
 
 Mortality has been to me 
 A wheel of pain, at best, 
 
 And I sink, although thy gentle love 
 Has soothed and almost blest, 
 As a pilgrim in the shadow 
 
 Of the sepulchre, to rest. 
 
 Not when the morn is glowing, 
 Like a banner o'er the brave, 
 
 Nor when the world is bathing 
 In the noontide's amber wave, 
 
 Will I come, oh Love, to meet thee 
 From the chamber of the grave. 
 
 But through the silver columns 
 Leaning earthward from the arch, 
 
 When the pale and solemn army 
 Of the night is on the march, 
 
 I will glide, oh Love, to meet thee, 
 From the shadow of the larch. 
 
 As the poet's bosom trembles 
 
 With some awful melody, 
 Till he hears the dark procession 
 
 Of the ages sweeping by, 
 Lo ! my heart is trembling, beating, 
 
 To the music of the sky.
 
 THE BROKEN HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 VAINLY, vainly memory seeks, 
 
 Round our father's knee, 
 Laughing eyes and rosy cheeks 
 
 Where they used to be : 
 Of the circle once so wide, 
 Three are wanderers, three have died. 
 
 Golden-haired and dewy-eyed, 
 
 Prattling all the day, 
 Was the baby, first that died ; 
 
 Oh, 'twas hard to lay 
 Dimpled hand and cheek of snow 
 
 In the grave so dark and low. 
 
 Smiling back on all who smiled, 
 
 Ne'er by sorrow thralled, 
 Half a woman, half a child, 
 
 Was the next one called : 
 Then a grave more deep and wide 
 Made they by the baby's side.
 
 120 THB BROKEN HOUSEHOLD, 
 
 When or where the other died 
 
 Only Heaven can tell ; 
 Treading manhood's path of pride 
 
 Was he when he fell; 
 Haply thistles, blue and red, 
 
 Bloom about his lonely bed. 
 
 I am for the living three 
 
 Only left to pray ; 
 Two are on the stormy sea ; 
 
 Farther still than they, 
 Wanders one, his young heart dim 
 Oftenest, most I pray for him. 
 
 Whatsoe'er they do or-dare, 
 Wheresoe'er they roam, 
 
 Have them, Father, in Thy care, 
 Guide them safely home; 
 
 Home, oh, Father, in the sky, 
 
 Where none wander and none die.
 
 FIRE PICTURES. 
 
 IN the embers all aglow, 
 
 Fancy makes the pictures plain, 
 As I listen to the snow 
 
 Beating chill against the pane 
 The wild December snow 
 
 On the lamp-illumined pane. 
 
 Bent downward from his prime, 
 Like the ripe fruit from its bough, 
 
 As I muse my simple rhyme, 
 I can see my father now, 
 
 With the warning flowers of time 
 Blooming white about his brow. 
 
 Sadly flows the willow tree 
 
 On the hill so dear, yet dread, 
 Where the resting-places be, 
 
 Of our dear ones that are dead 
 Where the mossy headstones be, 
 Of my early playmates dead.
 
 122 FIRE PICTURES. 
 
 But despite the dismal snow, 
 Blinding all the window o'er, 
 
 And the wind, that, crouching low, 
 Whines against my study door, 
 
 In the embers' twilight glow 
 I can see one picture more. 
 
 Down the beechen-shaded hills, 
 With the summer lambs at play, 
 
 Run the violet-nursing rills 
 
 Through the meadows sweet with hay, 
 
 Where the gray-winged plover trills 
 Of its joy the live-long day 
 
 Seeming almost within call, 
 
 'Neath our ancient trysting tree, 
 
 Art thou pictured, source of all 
 That was ever dear to me ; 
 
 But the wasted embers fall, 
 And the night is all I see 
 
 The night with gusts of snow 
 Blowing wild against the pane, 
 
 And the wind that crouches low, 
 Crying mournfully in vain, 
 
 And the dreams that come and go 
 Through my memory-haunted brain.
 
 TO THE WINDS. 
 
 TALK to my heart, oh winds 
 Talk to my heart to-night ; 
 
 My spirit always finds 
 With you a new delight, 
 
 Finds always new delight, 
 In your silver talk at night. 
 
 Give me your soft embrace 
 
 As you used to long ago. 
 In your shadowy trysting place, 
 
 W T hen you seemed to love me so 
 When you sweetly kissed me so, 
 On the green hills long ago. 
 
 Come up from your cool bed, 
 
 In the stilly twilight sea, 
 For the dearest hope lies dead, 
 
 That was ever dear to me ; 
 Come up from your cool bed, 
 And we'll talk about the dead.
 
 124 TO THE WINDS. 
 
 Tell me, for oft you go, 
 
 Winds, lovely winds of night, 
 
 About the chambers low, 
 With sheets so dainty white, 
 
 If they sleep through all the night, 
 
 In the beds so chill and white ? 
 
 Talk to me, winds, and say, 
 If in the grave be rest ; 
 
 For, oh, life's little day 
 Is a weary one at best ; 
 
 Talk to my heart and say 
 If death will give me rest.
 
 TO THE SPIRIT OF GLADNESS. 
 
 UNDERNEATH a dreary sky, 
 
 Spirit glad and free, 
 Voyaging solemnly am I 
 
 Toward an unknown sea. 
 Falls the moonlight, sings the breeze, 
 But thou speakest not in these. 
 
 In the summers overflown 
 
 What delights we had ! 
 Now I sit all day alone, 
 
 Weaving ditties sad ; 
 But thou comest not for the sake 
 Of the lonesome rhymes I make. 
 
 Faithless spirit, spirit free, 
 Where mayst thou be found ? 
 
 Where the meadow fountains be 
 Raining music round, 
 
 And the thistle burs so blue 
 
 Shine the livelong day with dew. 
 
 Keep thee, in thy pleasant bowers, 
 
 From my heart and brain ; 
 Even the summer's lap of flowers 
 6
 
 126 TO THE SPRIT OF GLADNESS. 
 
 Could not cool the pain ; 
 And for pallid cheek and brow 
 What companionship hast thou ? 
 
 Erewhile, when the rainy spring 
 
 Filled the pastures full 
 Of sweet daisies blossoming 
 
 Out as white as wool ; 
 We have gathered them, and made 
 Beds of Beauty in the shade. 
 
 Would that I had any friend 
 
 Lovingly to go 
 To the hollows where they blend 
 
 With the grasses low, 
 And a pillow soft and white 
 Make for the approaching night.
 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY. 
 
 
 
 Tis Christmas Eve, and by the fire-light dim, 
 
 His blue eyes hidden by his fallen hair, 
 My little brother mirth is not for him 
 
 Whispers, how poor we are ! 
 
 Come, dear one, rest upon my knee your head, 
 And push away those curls of golden glow, 
 
 And I will tell a Christmas tale I read 
 A long, long time ago. 
 
 'Tis of a little orphan boy like you, 
 
 Who had on earth no friend his feet to guide 
 
 Into the path of virtue, straight and true, 
 And so he turned aside. 
 
 The parlor fires, with genial warmth aglow, 
 Threw over him their waves of mocking light, 
 
 Once as he idly wandered to and fro, 
 In the unfriendly night. 
 
 The while a thousand little girls and boys, 
 
 With look of pride, or half-averted eye, 
 Their hands and arms o'erbrimmed with Christmas toys, 
 
 Passed and repassed him by.
 
 128 A CHKISTMAS 6TORY. 
 
 Chilled into half forgetfulness of wrong, 
 And tempted by the splendors of the time, 
 
 As roughly jostled by the hurrying throng, 
 Trembling, he talked with crime. 
 
 And when the Tempter once had found the way, 
 
 And thought's still threshold, half-forbidden, crossed, 
 
 His steps went darkly onward day by day, 
 Till he at last was lost. 
 
 So lost, that once from a delirious dream, 
 As consciousness began his soul to stir, 
 
 Around him fell the morning's checkered beam 
 He was a prisoner. 
 
 Then wailed he in the frenzy of wild pain, 
 
 Then wept he till his eyes with tears were dim, 
 
 But who would kindly answer back again 
 A prisoner-boy like him ? 
 
 And so his cheek grew thin and paled away, 
 But not a loving hand was stretched to save j 
 
 And the snow covered the next Christmas-day 
 His lonesome little grave. 
 
 Nay, gentle brother, do not weep, I pray, 
 You have no sins like his to be forgiven, 
 
 And kneeling down together, we can say, 
 Father, who art in Heaven. 
 
 So shall the blessed presence of content 
 Brighten our home of toil and poverty, 
 
 And the dear consciousness of time well spent, 
 Our Christmas portion be.
 
 THISBE. 
 
 SUNSET'S pale arrows shivering near and far ! 
 
 A little gray bird on an oaken tree 
 Pouring its tender plaint, and eve's lone star 
 
 Resting its silver rim upon the sea ! 
 
 In dismallest abandonment she lies 
 The undone Thisbe, witless of the night, 
 
 Locking the sweet time from her mournful eyes, 
 With her thin fingers, a most piteous sight. 
 
 Like violets white in hollow meadow-ground, 
 Shut from the broad and garish eye of day, 
 
 So 'neath her soft arms, clasped, interwound, 
 The milky beauty of her bosom lay. 
 
 O'er her sweet cheek the sprouting grasses lean, 
 And the round moon's gray, melancholy light 
 
 Creeps through the darkness, all unfelt, unseen, 
 And folds her tender limbs from the chill night. 
 
 Beside her on the hill the Twilight lies, 
 
 Twisting her pallid hands with the bright hair 
 
 That trembles in the light of her clear eyes, 
 Like strings of daffodils in the blue air.
 
 130 THIS BE. 
 
 And the dim mate of silence, newly born, 
 Stolen softly from the satyr-haunted grove, 
 
 Stoops o'er expiring day, like maiden lorn 
 
 Strewing pale blossoms o'er her murdered love. 
 
 Pressing your cold hands over rushy springs, 
 And making your chaste beds in beaded dew, 
 
 About her, Nereides, draw your magic rings, 
 And wreath her golden-budded hopes anew. 
 
 For by the tumult of thick-coming sighs, 
 The aspect wan that hath no mortal name, 
 
 I know the wilful god of the blind eyes 
 
 Hath sped a love-shaft with too true an aim.
 
 OUT BY THE WATERS. 
 
 THE hedges of roses and islands of gold 
 Have floated and faded away from the sky, 
 
 And I long, as their vanishing glow I behold, 
 For a home where the beautiful never shall die : 
 
 For a home, where the children of sorrow shall cease 
 To mourn over dreams that are broken and gone ; 
 Where the wings of the soul may be folded in peace 
 
 By the rivers that always flow shiningly on ! 
 
