PS 1006 
 
 S8 
 1862 
 Copy 1 
 
^A.A. TSLi.01.6 
 
 ^u^ .-A.1.S.J 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
POEMS. 
 
>.i- 
 
 V N\ 
 
 \ 
 
 V 
 
S Y B E L L E 
 
 OTHER POEiMS 
 
 
 / 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 Carleton, Publisher^ 130 Grand S(. 
 
 (late RnOD & CARLETON.) 
 
 MDCCCLXII. "^--^ 
 
 S'n 
 
 /^ 
 
 ////^^_ 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congiess in tlie year 1862, by 
 
 G. W. CAKLETON, 
 
 In tlie Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of tlie Southern District of 
 
 New Yorlj, 
 
 a 8-7 
 
 ; 
 
gc^katioit. 
 
 To HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, Esq. 
 
 Even as a child with tender reverence brings 
 
 From its small store some treasured offerings, 
 
 Which, trifles though they be, yet serve to prove 
 
 To those more wise its confidence and love, 
 
 So at thy feet, Bard of high renown, 
 
 I trusting lay my humble offering down, 
 
 Not as all worthy thus to boldly claim 
 
 The well-prized favor of thy glance — Thy fame 
 
 Checks the fond hope my untaught lips would frame; 
 
 Yet nature tells me he who tunes his lyre 
 
 So oft in woman's praise; who wakes such fire 
 
 Of pui-e and tender love as Preciosa owns; 
 
 Who walks unwearied through life's changeful zones 
 
 Still cheered and guided by the flame divine 
 
 That lures the hopeful, sad Evangeline; 
 
 Who, waiving custom's laws, makes nature speak 
 
 On fiiir Priscilla's lip and changing cheek; 
 
 Who, more than all, paints with a master's hand 
 
 The dark-browed children of our western land. 
 
 Who moves all hearts, as Hiawatha's moved. 
 
 To the true, tender woman whom he loved, 
 
 Then throws o'er all the warrior's grief and gloom, 
 
And wakes our tears for Minnehaha's doom — 
 
 He, honoring woman thus, to manhood true, 
 
 And true to love where love is virtue's due. 
 
 Not all unmoved or with indifference cold 
 
 Can crush the timid hope, though seeming bold. 
 
 That ventures thus a passing glance to claim 
 
 For one poor song, which, though unknown to fame, 
 
 Yet seeks, as he has ever sought, to prove 
 
 How much of life our being owes to love. 
 
 Go then, Sybelle ; not with the studied art 
 Of classic forms, but from thy woman heart 
 Full of that love-born life, thy maiden form 
 All glowing with its fire, thy lips yet warm 
 With passion's parting kiss, thy steadfast eye 
 Bent on the future with that courage high 
 That love alone inspires — aye, go, Sybelle, 
 Repeat the lesson thou hast learned so well 
 To him, to all, that through all time shall prove 
 That love alone is life, and life is love ! 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 rase 
 DEDICATION" TO HENRY W. LONGFELLOW . . 5 
 
 SYBELLE — PAETi 9 
 
 STBELLE PART II. . . . . . 39 
 
 ADELAIDE 79 
 
 MARGUERITE 95 
 
 LILLIAN GRAY 9S 
 
 AMY DEAN" ....... 100 
 
 MY MARY 102 
 
 JENNY 104 
 
 JOSEPHINE . . . . . . . KtC) 
 
 LITTLE ALICE 108 
 
 ESTELLE 109 
 
 rose of evandale . . . . .112 
 
 kitty's choice . . . . . . 114 
 
 roland and rosalie 11c» 
 
 MY ROSE . . . . . . . 118 
 
 A" SONG FOR THEE 119 
 
 TO SUMMER 122 
 
via CONTENTS. 
 
 NIGHT STORMS 125 
 
 THOU COMEST TO ME ..... 128 
 
 AN APEIL DAT 130 
 
 MY MORNING DREAM 13o 
 
 -THE bluebird's SONG ..... 135 
 
 ROSES BLOOM ...... 137 
 
 THE PINE ....... 139 
 
 " HATH NOT THY ROSE A CANKER ? " . . 141 
 APRIL AND MAY . . . . . .143 
 
 A SONG FOR MAY . . . . . 145 
 
 OUR WILD WOOD HOME . . . . .147 
 
 LONG AGO 149 
 
 MY PRISONED BIRD 150 
 
 -THE WHIP-POOR-WILL . . . . . 152 
 
 MY boyhood's love 155 
 
 " LIFE IS real" . . . . . . 157 
 
 THE spirit's warning . . . . .159 
 
 MY HEART GROWS SAD FOR THEE . . ir)3 
 
 poesy 100 
 
 MARCH ....... 168 
 
 A SPRING SONG . 171 
 
 -HOEING CORN 172 
 
 KING AND QUEEN 175 
 
 SIGNS OF SPRING 177 
 
 THE SNOW 182 
 
 THE CLOSING YEAR 184 
 
 A SONG FOR NEW YEAR's EVE . . .187 
 
 ERINNA CHAINED TO THE DISTAFF . . 190 
 
S YBELLE. 
 
SYBELLE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 In forest depths a rose is springing, 
 In thickets lone a thrush is singing, 
 A traveler listens to the song, 
 Kisses the rose, and wonders long 
 That such sweet bloom and minstrelsy 
 In lonely woodland wilds should be. 
 Softly he kneels, and soft has pressed 
 The wild rose to his lips, his breast. 
 And smiled to see the wondrous glow 
 His kisses on the flower bestow. 
 He speaks some tender passing word — 
 The thrush has in the thicket heard ; 
 Its plaintive, spring-born lays are stilled, 
 By some strange power its bi-east is thrilled, 
 And lo ! the wildwood depths along. 
 Rolls the full summer tide of song. 
 O, will the charmed wanderer stay. 
 To bless the rose, inspire the lay, 
 Through all life's blissful summer day. 
 But asking that when life has fled, 
 
12 SYBELLE. 
 
 Those blushing leaves be o'er him shed, 
 And that the parting song may bear 
 His rapt sonl to Elysium fair ? 
 Or will one passing hour like this, 
 Endow him with such wealth of bliss 
 He can all else forego, and brave 
 As men are, climb to make his grave 
 Among the glaciers flashing cold, 
 And rocks o'erlying gleams of gold, 
 High on life's ban-en summit, where 
 Nor song nor summer roses are ? 
 And in the vale, if he shoiild go, 
 Would still the rose in beauty blow ? 
 Would still the song so joyous flow? 
 Go down at twilight in the vale. 
 And ask them both to tell the tale, 
 For none beside the flower and bird 
 Those words and kisses felt or heard. 
 
 The summer eve is hushed and calm. 
 The airs of June are breathing balm 
 From wild flowers waiting for the dew ; 
 The green leaves take a darker hue, 
 Save where the slanting sunset ray 
 Yet lingers on each westering spray. 
 Till rose-bloom tinged with blended gold, 
 Seems trembling in each emerald fold. 
 As some fond lover seeks to grasjD 
 Her hand whose form he may not clasp, 
 Caress it o'er and o'er again. 
 Glad to prolong the parting pain. 
 Dreading the last reluctant kiss 
 
SYBELLE. 13 
 
 That seals at once his doom and bliss — 
 
 So fond, so lingeringly the light 
 
 Plays round the greenwood leaves to-night, 
 
 So warmly passionate the gloAv 
 
 That trembles through the branches low. 
 
 And falls on every quivering leaf — 
 
 A passing glory, bright as brief 
 
 By soft, low banks of green caressed, 
 The valley stream smiles in its rest ; 
 Such murmuring rest, such dimpling gleams 
 Of smiles as bless a maiden's dreams. 
 When arrowy shafts of love-light part 
 The shades of doubt that cloud her heart, 
 As slanting rays of sunlight quiver 
 Through all the trees that shade the river, 
 And fall, so blessing and so blest. 
 Upon its trembling, happy breast. 
 