 
 
 I'm sitting alone in a deep bosomed vale, 
 
 On a bank of fresh moss that hangs over a rill ; 
 
 And catching at times, from the wings of the gale 
 The laughter of children at play on the hill. 
 
 For the wandering spirit of beauty is back 
 
 With fragrance and verdure for hill top and tree, 
 
 Leaving sunshine and blossoms, and birds on her track, 
 And filling the young heart with innocent glee. 
 
 I forget the dark lessons of history's page 
 In listening to footsteps so careless and light : 
 
 I forget the deep plottings of manhood and age 
 Their scorning of weakness, and trampling of right :
 
 132 OUT BY THE WATERS. 
 
 There's a cloud on the moon ! but the light is so sweet, 
 ("Tis one of the Spring-time's most beautiful eves) 
 
 I can tell every blossom that lies at my feet, 
 
 And the birds that are up o'er my head in the leaves. 
 
 Oh I love to be out by the waters at night 
 
 As they trip to the sea on the bright-tinted sands : 
 
 And deem their glad billows are children of light 
 With songs on their lips and the stars in their hands.
 
 LOVE'S CHAPEL. 
 
 As if soft odors from the vales of bliss 
 
 Pressed open, dear one, the pearl gates above, 
 
 Came in the Hybla sweetness of thy kiss, 
 The gentle, gentle meaning of thy love. 
 
 Then felt I as some mortal maid who lies 
 
 Beneath a rose-roof bower that sunshine warms, 
 
 Who, having charmed a god from the blue skies, 
 First feels his gold locks trembling in her arms. 
 
 Haste ! bring me river-lilies pale as snow, 
 
 Meek wood-flowers faintly streaked with jet and blue, 
 
 Blush-roses gathered where the west winds blow, 
 And little moss-cups dripping wet with dew. 
 
 And when the silver ring of the new moon 
 Hangs o'er the dark woods sloping to the sea, 
 
 When hope lies dallying in the lap of June, 
 I'll twine a chapel for my love and me. 
 
 A quiet chapel 'neath the quiet boughs, 
 
 Whose dusky beauty makes the days like eves, 
 Where kneeling softly we may make our vows 
 
 In the pale light like broken lily leaves. 
 6*
 
 134 LOVE'S CHAPEL. 
 
 Feeding my heart with dreams of that dear hour, 
 Nor pain, nor alien sorrow, nor dim fear 
 
 Shall cross the threshold of our chapel bower, 
 Till that sweet time, oh gentle love, be here ! 
 
 As suddenly the brown leaf-buried root, 
 
 When the spring thaw brings down the genial shower, 
 Into the blue air lifts its tender shoot, 
 
 Crowned with the beauty of its perfect flower : 
 
 So is my hope, long buried under fears, 
 
 And walled from sunshine by the helpless night, 
 
 Crowned with the beauty of its primal years, 
 Uplifted softly to the loving light.
 
 THE TRYST. 
 
 THE moss is withered, the moss is brown 
 
 Under the dreary cedarn bowers, 
 And fleet winds running the valleys down 
 
 Cover with dead leaves the sleeping flowers. 
 
 White as a lily the moonlight lies 
 Under the gray oak's ample boughs ; 
 
 In the time of June 'twere a paradise 
 For gentle lovers to make their vows. 
 
 In the middle of night when the wolf is dumb, 
 Like a sweet star rising out of the sea, 
 
 They say that a damsel at times will come, 
 And brighten the chilly light under the tree. 
 
 And a blessed angel from out the sky 
 Cometh her lonely watch to requite ; 
 
 But not for my soul's sweet sake would I 
 Pray under its shadow alone at night. 
 
 A boy by the tarn on the mountain side 
 Was cruelly murdered long ago, 
 
 Where oft a shadow is seen to glide 
 And wander wearily to and fro.
 
 136 THE TRYST. 
 
 The night was sweet like an April night, 
 When misty softness the blue air fills, 
 
 And the freckled adder's tongue makes bright 
 The sleepy hollows among the hills. 
 
 When, startled up from the hush that broods 
 Beauteously o'er the midnight time, 
 
 The gust ran wailing along the woods 
 Like one who seeth an awful crime. 
 
 The tree is withered, the tree is lost, 
 
 Where he gathered the ashen berries red, 
 
 As meekly the dismal woods he crossed 
 The tree is withered, the boy is dead. 
 
 Down the blue river waves slow and soft 
 A damsel is rowing her boat with joy ; 
 
 Put thy arms around her, good angel aloft, 
 If she be the love of the murdered boy ; 
 
 For still she comes, -as the daylight fades, 
 Her tryst to keep near the cedarn bowers. 
 
 Bear with her gently, tenderly maids, 
 
 Whose hopes are open like summer flowers.
 
 THE BRIDAL OF WO. 
 
 DIMLY the shadows stretch across the seas, 
 
 With glistening frost the window pane is white ;' 
 
 And the blind winds go moaning through the trees 
 Oh ! 'tis a mournful night ! 
 
 Under the rafters, where, in summer's heat, 
 The twittering swallow hung her nest of clay, 
 
 The new-milked heifer, sheltered from the sleet, 
 Chews the sweet-scented hay. 
 
 On southern slopes, hard by the leafy wold, 
 
 Where the stray sunbeams all the day kept warm, 
 
 Instinct is shepherding the harmless fold 
 From the ice-bearded storm. 
 
 The watch-dog, shivering couchant on the sill, 
 Watches the moon, slow sailing up the sky, 
 
 Nor answers, calling from the churchyard hill, 
 The owlet's frequent cry. 
 
 In the dim grass the little flowers are dead, 
 No more his song the grasshopper awakes, 
 
 And the pale silver of the spider's thread, 
 No wanton wild-bird breaks.
 
 138 THE BRIDAL OF WO. 
 
 Meekly the cold lips of the dying day 
 
 Pressed the pale forehead of the evening star, 
 
 While brightly wildering constellations lay, 
 Like village hills afar. 
 
 Yet did my soul, whose flights have sometimes stirred 
 
 The clouds that curtain back eternity, 
 Lie wailing in my bosom, like a bird, 
 
 Driven far out at sea. 
 
 On such a night my heart was wed to pain, 
 And joy along its surface can but gleam, 
 
 Like the red threads of morning's fiery skein 
 Along the frozen stream.
 
 FALLEN GENIUS. 
 
 
 
 No tears for him ! he saw by faith sublime 
 
 Through the wan shimmer of life's wasted flame, 
 
 Across the green hills of the future time, 
 The golden breaking of the morn of fame. 
 
 Faded by the diviner life, and worn, 
 
 The dust has fallen away, and ye but see 
 
 The ruins of the house wherein were borne 
 The birth-pangs of an immortality. 
 
 His great life from the wondrous life to be, 
 
 Clasped the bright splendors that no sorrow mars, 
 
 As some pale, shifting column of the sea, 
 Mirrors the awful beauty of the stars. 
 
 What was Love's lily pressure, what the light 
 
 Of its pleased smile, that a chance breath may chill ! 
 
 His soul was mated with the winds of night, 
 And wandered through the universe at will. 
 
 Oft in his heart its stormy passion woke, 
 
 Yet from its bent his soul no more was stirred, 
 
 Than is the broad green bosom of the oak 
 By the light flutter of the summer bird.
 
 140 FALLEN GENIUS. 
 
 His loves were of forbidden realms, unwrought 
 In poet's rhyme, the music of his themes, 
 
 Hovering about the watch-fires of his thought, 
 On the dim borders of the land of dreams. 
 
 For while his hand with daring energy 
 
 Fed the slow fire that, burning, must consume, 
 
 The ravishing joys of unheard harmony 
 Beat like a living pulse within the tomb. 
 
 Pillars of fire that wander through life's night, 
 Children of genius ! ye are doomed to be, 
 
 In the embrace of your far-reaching light, 
 Locking the radiance of eternity.
 
 DYING SONG. 
 
 LEAVE me, O leave me ! my o'erwearied feet, 
 O my beloved ! may walk no more with thee ; 
 
 For I am standing where the circles meet 
 That mortals name, Time and Eternity. 
 
 Tell me, O tell me not of summer flowers 
 In vales where once our steps together trod ; 
 
 Even though I now behold the shining towers 
 That rise above the city of our God. 
 
 I know that the wide fields of heaven are fair 
 That on their borders grief is all forgot ; 
 
 That the white tents of beauty, too, are there 
 But how shall I be blessed where thou art not ? 
 
 Over the green hills, that are only crossed 
 By drifts of light, and choruses of glee, 
 
 How shall I wander like a spirit lost, 
 
 And fallen and ruined, missing, mourning thee ! 
 
 If any wrong of mine, or thought, or said, 
 
 Has given thee pain or sorrow, O forgive ! 
 .As wilt thou not, my friend, when I am dead, 
 And by my errors better learn to live.
 
 142 DYING SONG. 
 
 There is not found in all the pleasant past, 
 
 One memory of thee that I deplore, 
 Or wish not to be in my heart at last, 
 
 When I shall fall asleep to wake no more. 
 
 Then leave, oh leave me ! though I see the light 
 Of heaven's sweet clime, and hear the angel's call, 
 
 Where there is never any cloud nor night, 
 Thy love is stronger, mightier than all !
 
 DYING. 
 
 LIGHT comes no more to thy weary eyes 
 When moons are filling, or morn unfolds ; 
 
 Thy feet have struck on the path that lies 
 Bordering the Eden that faith beholds. 
 
 Why dost thou linger and backward gaze 
 To the hills now lying so faint and far, 
 
 Where plowing a furrow through golden haze, 
 Came up the beautiful morning star. 
 
 That star that paled in the sky and fled, 
 
 Ere yet the blossoms of spring were blown ; 
 
 The stormy wings of the night o'erspread 
 The mists of glory that round it shone. 
 
 But though the light of the day is gone, 
 The valley of shadows is bright with dew, 
 
 And where the river of death moans on, 
 The angels are waiting to take thee through. 
 
 I think of the visions of bliss we wove 
 
 In the faded beauty of years o'erflown, * 
 
 That thou hast been crowned with a crown of love, 
 And I am a dreamer of dreams alone.
 
 144 DYING. 
 
 I think of the children that climb thy knees, 
 And how dim the light of the hearth will be, 
 
 In the time that prophecy plainly sees 
 
 When the circle is narrowed away from thee : 
 
 And question the bodiless shapes of air 
 That hover about when the soul is sad, 
 
 To know why the angel of death should spare 
 The worn and weary instead of the glad. 
 
 But they answer not, and I only know, 
 Seeing thee wasted and pale with pain, 
 
 Where the rivers of Paradise sweetly flow, 
 They never say I am sick again.
 
 MAY VERSES. 
 
 Do you hear the wild birds calling 
 Do you hear them, oh my heart ? 
 