 Sybelle, with face as fair and calm 
 As this sweet hour of bloom and balm. 
 But form as still, and seeming cold, 
 As though she were not mortal mold, 
 "Waits by the river's side to-night : 
 Around her falls the golden light ; 
 N"ow on the green turf where she stands, 
 Now on her closely folded hands 
 The glory rests ; unconscious still, 
 The slight form gives no answering thrill. 
 Though upward blushing from her li])s 
 The shade that marks the day's eclipse, 
 Goes deepening, warming in its hue, 
 
14 SYRELLE. 
 
 Above her cheeks, her eyes of blue, 
 Above her forehead calm and fair. 
 Till like a halo round her hair 
 It flushes, pales, then fades in air. 
 
 What wondrous spell, what wizard glance 
 Has bound her in that dreamy trance ? 
 ' Tis not indifference, not surprise, 
 That fixes thus her steady eyes 
 With that strange look of vacancy. 
 That seeing all seems naught to see. 
 All sights and sounds of beauty here. 
 That meet her eye or charm her ear. 
 Have to each sense familiar grown 
 As though her life were nature's own. 
 And she a leaf, a flower, a bird. 
 By all their sweet emotions stirred, 
 Bloomed when they bloomed, sung when they sung. 
 Or in enchanted silence hung, 
 While summer sunlight round her played, 
 And summer winds their music made. 
 These are the haunts, where, when a child. 
 She found such inspiration wild 
 In all suiTounding sympathies, 
 The changeful stream, the murmuring trees, 
 The blossoms on the hillside dying. 
 Or tempests through the dark sky flying. 
 As wakened in her youthful breast 
 Ambition's dreams, its strange imrest. 
 Vague dreams they were, for that young face, 
 That form so fidl of girlish grace, 
 The pure soul looking wistful through 
 
S Y B E L L E. 1^ 
 
 Those deep mid tender eyes of blue, 
 Knew naught of fame save that the word 
 On many a careless tongue was heard ; 
 And naught of life, unless it meant 
 Some change of outward element. 
 Such as the varying seasons made 
 Wlien round her childish years they played, 
 When winter melting into spring 
 Would to her path fresh roses bring, 
 And summer's deepening blooms bestow 
 On cheek and lip a warmer glow. 
 Or autumns softly shadow down 
 Their brown leaves on her tresses brown. 
 Beloved and loving, her young years 
 Scarce found a place for grief or tears. 
 Yet, was the soul within content 
 That thus the summers came and went. 
 And found and left her like the flowers 
 That blossomed in her wikhvood bowers. 
 Only a rose, or if a bird. 
 Still one whose songs were all unheard '? 
 
 Content ! Yes, as the lightnings are 
 That play around yon cloudy bar 
 Low lying in the southern skies, 
 So faintly tinged with sunset dyes. 
 Sybelle is gazing on it now, 
 A kindred light burns on her brow, 
 A bright flush tints her cheek of snow : 
 " I see it all," she murmurs low ; 
 " I am the cloud ; these wild desires 
 For name and fame, are lightning fires. 
 
16 SY BELLE. 
 
 That bum and flash, and flash and burn, 
 
 And on themselves in vengeance turn, 
 
 That in their isolation driven 
 
 They touch not earth, they reach not heaven. 
 
 God's pity for the helpless cloud ! 
 
 It foils and fades, a cold gray shroud, 
 
 From whose thin folds no blessed rain 
 
 Shall ever reach the thirsty plain. 
 
 With lightnings breathing quick and warm 
 
 Through all its elements of storm. 
 
 Alone, it faints, it fades from sight. 
 
 In silence in the silent night. 
 
 It may be well. It may be, too, 
 
 That Raimond's cruel words were true; 
 
 That all the hopes within me born, 
 
 Like gossamers of summer morn, 
 
 With flaunting breadth of jewelled rim, 
 
 Would in the world's broad light grow dim, 
 
 And long ere noon their death doom meet, 
 
 From eager hands and trampling feet 
 
 Intent but on the rijjened wheat. 
 
 The world, he says, has little need 
 
 Of blossoms culled from bank and mead ; 
 
 Out of its young romancings grown, 
 
 Aside its dew-si^rent sandals thrown. 
 
 It storms abroad in active strife, 
 
 Full of such earnestness of life, 
 
 That only high, heart moving songs. 
 
 Of love, and truth, and clashing wrongs 
 
 And rights, its stern, strong heart can move. 
 
 O, what is life ? and what is love ? 
 
 What is the world '? and what am I ? 
 
SYBELLE. X7 
 
 Too feeble from this tlirall to fly, 
 Too strong to be content and tame, 
 Must I still, like yon lightning flame. 
 Turn on myself? O passing breeze, 
 Bring down some answer from the trees ! 
 O sweet June roses, buds that shiver 
 In these light winds, beloved river, 
 And tender stems of grass that quiver 
 Where e'er I tread ! O forest birds 
 That sing to me in no vain words ! 
 
 many fashioned j:)oet leaves, 
 
 Along whose lines the night wind weaves 
 
 Sublimest harmonies ! O light 
 
 Of this sweet eve ! O holy night. 
 
 That praiseth God w^ith starry speech ! 
 
 Have I learned so much that ye teach. 
 
 Lived with, loved, worshiped ye so long. 
 
 That my soul seems yourselves in song, 
 
 Yet knows not life, nor love, nor truth. 
 
 Such as give song immortal youth, 
 
 And to all time a deathless name 
 
 Linked with high thoughts, themselves their fame ? 
 
 1 thought I lived; he calls it dreaming: 
 Here then forever ends this seeming. 
 
 I waken now. Waft back, O breeze. 
 Farewells to blossoms, birds and trees ; 
 Life needs them not, and I no more 
 Bend in sweet worship as before. 
 At your pure altars. I must learn 
 What life is ; with high purpose turn 
 To other teachers, even to him 
 At whose light words my hopes grew dim. 
 
18 SYBELLE. 
 
 The hand that laid these idols low, 
 Shall others in their place bestow. 
 The lip that smiled its pitying praise, 
 And called my offerings girlish lays, 
 Pretty and tender, yet shall give 
 The homage that to win I live ! 
 O he would have a lightning flash 
 In every word, a thunder crash 
 In every line, and tempests hurled 
 Through each fair page to please the world ! 
 Well, will he but the lesson teach, 
 My mind can grasp all his can reach : 
 Come, life ! " 
 
 Lo, echoing to the word, 
 Along the valley path is heard 
 A firm, light step. It sounds so near. 
 The maiden starts as if in fear. 
 
 " Sybelle ! " 
 
 The voice was soft and low. 
 Paled on her cheek the angry glow , 
 And such a bright and flitting smile 
 As sunset gave the leaves the while, 
 Touched the red lips, but quickly died. 
 And left the place to scornful pride. 
 She scorned herself that self-betrayed 
 So bare her inmost soul was laid 
 Even to the flowers ; and what if he, 
 Half feared, half reverenced, could it be 
 That Raimond, idly dreaming near, 
 Had chanced her wild, strange words to hear ? 
 
S Y B E L L E. 1Q 
 
 And if he had, she thought, was 2)ride 
 E'er yet in woman's need denied ? 
 Alas, it sadly fails hex- now ; 
 The blood flies burning to her brow, 
 She speaks his name, but vainly tries 
 To raise to his her drooping eyes. 
 Then murmurs, less in pride than guilt, 
 " Rei^roach and censure if thou wilt." 
 