 Do you see the blue air falling 
 From their rushing wings apart ? 
 
 With young mosses they are flocking, 
 For they hear the laughing breeze, 
 
 With dewy fingers rocking 
 
 Their light cradles in the trees ! 
 
 Within nature's bosom holden, 
 'Till the wintry storms were done, 
 
 Little violets, white and golden, 
 Now are leaning to the sun. 
 
 With its stars the box is florid, 
 
 And the wind-flower, sweet to view, 
 
 Hath uncovered its pale forehead 
 To the kisses of the dew. 
 
 While thousand blossoms tender, 
 
 As coquettishly as they, 
 Are sunning their wild splendor 
 
 In the blue eyes of the May !
 
 146 MAY VERSES. 
 
 In the water softly dimpled 
 In the flower-enameled sod 
 
 How beautifully exampled 
 Is the providence of God ! 
 
 From the insect's little story 
 To the fartherest star above, 
 
 All are waves of glory, glory, 
 In the ocean of his love !
 
 PARTING WITH A POET. 
 
 ALL the sweet summer that is gone, 
 Two paths I sighed to mark 
 
 One brightly leading up and on, 
 One downward to the dark. 
 
 No prophecy enwrapt my heart, 
 
 No Vala's gifts were mine ; 
 Yet knew I that our paths must part 
 
 The loftier one be thine. 
 
 For not a soul inspiredly thrills, 
 Whose wing shall not be free 
 
 To sweep across the eternal hills, 
 Like winds across the sea. 
 
 And, wheresoe'er thy lot may be, 
 
 As all the past has proved, 
 Love shall abide and be with thee, 
 
 For genius must be loved. 
 
 While I, the heart's vain yearning stilled, 
 The heart that vexed me long, 
 
 Essay with my poor hands to build 
 The silvery walls of song.
 
 148 PARTING WITH A POET. 
 
 Still, through the nights of wild unrest, 
 
 That softer joyance bars, 
 Winding about my vacant breast 
 The tresses of the stars. 
 
 While at the base of heights sublime, 
 Dim thoughts forevermore 
 
 Lie moaning, like the waves of time 
 Along the immortal shore.
 
 HARRIET. 
 
 DOWN the west the gust is rushing 
 Through the twilight's cloudy bars, 
 
 And the crescent moon is pushing 
 Her slim horn between the stars. 
 
 Now the winter night is falling 
 O'er the hills of crisped snow, 
 
 But she hears, she says, the calling 
 Of an angel, and must go. 
 
 She is pale and very weary, 
 But her thin lips never moan, 
 
 And though night is chill and dreary, 
 Fears she not to go alone. 
 
 Surely, when the shroud shall cover 
 Her meek beauty, death subdued, 
 
 From his eyes who was her lover, 
 He will love her angelhood. 
 
 He that, for the wine-cup's kisses 
 Sold away her gentle love 
 
 Not alas, for holy blisses, 
 Earthly, or of heaven above. 
 
 7
 
 150 HARRIET. 
 
 Morning sadly, dimly presses 
 Up the orient, and the few- 
 Belated stars their yellow tresses 
 Gather from her pathway blue. 
 
 Broader now the light is falling, 
 And the day comes on and on, 
 
 As the angel skyward calling, 
 Calls no longer she is gone.
 
 TO THE HOPEFUL. 
 
 HARK ! for the multitude cry out, 
 Oh, watchman, tell us of the night ; 
 
 And hear the joyous answering shout, 
 The hills are red with light ! 
 
 Lo ! where the followers of the meek, 
 Like Johns, are crying in the wild, 
 
 The leopard lays its spotted cheek 
 Close to the new-born child. 
 
 The gallows-tree with tremor thrills 
 The North to mercy's plea inclines ; 
 
 And round about the Southern hills 
 Maidens are planting vines. 
 
 The star that trembled softly bright, 
 Where Mary and the young child lay, 
 
 Through ages of unbroken night 
 Hath tracked his luminous way. 
 
 From the dim shadow of the palm 
 The tattooed islander has leant, 
 
 Helping to swell the wondrous psalm 
 Of love's great armament !
 
 152 TO THE HOPEFUL. 
 
 And the wild Arab, swart and grave, 
 Looks startled from his tent, and scans 
 
 Advancing truth, with shining wave, 
 Washing the desert sands. 
 
 Forth from the slaver's deadly crypt 
 The Ethiop like an Athlete springs, 
 
 And from her long- worn fetters stript, 
 The dark Liberiaa sings. 
 
 But sorrow to and fro must keep 
 Its.heavings until evil cease, 
 
 Like the great cradle of the deep, 
 Rocking a storm to peace. 
 
 Oh, men and brethren, far and near, 
 
 Believers in the better day, 
 Who, learning love's deep wisdom here, 
 
 Have better learned to pray 
 
 By all the martyrs that have trod 
 Before you, seeing not the dawn, 
 
 And by the true and living God, 
 I charge you, labor on !
 
 EESPITE. 
 
 LEAVE me, dear ones, to my slumber, 
 Daylight's faded glow is gone ; 
 
 In the red light of the morning 
 I must rise and journey on. 
 
 I am weary, oh, how weary ! 
 
 And would rest a little while ; 
 Let your kind looks be my blessing, 
 
 And your last " Good-night" a smile. 
 
 We have journeyed up together, 
 
 Through the pleasant day-time flown ; 
 
 Now my feet have pressed life's summit, 
 And my pathway lies alone. 
 
 And, my dear ones, do not call me, 
 Should you haply be awake, 
 
 When across the eastern hill-tops 
 Presently the day shall break. 
 
 For, while yet the stars are lying 
 In the gray lap of the dawn, 
 
 On my long and solemn journey 
 I shall be awake and gone ;
 
 154 RESPITE. 
 
 Far from mortal pain and sorrow, 
 And from passion's stormy swell, 
 
 Knocking at the golden gateway 
 Of the eternal citadel. 
 
 Therefore, dear ones, let me slumber- 
 Faded is the day and gone ; 
 
 And with morning's early splendor, 
 I must rise and journey on.
 
 THE DYING MOTHER. 
 
 WE were weeping round her pillow, 
 For we knew that she must die: 
 
 It was night within our bosoms 
 It was night within the sky. 
 
 There were seven of us children 
 
 I the oldest one of all ; 
 So I tried to whisper comfort, 
 
 But the blinding tears would fall. 
 
 On my knee my little brother 
 
 Leaned his aching brow and wept, 
 
 And my sister's long black tresses 
 O'er my heaving bosom swept. 
 
 The shadow of an awful fear 
 
 Came o'er me as I trod, 
 To lay the burden of our grief 
 
 Before the throne of God. 
 
 Oh! be kind to one another, 
 
 Was my mother's pleading prayer, 
 
 As her hand lay like a snow-flake 
 On the baby's golden hair.
 
 156 THE DYING MOTHER. 
 
 Then a glory bound her forehead, 
 Like the glory of a crown, 
 
 And in the silent sea of death 
 The star of life went down. 
 
 Her latest breath was borne away 
 Upon that loving prayer, 
 
 And the hand grew heavier, paler, 
 In the baby's golden hair.
 
 LAST SONG. 
 
 THE beetle from the furrow goes, 
 The bird is on the sheltering limb, 
 
 And in the twilight's pallid close 
 
 Sits the gray evening, hushed and dim. 
 
 In the blue west the sun is down, 
 And soft the fountain washes o'er 
 
 Green limes and hyacinths so brown 
 As never fountain washed before. 
 
 I scarce can hear the curlew call, 
 
 I scarce can feel the night- wind's breath ; 
 
 I only see the shadows fall, 
 1 only feel this chill is death. 
 
 At morn the bird will leave the bough, 
 The beetle o'er the furrow run, 
 
 But with the darkness falling now, 
 The morning for my eyes is done. 
 
 Piping his ditty low and soft, 
 
 If shepherd chance to cross the wold, 
 
 Bound homeward from the flowery croft, 
 And the white tendance of his fold, 
 
 7*
 
 158 THE LAST BONG. 
 
 And find me lying fast asleep, 
 Be inspiration round him thrown, 
 
 That he may dig down very deep, 
 Where never any sunshine shone. 
 
 My life has been unbroken gloom, 
 No friend my dying hour will see 
 
 Oh, wherefore should he ask for room 
 In consecrated ground for me ?
 
 FALMOUTH HALL. 
 
 'TwAS just a year at the summer's tide, 
 
 And now was the leaflet's fall, 
 Since the lady Camilla, a blushing bride, 
 In the graceful beauty of matron pride, 
 
 First came to the Falmouth Hall. 
 
 The air was chilly, the winds were high, 
 
 Lifting and drifting the leaves ; 
 The hills were bare, for the ripened rye 
 In the golden gales of the warm July 
 
 Were bound into silver sheaves. 
 
 Sir Philip is mounting his courser fleet, 
 
 Though dismally falls the' night, 
 Nor heeds at all if his glances meet 
 The locks of the lady, the pale and sweet, 
 
 That darken the lattice-light. 
 
 The lady was lovely her lord was true, 
 
 As the maids of the mansion say, 
 But cold as the sleet were his words, and few, 
 As he struck through the fall of the night, and flew 
 
 From the home of his sires away.
 
 160 FAL MOUTH HALL. 
 
 Hath he gone to the field of the holy war ? 
 He hath nor helmet, nor sword, nor star. 
 
 Doth he go as a jousting knight ? 
 And when will he tighten his flowing rein 
 At the gate of the Falmouth Hall again, 
 
 And the heart ofCamilla be light ? 
 
 'Twas the middle watch by the castle clock, 
 'Twas the middle watch, and the plumed cock 
 
 Crew shrilly as cock may crow, 
 When a voice to my lady did sweetly call, 
 Who lovingly leant from the castle wall, 
 
 As if to her lord below. 
 
 'Twas the middle watch of the chilly night, 
 
 In the time of the leaflet's fall, 
 When my lady appeared in her robes of white, 
 And the watch-dog woke as in sudden fright, 
 
 And howled from the Falmouth Hall. 
 
 But the tale may be of the lowly born, 
 For the lip of the lady was curled in scorn 
 
 At the breath of the lightest word, 
 Though the picture that lay on her heart at morn 
 
 Was not of her absent lord. 
 
 The legends of Falmouth mansion say 
 Sir Philip perished in some dark fray, 
 
 For a bird, with a blood-red plume, 
 Oft came in the mists of the morning gray 
 Where the ancient lord of the mansion lay, 
 
 And sang on the cross of the tomb.
 
 GLENLY MOOR. 
 
 THE summer's golden glow was fled, 
 In eve's dim arms the day lay dead, 
 Over the dreary woodland wind, 
 The first pale star looked out and smiled 
 On Glenly Moor. 
 
 Nor lonely call of lingering bird, 
 Nor insect's cheerful hum was heard, 
 Nor traveller in the closing day 
 Humming along the grass-grown way 
 Of Glenly Moor. 
 
 No voice was in the sleepy rills, 
 No light shone down the village hills, 
 And withered on their blackening stalks 
 Hung the last flowers along the walks 
 Of Glenly Moor. 
 
 Within a thin, cold drift of light 
 The buds of the wild rose hung bright, 
 Where broken turf and new-set stone 
 Told of a pale one left alone 
 In Glenly Moor.
 
 162 GLENLT MOOR. 
 
 All the clear splendor of the skies 
 Was gathered from her meek blue eyes, 
 And therefore shadows dark and cold 
 Hang over valley, hill, and wold 
 In Glenly Moor. 
 
 And the winged morning from the blue 
 Winnowing the crimson on the dew 
 May ne'er unlock the hands so white 
 That lie beneath that drift of light 
 In Glenly Moor.
 
 ROSEMARY HILL. 
 
 'TWAS the night he had promised to meet me, 
 
 To meet me on Rosemary Hill, - 
 And I said, at the rise of the eve-star, 
 
 The tryst he will haste to fulfil. 
 
 Then I looked to the elm-bordered valley, 
 Where the undulous mist whitely lay, 
 
 But I saw not the steps of my lover 
 Dividing its beauty away. 
 
 The eve-star rose red o'er the tree-tops, 
 The night-dews fell heavy and chill, 
 
 And wings ceased to beat through the shadows 
 The shadows of Rosemary Hill. 
 
 I heard not, through hoping and fearing, 
 
 The whip-poor-will's musical cry, 
 Nor saw I the pale constellations 
 
 That swept the blue reach of the sky.
 
 164 ROSEMARY HILL. 
 
 But fronting despair like a martyr, 
 I pled with my heart to be still, 
 
 As round me fell, deeper and darker, 
 The shadows of Rosemary Hill. 
 
 On a bough that was withered and dying, 
 I leaned as the midnight grew dumb, 
 
 And told my heart, over and over, 
 How often he said he would come. 
 
 He is hunting, I said, in dim Arnau 
 
 He was there with his dogs all day long 
 
 And is weary with winging the plover, 
 Or stayed by the throstle's sweet song. 
 
 Then heard I the whining of Eldrich, 
 Of Eldrich so blind and so old, 
 
 With sleek hide embrowned like the lion's, 
 And brindled and freckled with gold. 
 
 How the pulse of despair in my bosom 
 
 Leapt back to a joyous thrill, 
 As I went down to meet my dear lover, 
 
 Down fleetly from Rosemary Hill. 
 
 More near seemed the whining of Eldrich, 
 More loudly my glad bosom beat ; 
 
 When lo ! I beheld by the moonlight, 
 A newly made grave at my feet. 
 
 And silently, sorrowfully drifting, 
 Away from love's sheltering ark, 
 
 I tore from my forehead the lilies, 
 -And trusted my hopes to the dark.
 
 ROSEMARY HILL. 165 
 
 For when with the passion-vine lovely, 
 
 That grew by the stone at the head, 
 The length of the grave I had measured, 
 
 I knew that my lover was dead. 
 
 Seven summers the sunshine has fallen 
 
 Since that weary night-time of ill, 
 But my heart still is veiled with a shadow 
 
 The shadow of Kosemary Hill.
 
 ADELIED. 
 
 UNPRAISED but of my simple rhymes 
 She pined from life, and died, 
 
 The softest of all April times 
 That storm and shine divide. 
 
 The swallow twittered within reach 
 
 Impatient of the rain, 
 And the red blossoms of the peach 
 
 Blew down against the pane. 
 
 When, feeling that life's wasting sands 
 
 Were wearing into hours, 
 She took her long locks in her hands 
 
 And gathered out the flowers. 
 
 The day was nearly on the close, 
 
 And on the eave in sight, 
 The doves were gathered in white rows 
 
 With bosoms to the light ; 
 
 When first my sorrow flowed to rhymes 
 
 For gentle Adelied 
 The light of thrice five April-times 
 
 Had kissed her when she died.
 
 MULBERRY HILL. 
 
 OH, sweet was the eve when I came from the mill, 
 Adown the green windings of Mulberry hill : 
 My heart like a bird with its throat all in tune, 
 That sings in the beautiful bosom of June. 
 
 For there, at her spinning, beneath a broad tree, 
 
 By a rivulet shining and blue as the sea, 
 
 First I saw my Mary her tiny feet Bare, 
 
 And the buds of the sumach among her black hair. 
 
 They called me a bold enough youth, and I would 
 Have kept the name honestly earned, if I could ; 
 But, somehow, the song I had whistled was hushed, 
 And, spite of my manhood, I felt that I blushed. 
 
 I would tell you, but words cannot paint my delight, 
 When she gave the red buds for a garland of white, 
 When her cheek with soft blushes but no, 'tis in vain ; 
 Enough that I loved, and she loved me again. 
 
 Three summers have come and gone by with their charms, 
 And a cherub of purity smiles in my arms, 
 With lips like the rosebud and locks softly light 
 As the flax which my Mary was spinning that night.
 
 1C8 MULBERRY HILL. 
 
 And in the dark shadows of Mulberry Hill, 
 
 By the grass-covered road where I came from the mill, 
 
 And the rivulet shining and blue as the sea, 
 
 My Mary lies sleeping beneath the broad tree.
 
 SONG. 
 
 COME to my bosom, thou beautiful bird, 
 My soul with thy seraph-like singing is stirred : 
 Say'st thou we never more, never shall part 
 Light of the wilderness, joy of my heart ? 
 Are thy capricious wings never to fly 1 
 Sing me the blessed words sing till I die ! 
 
 Oh, I have thought of thee, long weary years, 
 Nursing thy memory only with tears ; 
 My heart dreaming dreams of thee, sweeter than dew, 
 Beating, where thousands were, only for you : 
 Said'st thou thou lovest me in thy soft strain ? 
 Tell me the blessed words, tell them again ! 
 
 Spring in her robe of Light, Summer with flowers, 
 Autumn with golden fruit, Winter's lone hours ; 
 These on their fleeting wings came and went by, 
 Finding their welcoming only a sigh. 
 Say'st thou thou lovest me fondly and true ? 
 Tell me the blessed words tell them anew. 
 The earth, like an angel, sits mantled in light, 
 The skies are grown bluer, the stars are more bright;
 
 170 SONG. 
 
 And leaves by the breezes are freshlier stirred, 
 Because of thy singing, my beautiful bird : 
 Surely such happiness soon will be o'er 
 Tell me the blessed words, tell them once more ! 
 
 Earth henceforth has nothing of sorrow for me ; 
 My bosom, sweet minstrel, thy pillow shall be j 
 The goldenest morning that ever has smiled, 
 Were dim in thy presence, young fawn of the wild : 
 Oh, if your heart for me beat as you say, 
 Tell me the blessed words, tell them for aye !
 
 LIVE AND HELP LIVE. 
 
 MIGHTY in faith and hope, why art thou sad ! 
 Sever the green withes, look up and be glad ! 
 See all around thee, below and above, 
 The beautiful, bountiful gifts of God's love ! 
 
 What though our hearts beat with death's sullen waves? 
 What though the green sod is broken with graves 1 
 The sweet hopes that never shall fade from their bloom, 
 Make their dim birth-chamber down in the tomb ! 
 
 Parsee or Christianman, bondman or free, 
 Loves and humanities still are for thee ; 
 Some little good every day to achieve, 
 Some slighted spirit no longer to grieve. 
 
 In the tents of the desert, alone on the sea, 
 On the far-away hills with the starry Chaldee ; 
 Condemned and in prison, dishonored, reviled, 
 God's arm is around thee, and thou art his child. 
 
 Mine be the lip ever truthful and bold ; 
 Mine be the heart, never careless nor cold ; 
 A faith humbly trustful, a life free from blame 
 All else is unstable as flax in the flame.
 
 172 LIVE AND HELP LIVE. 
 
 And while the soft skies are so starry and blue ; 
 And while the wide earth is so fresh with God's dew, 
 Though all around me the sad sit and sigh, 
 I will be glad that I live and must die.
 
 DOOMED. 
 
 
 
 OH demon waiting o'er the grave, 
 
 To plead against thy power were vain ; 
 Turning from heaven, I blindly gave 
 
 My soul to everlasting pain. 
 Take me and torture me at will 
 
 My hands I will not lift for aye, 
 The flames that die not, nor can kill, 
 
 To wind from my poor heart away ; 
 For I have borne and still can bear 
 
 The pain of sorrow's wretched storms, 
 But, love, how shall 1 hush the prayer 
 
 For the sweet shelter of thy arms ? 
 
 Oh home ! no more your dimpling rills 
 
 Would cool this forehead from its pain ; 
 Flowers, blowing down the western hills, 
 
 Ye may not fill my lap again ; 
 Time, speed with wilder, stormier wings, 
 
 The smile that lights my lip to-day, 
 As like the ungenial fire that springs 
 
 From the pale ashes of decay. 
 O ! lost, like some fair planet-beam, 
 
 In clouds that tempests over-brim, 
 How could the splendor of a dream 
 
 Make all the future life so dim ! 
 8
 
 WEAEINESS. 
 
 GENTLE, gentle sisters twain, 
 I am sad with toil and pain, 
 Hoping, struggling, all in vain, 
 And would be with you again. 
 
 Sick and weary, let me go 
 To our homestead, old and low, 
 Where the cool, fresh breezes blow 
 There I shall be well, I know. 
 
 Violets, gold, and white, and blue, 
 Sprout up sweetly through the dew 
 Lilacs now are budding, too 
 Oh, I pine to be with you ! 
 
 I am lonely and imblest 
 I am weary, and would rest 
 Where all things are brightest, best, 
 In the lovely, lovely West.
 
 TO ELMINA. 
 
 SOFT dweller in the sunset light, 
 
 How pleads my heavy heart for thee, 
 
 That some good angel's hand to-night 
 Gather thy sweet love back from me. 
 
 For down the lonesome way I tread, 
 No summer flower will ever bloom 
 
 All hope is lost, all faith is dead 
 
 Thou must not, canst not, share my doom. 
 
 Nay, let me send no shadow chill 
 To the blue beauty of thy sky ; 
 
 Fain would I shape my song to still 
 Thy sad fears like a lullaby. 
 
 Not in thy memory would I seem 
 As one that wo and sorrow claim 
 
 Think of me, dear one, as a dream 
 That faded when the morning came.
 
 HOMESICK. 
 
 THE lamps are all lighted how brightly they gleam ! 
 The music is flowing, soft stream upon stream, 
 While youths and fair maidens, untroubled with care, 
 Half blush as they whisper, How happy we are ! 
 