 He read her speaking face too well. 
 He took her hand : 
 
 " Fair child, Sybelle, 
 No censure, no reproachful word 
 For you can from my lips be heard, 
 Even might I venture now to guess 
 What caused this passionate distress. 
 Did some strange vision come to you ? 
 I have been watching visions too. 
 See where I sat, far up between 
 The trees that skirt the hillside green ; 
 A soft, low, mossy mound is there, 
 Fringed round with ferns and blossoms fair, 
 And fitter for a fairy's throne 
 Than for these lengthened limbs I own. 
 Yet what I could of kingly grace 
 I summoned to adorn the place, 
 And sat, a king o'er such a land 
 As ne'er was won by warrior brand. 
 Long gazing at the golden fill 
 Of glory down heaven's western wall, 
 I saw, or fancied that I saw, 
 An angel hand the curtain draw : 
 
20 SY BELLE. 
 
 All angel form came softly through ; 
 It did not fly, for much like you, 
 No wings upon its shoulders grew ! 
 Down toward a bright, celestial stream 
 It moved, as you move when you dream, 
 In maiden pride, with charm so sweet 
 As makes all other charms comj^lete, 
 The outward motion but revealing 
 The inward strength and grace of feeling. 
 So moved the angel, and her eyes 
 Were looking toward the southern skies ; 
 A soft, blue drapery round her fell, 
 Such as you wear to-night, Sybelle. 
 I know not hoAV, perhaps I dreamed, 
 But as I gazed, the vision seemed 
 Most like to you ; and then I thought. 
 By some romantic fancy caught. 
 Your steps in dangerous nearness strayed 
 To where the treacherous river played ; 
 And, hero-like, I ran to save 
 A heroine from a watery grave ! 
 Now, though the race be all in vain, 
 A hero should some guerdon gain. 
 Slight though it be ; then come, Sybelle, 
 Soon fall the dews in this low dell, 
 While fliir along yon wooded height 
 Yet lies the sunset's yellow light. 
 Come where the winding pathway trails 
 Its truant course through dainty vales. 
 Creeping and idling as it goes. 
 By mossy mounds and blooms of rose. 
 Yet upward still in its sweet way. 
 
SYBELLE. 21 
 
 From twilights dim to where the day 
 Shines clear along the broad highway. 
 Idling like it shall be our walk, 
 And pleasant as its way our talk. 
 
 " I wonder much, Sybelle, of late. 
 What moody spirits round you wait. 
 Where are the fluttering, airy things 
 That fanned you with their gauzy wings ; 
 That fed you nectar, kept you singing, 
 In strains like fairy music ringing — 
 That in your path their rose leaves flung, 
 And all around you rainbows hung ? 
 You smile, but still your song, or lute, 
 To speak in poet phrase, is mute ; 
 Your brow looks cramped as if in pain. 
 What goblin scared your fairy train, 
 Swept the sweet rose leaves from your path, 
 And stole your rainbows in his wrath ? 
 I would I knew his name, Sybelle ; 
 As my reward I i^ray you tell 
 What looks he like, what name he bears, 
 And where and how he spread the snares 
 To do such cruel, ruthless wi'ong. 
 As capture all your birds of song I 
 Sometimes you seem all lonely straying 
 To mournful marches round you playing, 
 And then all strength and Are and scorn. 
 As though you were a comet born, 
 And cared not where the planets went 
 So you flashed through the firmament. 
 This is not right, this is not life, 
 
22 S Y B E L L E. 
 
 Come, tell me Avliy this mental strife ; 
 
 The dreary wilderness disclose 
 
 Where you are suffering thus ; who knows ! 
 
 Your life a Marah's stream may be, 
 
 The prophet I to find the tree 
 
 Whose healing balm can sAveetness give, 
 
 And bid the wanderer drink and live." 
 
 Half gay, yet tender and sincere, 
 The words fell soothing on her ear. 
 Though well through all that playful art 
 She feared he read her inmost heart. 
 Nor could his tenderness subdue 
 The rebel fires upflashing through 
 The quick eyes lifted to his own, 
 And trembling in her eager tone. 
 
 " O might I only find the stream, 
 No matter what its bitterness, 
 One deep, long draught would sweeter seem. 
 Than all these years of nothingness ! " 
 
 " Sybelle, life's stream is flowing here. 
 Even at your feet, so calm and clear