 Well, braid up your tresses with gems as you may, 
 Fly light through the dances, and smile and be gay ; 
 The glow of the roses, the flow of the wine, 
 Are not for a bosom so weary as mine. 
 
 O give me a cottage half-hid in the leaves, 
 With vines on the windows, and birds on the eaves, 
 And a heart there whose warm tide shall flow like the sea, 
 But never, O never, for any but me !
 
 KINDNESS. 
 
 OF homely fern and yellow fennel flowers 
 
 Weaving up fillets, dreamingly I lay 
 In the dim arms of lonesome twilight hours 
 
 When first dear kindness crossed my friendless way. 
 
 Then felt I, hushed with wonder and sweet awe, 
 As with his weary banners round him furled 
 
 Felt ocean's wanderer, when first he saw 
 The pale-lipt billows kissing a new world ! 
 
 The joy, the rapture of the glad surprise, 
 
 Haply some heart may know that inly grieves, 
 
 Some sad Ruth bowing from love-speaking eyes 
 Her trembling bosom over alien sheaves.
 
 MY MOTHER. 
 
 'TwAs in the autumn's dreary close, 
 
 A long, long time ago ; 
 The berries of the brier-rose 
 
 Hung bright above the snow, 
 And night had spread a shadow wild 
 
 About the earth and sky, 
 When calling me her orphan child, 
 
 She said that she must die. 
 
 She rests within the quiet tomb, 
 
 The narrow and the chill 
 The window of our cabin home 
 
 Looks out upon the hill. 
 Oh, when the world seems wild and wide, 
 
 And friends to love me few, 
 I think of how she lived and died, 
 
 And gather strength anew.
 
 Climrnnnk; 
 
 OR, 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF OUR HOME IN THE WEST, 
 
 BY ALICE CAREY. 
 
 Illustrated 5y DAKLET. One vol., V2mo. 
 
 " We do not hesitate to predict for these sketches a wide popularity. 
 They bear the true stamp of genius simple, natural, truthful and evince 
 a keen sense of the humor and pathos, of the comedy and tragedy, of life 
 in the country. No one who has ever read it can forget the sad and beau 
 tiful story of Mary Wildermings ; its weird fancy, tenderness, and beauty ; 
 its touching description of the emotions of a sick and suffering human spirit, 
 and its exquisite rural pictures. The moral tone of Alice Carey's writings 
 is unobjectionable always." J. G. WHITTIEII. 
 
 " Miss Carey's experience has been in the midst of rural occupations, m 
 the interior of Ohio. Every word here reflects this experience, in the rar 
 est shapes, and most exquisite hues. The opinion now appears to be com 
 monly entertained, that Alice Carey is decidedly the first of our female au 
 thors; an opinion which Fitz-Greene Halleck, J. G. Whittier, Dr. Griswold, 
 Wm. D. Gallagher, Bayard Taylor, with many others, have on various 
 occasions endorsed." Illustrated News. 
 
 " If we look at the entire catalogue of female writers of prose fiction in 
 this country, we shall find no one who approaches Alice Carey in the best 
 characteristics of genius. Like all genuine authors she has peculiarities; 
 her hand is detected as unerringly as that of Poe or Hawthorne ; as much 
 as they she is apart from others and above others ; and her sketches of 
 country life must, we think, be admitted to be superior even to those delight 
 ful tales of Miss Mitford, which, in a similar line, are generally acknowledged 
 <o be equal to anything done in England." International Magazine. 
 
 " Alice Carey has perhaps the strongest imagination among the women 
 of this country. Her writings will live longer than those of any other 
 woman among us." American Whig Review. 
 
 " Alice Carey has a fine, rich, and purely original genius. Her country 
 stories are almost unequaled." Knickerbocker Magazine. 
 
 " Miss Carey's sketches are remarkably fresh, and exquisite in delicacy, 
 humor, and pathos. She is booked for immortality." Home Journal. 
 
 "The Times speaks of Alice Carey as standing at the head of the living 
 female writers of America. We go even farther in our favorable judgment, 
 and express the opinion that among those living or dead, she has had no 
 equal in this country ; and we know of few in the annals of English litera 
 ture who have exhibited superior gifts of real poetic genius." The (Portland, 
 Me.} Eclectic.
 
 MISS CHESEBRO'S NEW WORK. 
 
 DREAM-LAND BY DAYLIGHT; 
 
 A 
 
 PANORAMA OF ROMANCE. 
 
 BY CAROLINE CHESEBRO. 
 Illustrated by DAELEY. One vol., 12m0. 
 
 " These simple and beautiful stories are all highly endued with an exquisite 
 perception of natural beauty, with which is combined an appreciative sense of its 
 relation to the highest moral emotions." Albany State Register. 
 
 " There is a fine vein of pure and holy thought pervading every tale in the vol 
 ume ; and every lover of the beautiful and true will feel while perusing it that 
 he is conversing with a kindred spirit." Albany Evening Atlas. 
 
 " The journey through Dream-Land will be found full of pleasure ; and when 
 one returns from it, he will have his mind filled with good suggestions for practi 
 cal life." Rochester Democrat. 
 
 " The anticipations we have had of this promised book are more than realized. 
 It is a collection of beautiful sketches, in which the cultivated imagination of the 
 authoress has interwoven the visions of Dream-Land with the realities of life." 
 
 Ontario Messenger. 
 
 " The dedication, in its sweet and touching purity of emotion, is itself an ear 
 nest of the many 'blessed household voices' that come up from the heart's clear 
 depth, throughout the book." Ontario Repository. 
 
 " Gladly do we greet this floweret in the field of our literature, for it is fragrant 
 with sweets and bright with hues that mark it to be of Heaven's own planting." 
 
 Courier and Enquirer. 
 
 " There is a depth of sentiment and feeling not ordinarily met with, and some 
 of the noblest faculties and affections of man's nature are depicted and illustrated 
 by the skilful pen of the authoress." Churchman. 
 
 " This collection of stories fully sustains her previous reputation, and also gives 
 a brilliant promise of future eminence in this department of literature." 
 
 Tribune. 
 
 " We find in this volume unmistakeable evidences of originality of mind, an 
 almost superfluous depth of reflection for the department of composition to which 
 it is devoted, a rare facility in seizing the multiform aspects of nature, and a still 
 rarer power of giving them the form and hue of imagination, without destroying 
 their identity." Harper's Magazine. 
 
 " In all the productions of Miss Chesebro's pen is evident a delicate perception 
 of the relation of natural beauty to the moral emotions, and a deep love of the true 
 and the beautiful in art and nature." Day-Book.
 
 THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 D G A R ALLAN POE: 
 
 WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE AND GENIUS, 
 
 BY J. R. LOWELL, N. P. WILLIS, AND R. W. GRISWOLD 
 
 In two Volumes, 12/rao., with a POBTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 PaiCE, Two DOLLARS AUD FIFTT CENTS. 
 
 NOTICES OK TUK PRESS. 
 
 " The edition is published for the benefit of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Maria 
 Clemm, for whose sake we may wish it the fullest success. It however, de 
 serves, and will undoubtedly obtain, a large circulation from the desire eo many 
 will feel to lay by a memorial of this singularly-gifted writer and unfortunate 
 man." Philadelphia North. American. 
 
 " Poe's writings are distinguished for vigorous and minute analysis, and" 
 the skill with which he has employed the strange fascination of mystery and 
 terror. There is an air of reality in all his narrations a dwelling upon partic 
 ulars, and a faculty of interesting you in them such as is possessed by few 
 writers except those who are giving their own individual experiences. The 
 reader can scarcely divest his mind, even in reading the most fanciful of his 
 Btories, that the events of it have not actually occurred, and the characters had 
 a real existence." Philadelphia Ledger. 
 
 ' We need not say that these volumes will be found rich in intellectual 
 excitements, and abounding in remarkable specimens of vigorous, beautiful, 
 and highly suggestive composition ; they are all that remains to us of a man 
 whose uncommon genius it would be folly to deny." N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 "Mr. Poe's intellectual character his genius is stamped upon all his produc 
 tions, and we shall place these his works in the library among those books not 
 to be parted with." N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 " These works have a funereal cast as well in the melancholy portrait pre 
 fixed aud the title, as in the three pallbearing editors who accompany them 
 in public. They are the memorial of a singular man, possessed perhaps of as 
 great mere literary ingenuity and mechanical dexterity of style and manage 
 ment as any the country has produced. Some of the tales in the collection 
 are as complete and admirable as anything of their kind in the language." 
 Military Review. 
 
 " A complete collection of the works of one of the most talented and singu 
 lar men of the day. Mr. Poe was a genius, but an erratic one he was a comet 
 or a meteor, not a star or sun. His genius was that almost contradiction of 
 terms, an analytic genius. Genius is nearly universally synthetic but Poe was 
 an exception to all rules. Ho would build up a poem as a bricklayer builds a 
 wall ; or rather, he would begin at the top and build downward to the base ; 
 and yet, into the poem BO manufactured, he would manage to breathe the breath 
 of life. And this fact proved that it was not all a manufacture that the poem 
 was also, to a certain degree, a growth, a real plant, taking root in the mind, 
 and watered by the springs of the soul." Saturday Post. 
 
 " We have just spent some delightful hours in looking over these two vol 
 umes, which' contain one of the most pleasing additions to our literature with 
 which we have met for a long time. They comprise the works of the late 
 Edgar A. Poe pieces which for years have been going ' the rounds of the 
 press,' and are now first collected when their author is beyond the reach of 
 humar praise. We feel, however, that these productions will live. They 
 bear t'ae stamp of true genius ; and if their reputation begins with a ' fit audi 
 ence '.h'jugh few,' the circle will be constantly widening, and they will retain M 
 prominent place in our literature." Rev. Dr. Kip
 
 JUST PUBLISHED, 
 
 In one Volume, 12/wo., cloth, PKICK $1.25, 
 THE 
 
 NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE ; 
 
 OR, 
 
 GHOSTS AND GHOST-SEERS. 
 
 BY CATHERINE CROWE, 
 
 AUTHOR OP "SUSAJT HOPLET," " ITILT DAW8O1T," ETC. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 This book treats of allegorical dreams, presentiments, trances, apparitions, 
 troubled spirits, haunted houses, etc., and will be read with interest by many 
 because it comes from a source laying claim to considerable talent, and ia 
 written by one who really believes all she says, and urges her reasonings with 
 a good deal of earnestness. Albany Argus. 
 
 It embraces a vast collection of marvellous and supernatural stories of su 
 pernatural occurrences out of the ordinary course of events. N. Y. Globe. 
 
 Miss Crowe has proved herself a careful and most industrious compiler. 
 She has gathered materials from antiquity and from modern times, and gives 
 to English and American readers the ghost-stories that used to frighten the 
 young ones of Greece and Rome, as well as those that accomplish a similar 
 end in Germany and other countries of modern Europe. Phila. Bulletin. 
 
 It is written in a philosophical spirir. Philadelphia Courier. 
 
 This queer volume has excited considerable attention in England. It is not 
 a catchpenny affair, but is an intelligent inquiry into the asserted facts respect 
 ing ghosts and apparitions, and a psychological discussion upon the reasona 
 bleness of a belief in their existence. Boston Post. 
 
 In this remarkable work, Miss Crowe, who writes with the vigor and grace 
 of a woman of strong sense and high cultivation, collects the most remarkable 
 and best authenticated accounts, traditional and recorded, of preternatural vis 
 itations and appearances. Boston Transcript. 
 
 This is a copious chronicle of what we are compelled to believe authentic 
 instances of communication between the material and spiritual world. It- is 
 written in a clear, vigorous, and fresh style, and keeps the reader in a con 
 stant excitement, yet without resorting to claptrap. Day-Book. 
 
 The book is tilled with facts, which are not to be disputed except by actual 
 proof. They have long been undisputed before the world. The class of facts 
 are mainly of a kind thought by most persons to be " mysterious ;" but there 
 will be found much in the book calculated to throw light upon the heretofore 
 mysterious phenomena. Providence Mirror. 
 
 This book is one which appears in a very opportune time to command at 
 tention, and should be read by all who are desirous of information in regard 
 to things generally called mysterious, relating to the manifestations of the 
 spirit out of man and in him. Traveller. 
 
 This is not only a curious but also a very able work. It is one of the 
 most interesting books of the season albeit the reader's hair will occasional 
 ly rise on end as he turns over the pages, especially if he reads alone far into 
 the night Zion's Herald. 
 
 A very appropriate work for these days of mysterious rappings, but one 
 which shows that the author has given the subjects upon which she treats 
 considerable study, and imparts the knowledge derived in a concise manner. 
 Boston Evening Gazette. 
 
 This is undoubtedly the most remarkable book of the month, and can not 
 fail to interest all classes of people. Water- Cure Journal. 
 
 To the lovers of the strange and mysterious in nature, this volume will pos" 
 ess an attractive interest N. T. Truth-Teller. 
 The lovers of the marvellous will delight in its perusal.. Com. Advertiser
 
 NOTICES OF EPISODES OF INSECT LIFE. 
 
 " A more charming book, fresh with the fragrance of the country air and musical 
 with the rustle of insect wings, is not likely to be seen often. In the clearness of its 
 type, the beauty of the illustrations, and the whole manner of its presentment, the 
 " Episodes" fairly gives the laural to its tasteful and enterprising publisher." Lit. World. 
 
 " There is a moral, we may Fay a religious lesson, inculcated in every chapter of this 
 book." Watchman and Reflector. 
 
 "The style is easy, flowing, natural, and happy. The ideas are such that the reader 
 will arise from their perusal, a ' wiser and a better man.' " Courant. 
 
 " We defy any one to rise from its perusal, without thanking the book for many new 
 ideas, added to one's previous stock of information, as well as feeling better, and more 
 kindly disposed, for the lessons of humanity and benevolence it teaches." Bost. Courier. 
 
 " A most attractive work to all ages, for while it is amusing and playful in its language, 
 it is replete with valuable information. It might be called Science made pleasure, or 
 Fact made fanciful. A finer specimen of typography is rarely seen, and we commend 
 it to all those who would see in nature constant illustrations of the power and goodness 
 of its great Creator." Newark Daily Advertiser. 
 
 " Wonderfully beautiful, graceful, and entertaining. Children can read it with un 
 derstanding, and be enraptured by it: and this is no email thing to say of a work not 
 especially intended for juveniles." Ontario Repository. 
 
 " By a happy combination of taste and knowledge science and poetry, with anec 
 dote and description, the naturalist and the mere reader for amusement are equally 
 gratified. It is a book for the library, and just the thing as a companion for a journey, 
 or the winter evening fireside. It is well adapted for the sick-chamber too, and the 
 weary invalid as he reads may fancy that he smells again the sweet fragrance of spring 
 flowers, and listens to the hum of a bright summer's day ; and, not least of all, the ten 
 dency of these beautiful volumes, is to elevate our conceptions of the grandeur and love 
 of the Almighty Greater." Old Colony Memorial. 
 
 "This is a work of rare and varied beauties. It is beautiful within and without; 
 beautiful in conception and in execution ; beautiful as it comes from the hands of the 
 author, the engraver, the printer and the binder." Albany Argus. 
 
 " This is one of the most tasteful books of the season, very entertaining and amusing, 
 and at the same time the work of an accomplished naturalist." Christian Register. 
 
 "The author has availed himself not only of the greater abundance of material which 
 the summer months supply, but also of the brighter hues afforded by the summer sun 
 shine, for the enrichment of his glowing descriptions, which become gorgeous while 
 reflecting a parti-colored glory that eclipses the splendor of Solomon." Journ. of Com, 
 
 No work published during the year, has received so extensive and favorable notices 
 from the British Quarterlies and Newspapers as the Episodes of Insect Life. A few are 
 here given as specimens of the whole. 
 
 " The whole pile of Natural History fable, poetry, theory, and fact is stuck over 
 with quaint apothegms and shrewd maxims deduced, for the benefit of man, from the 
 contemplation of such tiny monitors as gnats and moths. Altogether, the book is curi 
 ous and interesting, quaint and clever, genial and well-informed." Morning Chronicle. 
 
 "We have seldom been in company with so entertaining a guide to the Insect 
 World." Athenaum. 
 
 " Rich veins of humor in a groundwork of solid, yet entertaining information. Al 
 though lightness and amusement can find subject-matter in every page, the under cur 
 rent of the " Episodes" is substance and accurate information." Ladies' Newspaper. 
 
 " A history of many of the more remarkable tribes and species, with a graphic and 
 imaginative coloring, often equally original and happy, and accompanied both by accu 
 rate figures of species, and ingenious fanciful vignettes." Annual Address of the Presi 
 dent of the Entomological Society. 
 
 " This second series of " Episodes" is even more delightful than its predecessor. 
 Never havp entomological lessons been given in a happier strain. Young and old, wise 
 and simple, grave and gay, can not turn over its pages without deriving pleasure and 
 information ." Sun. 
 
 " The headpiece illustrations of each chapter are beautiful plates of the insects under 
 description in all their stages, capitally grouped, and with a scenic background full of 
 playful fancy : while the tailpieces form a series of quaint vignettes, some of which are 
 especially clever." Atlas. 
 
 " The book includes solid instruction as well as genial and captivating mirth Th 
 fcientific knowledge of the writer is thoroughly reliable. Examiner.
 
 For Schools, Academies, and Self-Instruction 
 
 THE 
 
 AMERICAN DRAWING-BOOK. 
 
 BY JOHN G. CHAPMAN, N. A. 
 
 THIS WORK will be published in PARTS ; in the course of which 
 
 PRIMARY INSTRUCTIONS AND RUDIMENTS OF DRAWING- 
 DRAWING FROM NATURE MATERIALS AND METHODS: 
 PERSPECTIVE COMPOSITION LANDSCAPE FIGURES, ETC : 
 DRAWING, AS APPLICABLE TO THE MECHANIC ARTS: 
 PAINTING IN OIL AND WATER COLORS: 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF LIGHT AND SHADE: 
 EXTERNAL ANATOMY OF THE HUMAN FORM, AND COMPARATIVE 
 
 ANATOMY: 
 THE VARIOUS METHODS OF ETCHING, ENGRAVING, MODELLING, Etc. 
 
 Will be severally treated, separately ; so that, as far as practicable, each 
 Part will be complete in itself, and form, in the whole, " a Manual of 
 Information sufficient for all the purposes of the Amateur, and Basis 
 of Study for the Professional Artist, as well as a valuable Assistant 
 to Teachers in Pullic and Private Schools ;" to whom it is especially 
 recommended, as a work destined to produce a revolution in the sys 
 tem of popular education, by making the Arts of Design accessible 
 and familiar to all, from the concise and intelligible manner in which 
 the subject is treated throughout. 
 
 The want of such a wcirk, has been the great cause of neglect in this 
 important branch of education ; and this want is at once and fully sup 
 plied by the 
 
 AMERICAN DRAWING-BOOK : 
 
 npon which Mr. CHAPMAN has been for years engaged; and it is now 
 produced, without regard to expense, in all fts details, and published at 
 a price to place it within the means of every one. 
 
 The Work will be published in large quarto form, put ap in substan 
 tial covers, and issued as rapidly as the careful execution of the numer 
 ous engravings, and the mechanical perfection of the whole, will allow 
 
 ESP Any one PART may be had separately 
 
 Price 5O Cents each. Part. 
 
 ^ The DRAWING COPY-BOOKS, intended aa auxiliary 
 to the Work, in assisting Teachers to carry out the system of instruction, 
 especially in the Primary and Elementary parts, form a new and valu 
 able addition to the means of instruction. They will be sold at a cost 
 little beyond that of ordinary blank-books.
 
 NARRATIVES 
 
 OF 
 
 SORCERY AND MAGIC; 
 
 FROM THE MOST AUTHENTIC SOURCES, 
 
 BY THOMAS WRIGHT, A. M., F. R. A. 
 
 In One Volume, 12mo., Cloth PRICE $1.25. 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " This is one of the pleasantest books about witchcraft that we ever read ; 
 and Mr. Wright tells his stories and conveys his information with so much 
 spirit and good sense that we are sorry he has confined himself to only one 
 department of a subject which he is very well able to treat as a whole. 
 Mr. Wright has rewritten the criminal annals of witchcraft in a style per 
 fectly free from any important faults ; and he has illustrated his narrative 
 by rich collateral facts as could be acquired only by long familiarity with a 
 peculiar and extensive branch of antiquarian learning. We do not see 
 then that the fortunes of witchcraft have aught to hope from any narrator 
 who may attempt to supersede him." Athenaeum. 
 
 " This is a very curious and highly interesting book. It contains a series 
 of popular stories of sorcery and magic (the first chiefly) and their victims, 
 from the period of the middle ages down to that of the last executions for 
 witchcraft in England and America. Mr. Wright tells these stories admi 
 rably ; and without marring their effect as illustrations of the respective 
 ^phases of corrupt or imperfect civilization to which they were incident, his 
 clear comments point the truth or philosophy of the individual case indepen 
 dent of its subjection to general causes or influences. The range of infor 
 mation in the book is extraordinarily wide, and it is popularly set forth 
 throughout, without a touch of pedantry or a dull page." Examiner. 
 
 " From this wide field Mr. Wright has selected two parts for illustration 
 viz., {.orcery and magic ; and must have devoted much reading and research 
 to produce so comprehensive a view of them, not only in England and 
 Scotland, but in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and New 
 England." Literary Gazette.
 
 JUST PUBLISHED, 
 
 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT, 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 DISTINGUISHED SCOTTISH FEMALE CHARACTERS, 
 
 Embracing the Period of the Covenant and the Persecution. 
 
 Br THE REV. JAMES ANDERSON. 
 In One Volume, IZmo., cloth, PRICE $1.25 extra gilt, gilt edges $1.75. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " It is written with great spirit and a hearty sympathy, and abounds in incidents of 
 more than a romantic interest, while the type of piety it discloses is the noblest and 
 most elevated." N. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 " Seldom has there been a more interesting volume than this in our hands. Stories 
 of Scottish suffering for the faith have always thrilled us ; but here we have the me 
 moirs of distinguished female characters, embracing the period of the Covenant and the 
 Persecution, with such tales of heroism, devotion, trials, triumphs, or deaths, as rouse 
 subdue, and deeply move the heart of the reader." N. Y. Observer. 
 
 " Many a mother in Israel will have her faith strengthened, and her zeal awakened, 
 and her courage animated afresh by the example set before her by the cloud of wit 
 nesses of her own sex, who esteemed everything wealth, honor, pleasure, ease, and 
 life itself vastly inferior to the grace of the Gospel ; and who freely offered themselves 
 and all that they had, to the sovereign disposal of Him who had called them with an 
 holy calling; according to his purpose and grace." Richmond, (Va.) Watchman and 
 Observer. 
 
 'The Scotch will read this book because it commemorates their noble countrywo 
 men ; Presbyterians will like it, because it records the endurance and triumphs of their 
 faith ; and the ladies will read it, as an interesting memorial of what their sex has done 
 in trying times for truth and liberty." Cincinnati Central Christian Herald. 
 
 " It is a record which, while it confers honor on the sex, will elevate the heart, and 
 strengthen it to the better performance of every duty." Richmond (Va.) Religious 
 Herald. 
 
 "The Descendants of these saints are among us, in this Pilgrim land, and we earn 
 estly commend this book to their perusal." Plymoth Old Colony Memorial. 
 
 "There are pictures of endurance, trust, and devotion, in this volume of illustriou* 
 Buffering, which are worthy of a royal setting." Ontario Repository. 
 
 " They abound with incidents and anecdotes illustrative of the times and we need 
 scarcely say are deeply interesting to all who take an interest in the progress of Chris 
 tianity." Boston Journal. 
 
 "Mr. Anderson has tueated his subject ably , and has set forth in strong light the en 
 during faith and courage of the wives and daughters of the Covenanters." N. Y. Albion 
 
 'It is a book of great attractiveness, having not only the freshness of novelty but 
 every element of historical interest Courier and Enquirer. 
 
 " The author is a clergyman of the Scottish kirk, and has executed his undertaking 
 with that spirit and fulness which might be expected from one enjoying the best advan 
 tages for the discovery of obscure points in the history of Scotland, and the warmes* 
 sympathy with the heroines of his own creed." Commercial Advertiser.
 
 JTTST PUBLISHED, 
 
 LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS, 
 
 BY WILLIAM E. AYTOUN", 
 
 PHOFESSOR OF LITERATURE AND BELLES LETTRES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 
 AND EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD's MAGAZINE. 
 
 One Volume, I2mo., Cloth PRICE $1. 
 
 " These strains belong to stirring and pathetic events, and until poetic descriptions 
 of them shall be disregarded, we think Mr. Aytoun's productions well calculated to 
 maintain a favorite place in public estimation." Literary Gazette. 
 
 ' The ballads in question are strongly tinged by deep national feeling, and remind the 
 reader of Macaulay's ' Lays of Ancient Rome ;' and, from the more picturesque nature 
 of the subject, are, perhaps, even still more highly colored. ' Edinburgh after Flod- 
 den,' ' the Death of Montrose,' and ' the Battle of Kiliecranke,' are strains which Scotch 
 men will not willingly let die." Men of the Time in 1852. 
 
 " Choosing from the ample range of Scottish history, occasions which are near and 
 dear to the popular sympathy of his country, Mr A^rtoun, confident of the force of 
 strong convictions and a direct appeal to the elementary emotions of the human heart, 
 has presented us eight noble lays clear in feeling, simple and direct in expression, 
 and happily varied and variable in measure, which will, we are confident, outlive many, 
 if not all, of his more pretentious and ornamented contemporaries." Literary World. 
 
 ALSO, 
 
 THE BOOK OF BALLADS/ ." 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 BON GAULTIER. 
 One Volume, 12mo., Cloth PKICE Y5 cts. 
 
 -"Bon Gaultier himself, his wit, satire, and versification, remained a 'Yarrow un- 
 visited.' The opuscula of that humorous writer, somehow marvellously escaping the 
 prehensile fingers of our publishers, were yet unknown to American readers ; though 
 an occasional "whiff" and stray aroma of the choice volume had now and then transpired 
 through the columns of a magazine or newspaper. 
 
 " Bon Gaultier's Book of Ballads is eimply the wittiest and best thing of the kind since 
 the Rejected Addresses. Its parodies of Lockhart (in the Spanish Ballads), of Tenny 
 son (his lovely sing-song puerilities), of Maceulay (the sounding Roman strain), of 
 Moses (the ' puff poetical'), are, with a dozen others, in various ways, any of them 
 equal to the famous Crabbe, and Scott, ami Coleridge of the re-ascending Drury Lane." 
 Literary World. 
 
 IN PRESS, 
 
 Jffanon Lescaut. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE ABBE PREVOST.
 
 tontiful, unit Mqirc itfnrlt. 
 
 
 
 JUST COMPLKTED, 
 
 EPISODES OF INSECT LIFE, 
 
 BY ACHETA DOMESTICA. 
 
 IN THREE SERIES, BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED, 
 
 I. INSECTS OF SPKING. 
 II. INSECTS OF SUMMER. 
 III. INSECTS OF WINTER. 
 Each Volume complete in Itself Price $2.00. 
 The same, elegantly colored after Nature, making a 
 superb Gift Book for the Holydays. 
 
 PBICE $4.00 per Volume. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " These volumes are highly creditable to American taste in every department of book- 
 making ; it is impossible to give an idea of the perfection of workmanship and the ad 
 mirable keeping of parts they exhibit. In order to appreciate this, one must see the 
 volume^, and having seen them, he will at once transfer them to his own table, for the 
 instruction and amusement of old and young." N. Y. Observer. 
 
 " Moths, clow-worms, lady-birds, May-flies, bees, and a variety of other inhabitants of 
 the insect world, are descanted upon in a pleasing style, combining scientific information 
 with romance, in a manner peculiarly attractive." Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 " The style is the farthest possible remove from pedantry and dullness, every page 
 teems with delightful matter, and the whole is thoroughly furnished with grace and 
 beauty, as well as truth. One giving himself over to its fascinating charms, might read 
 ily believe himself fast on to the borders, if not in the very midst of fairy land." Roches 
 ter Daily Democrat. 
 
 " We have in this work deep philosophy and an endless flow of humor, and lessons 
 Bet before us, drawn from ants, beetles, and butterflies, which we might do well to pon 
 der. We cnn think of nothing more calculated to delight the passing hour than the 
 beautiful delineations we find in these three volumes." Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 " The whole insect world is represented in these volumes, many of them disguised so 
 as to present what politicians would call a compromise between a human and an insect 
 We cordially commend these volumes to the attention of our readers." Boston Museum. 
 
 "A book elegant enough for the centre table, witty enough for after dinner, and wise 
 enough for the study and the school-room. One of the beautiful lessons of this work is 
 the kindly view it takes of nature. Nothing is made in vain, not only, but nothing is 
 made ugly or repulsive. A charm is thrown around every object, and life suffused 
 through all, suggestive of the Creator's goodness and wisdom." N. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 " What a monument is here raised to that wonderful, tiny race, so often disregardedi 
 but which nevertheless amply repays the care we may bestow in studying their pecu 
 liarities. The interest of the reader of these volumes is well sustained by the humor 
 and sprightliness of the writer." Zion's Herald. 
 
 " It is a beautiful specimen of book-making. The character of the contents may be 
 already known to our readers from the long and very favorable attention- they have re 
 ceived from the English reviewers. The illustrations are at once grotesque and signifi 
 cant." Boston Post. 
 
 ' The book is one of especial beauty and utility, and we heartily thank the publisher 
 for his enterprise in putting it within the rench of American readers. It is worthy of a 
 place in every family library. Elegantly illustrated and humorously yet chastely writ 
 ten, it U calculated to amuse aad instruct all classes of readers," Com. Advertiser.
 
 IN PRESS, 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES, 
 
 BT 
 
 AKSENE HOUSSAYE. 
 
 With Beautifully-engraved Portraits of Voltaire and Made, de Parabere, 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF SCARRON. 
 
 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 VOLTAIRE AND MLLE. DE~LIVRY. 
 
 ASPASIA(THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO). 
 
 MADEMOISELLE GAUSSIN. 
 
 CALLOT. LA TOUR. 
 
 RAOUL AND GABRIELLE. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MARIVAUX. 
 
 THE MARCHIONESS' CAPRICES. 
 
 THE MISTRESS OF CORNILLE SCHUT 
 
 CHAMFORT. 
 
 ABELARD AND HELOISE. 
 
 THE DEATH OF ANDRE CHEN1ER. 
 
 THE MARQUIS DE ST. AULAIRE. 
 
 COLLE. 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF SEDAINE. 
 
 PRUDHON. 
 
 BLANGINI 
 
 AN UNKNOWN SCULPTOR. 
 
 VANDYKE. 
 
 SAPPHO. 
 
 A LOST POET. 
 
 HANDS FILLED WITH ROSES, FILLED WITH GOLD, FILLED WITH BLOOD. 
 
 THE HUNDRED AND ONE PICTURES OF TARDIF, FRIEND OF GILLOT. 
 
 THREE PAGES IN THE LIFE OF MADAME DE PARABERE. 
 
 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD UPON THE LIVING. 
 
 " THE title of Arse'ne Houssaye's volume is not to be literally understood* 
 There is more in it than falls at first upon the tympanum of our intelligence. The 
 ecene and action of the book are by no means restricted to academic groves and 
 theatrical green-rooms. Its author allows himself greater latitude. Adopting a 
 trite motto, he declares the world a stage. His philosophers and actresses com 
 prise a multitude of classes and characters; he finds them everywhere. Artists 
 and thinkers, women of fashion and frequenters of courts, the lover of science 
 and the favored of wit and beauty the majority of all these, according to his 
 fantastical preface, are philosophers and actresses. Only on the stage and at the 
 Sorbonne, he maliciously remarks, few actresses and philosophers are to be found. 
 
 " To a good book a title is a matter of minor moment. It was doubtless, diffi 
 cult to find one exactly appropriate to a volume so desultory and varied as that 
 of Houssaye. In the one selected he has studied antithetical effect, as his coun 
 trymen are prone to do ; but we are not disposed to quarrel with his choice, which 
 was perhaps as good as could be made. Philosophers certainly figure in his pages 
 often in pursuits and situations in which few would expect to find them; ac 
 tresses, too, are there actresses as they were in France a century ago, rivalling, 
 in fashion, luxury, and elegance, the highest ladies of the court, who, on their 
 part, often vied with them in dissipation and extravagance. But Houssnye is 
 a versatile and excursive genius, loving change of subject, scene, and century; 
 and he skips gayly down the stream of time, from the days of Plato and Aspasia 
 to our own, pausing here and there, us the fancy takes bin:, to cull a flower, point 
 a moral, or tell a tale." Blackwood's Magazine.
 
 JUST PUBLISHED, 
 
 CHARACTERS IN THE GOSPEL 
 
 ILLUSTRATING 
 
 PHASES OF CHARACTER AT THE PRESENT DAY, 
 Bv REV. E. H. CHAPIN. 
 
 One Volume, 12w0., Cloth PRICE 50 cts. 
 
 SUBJECTS. 
 
 I. John the Baptist ; the Kefonner. 
 n. Herod; the Sensualist. 
 HI. Thomas; the Skeptic. 
 IV. Pilate ; the Man of the World. 
 V. Nicoiemus; the Seeker after Religion. 
 VI. The Sisters of Bethany. 
 
 Christianity." Christian Enquirer 
 
 "Mr. Chapin is a graphic painter. He writes in a forcible, bold, and fearless man- 
 r: and while we can not accord with nil his views, many suggestive thoughts and 
 
 : nu wniie we can noi accora wun r.u nis views, many su<j<resrive thoughts ar 
 'ul reflections may be derived from its pages." Religious Herald (Richmond, Va.) 
 
 have bern delivered by Mr. Chapin from the pulpit, and all who 
 
 abound with strong, pungent tru 
 through." Olive Branch (Boston.)
 
 A NEIV AXl) POPULAR VOLUME. 
 
 TALES AND TRADITIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 HUNGARY. 
 
 BY THERESA PULSZKY. 
 With a Portrait of the Author. 
 
 In One Volume, Cloth-Price, $1 25. 
 
 THE above contains, in addition to the English publication, a NEW PREFACE, and 
 TALES, now first printed from the manuscript of the Author, .who has a direct interest in 
 the publication. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 1. The Baron's Daughter. 
 
 2. The Castle of Zipsen. 
 
 3. Yanoshik, the Robber. 
 
 4. The Free Shot. 
 
 5. The Golden Cross of Korosfo. 
 
 6. The Guardians. 
 
 7. The Love of the Angels. 
 
 8. The Maid and the Genii 
 
 9. Ashmodai, the Lame Demon. 
 10. The Nun of Rauchenbach. 
 
 11. The Cloister of'Manastir. 
 
 12. Pan Twardoweky. 
 
 13. The Poor Tartar. 
 
 14. The Maidens' Castle. 
 
 15. The Hair of the Orphan Girl. 
 
 16. The Rocks of Lipnik. 
 
 17. Jack, the Horse-Dealer. 
 
 18. Klingsohr of Hungary. 
 19 Yanoah, the Hero. 
 
 20. The Hungarian Outlaws. 
 
 21. Tradition of the Hungarian Race. 
 NOTICES OF THE ENGLISH PRESS. 
 
 ' The old fairy lore of the world, though as familiar to us as our own names, never 
 loses its charm, if it only be told to new tunes if Cinderella's godmother presents herself 
 to the over-worked and ill-used child in a national costume if we find ' Ogier the DanJ 
 sitting, waiting for the time when he is to arise and deliver the world, in some fresh sub- 
 
 op 
 era. We are as glad to dream of finding the lost ' Golden Cross of Korosfo' as if we had 
 not been already Bet a-yearnhig by Moore for 
 
 'The round towers of other days," 
 
 buried deep in the bosom of Lough Neagh. But, in addition to these universal stories- -r 
 old as time, and precious as belief Madame Pulszky has a special budget of her own. 
 The legend of ' The Castle of Zipsen' is told with racy humor. Whimsically absurd, too, 
 are the matrimonial difficulties of Pan and Panna Twardowsky, as here related ; while 
 the fate of Vendelin Drageth reveals how ' the wild huntsman' may be varied, so as to 
 give that fine old legend a more orthodox and edifying close than the original version 
 possesses. Most interesting of all are ' The Hungarian Outlaws.' " London Athenaeum. 
 
 " This work claims more attention than is ordinarily given to books of its class. Such 
 is the fluency and correctness nay, even the nicety and felicity of style with which 
 Miniamr Pulszky writes the English language, that merely in this respect the tales here 
 collected form a curious study. But they contain also highly suggestive illustrations of 
 national literature and character. To not a few of the ' traditions' of Hungary a living 
 force and significance are still imparted by the practices as well as the belief of her peas 
 antry and people, and none were better qualified than the author of this book to give fa 
 miliar and pointed expression to these national traits The pride and power of the 
 
 landed noble, in contrast with the more gaudy but less real power of the court the con 
 tinual struggle of the classes in immediate proximity with the noble and (that fancy so 
 [Hjculiar to rude ages in every country) the calling in of the common robber to redress 
 the unequal social balance are among the prominent subjects of the traditions related by 
 Madame Pulszky with much beauty and vivacity. The tale or tradition which holds a 
 middle place between these and the purely fantastic, is that which describes- the home- 
 life of the peasant, and, at the same time, satisfies the love of distant adventure, which he 
 cultivates as he follows his plough." London Examiner. 
 
 " Freshness of subject is invaluable in literature Hungary is still fresh ground. It has 
 teen trodden, but it is not yet a common highway. The tales and legends are very vari 
 ous, from the mere traditional anecdote to the regular legend, and they have the sort of 
 Interest which all national traditions excite." London Leader.
 
 MEN AND WOMEN 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 BY ARSENE HOUSSAYE. 
 
 With Beautifully-Engraved Portraits of Louis XV. and Made, de Pompadour, 
 In Two Volumes, 12/no., Cloth PRICE $2.50. 
 
 CO NTE NTS, 
 
 DUFRESNY. 
 
 FONTENELLE 
 
 MARIVAUX. 
 
 PIRON. 
 
 THE ABBE PREVOST. 
 
 GENTIL-BERNARD. 
 
 FLORIAN. 
 
 BOUFFLERS. 
 
 DIDEROT. 
 
 GRETRY. 
 
 RIVEROL. 
 
 LOUIS XV. 
 
 GREUZE. 
 
 BOUCHER. 
 
 THE VANLOOS. 
 
 LANTARA. 
 
 WATTE AU. 
 
 LA MOTTE. 
 
 DEHLE. 
 
 ABBE TRUBLET. 
 
 BUFFON. 
 
 DORAT. 
 
 CARDINAL DE BERNIS. 
 
 CREBILLON THE GAY. 
 
 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 
 
 MADE DE POMPADOUR. 
 
 VADE. 
 
 MLLE CAMARGO. 
 
 MLLE CLAIRON. 
 
 MAD. DE LAPOPELINIERB 
 
 SOPHIE ARNOULD. 
 
 CREBILLON THE TRAGIC. 
 
 MLLE GUIMARD. 
 
 THREE PAGES IN THE LIFE OF DANCOURT. 
 A PROMENADE IN THE PALAIS-ROYAL. 
 
 LE CHEVALIER DE LA CLOS. 
 
 "A series of pleasantly desultory papers neither history, biography* 
 criticism, nor romance, but compounded of all four: always lively and 
 graceful, and often sparkling with esprit, that subtle essence which may be 
 BO much belter illustrated than defined. M. Houssaye's aim in these sketch 
 es for evidently he had an aim beyond the one he alleges of pastime for 
 his leisure hours seems to have been to discourse of persons rather cele 
 brated than known, whose names and works are familiar to all, but with 
 whose characters and histories few are much acquainted. To the mass of 
 readers, his book will have the charm of freshness ; the student and the 
 man of letters, who have already drunk at the springs whence M. Houssaye 
 has derived his inspiration and materials, will pardon any lack of novelty 
 for the sake of the spirit and originality of the treatment." BLACKWOOD. 
 
 ITS PRESS, 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES, 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
 
 MEN AND WOMEN 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 BY ARSENE HOUSSAYE. 
 
 With Beautifully-Engraved Portraits of Louis XV. and Made, de Pompadour, 
 In Two Volumes, \2rno., Cloth PRICE $2.50. 
 
 CONTE NTS, 
 
 DUFRESNY. 
 FONTENELLE 
 MARIVAUX. 
 PIRON. 
 
 LOUIS XV. 
 GREUZE. 
 BOUCHER. 
 THE VANLOOS. 
 
 THE ABBE PREVOST. LANTARA. 
 
 GENTIL-BERNARD. WATTEAU. 
 
 FLORIAN. LA MOTTE. 
 
 BOUFFLERS. DEHLE. 
 
 DIDEROT. ABBE TRUBLET. 
 
 GRETRY. BUFFON. 
 
 RIVEROL. DORAT. 
 
 THREE PAGES IN THE LIFE 
 
 CARDINAL DE BERNIS. 
 CREBILLON THE GAY. 
 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 
 MADE DE POMPADOUR. 
 VADE. 
 
 MLLE CAMARGO. 
 MLLE CLAIRON. 
 MAD. DE LAPOPELINIERE 
 SOPHIE ARNOULD. 
 CREBILLON THE TRAGIC. 
 MLLE GUIMARD. 
 OF DANCOURT. 
 
 A PROMENADE IN THE PALAIS-ROYAL. 
 
 LE CHEVALIER DE LA CLOS. 
 
 " A series of pleasantly desultory papers neither history, biography* 
 criticism, nor romance, but compounded of all four: always lively and 
 graceful, and often sparkling with esprit, that subtle essence which may be 
 so much better illustrated than defined. M. Houssaye's aim in these sketch 
 es for eviden-tly he had an aim beyond the one he alleges of pastime for 
 his leisure hours seems to have been to discourse of persons rather cele 
 brated than known, whose names and works are familiar to all, but with 
 whose characters and histories few are much acquainted. To the mass of 
 readers, his book will have the charm of freshness; the student and the 
 man of letters, who have already drunk at the springs whence M. Houssaye 
 has derived his inspiration and materials, will pardon any lack of novelty 
 for the sake of the spirit and originality of the treatment." BLACKWOOD. 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES, 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR.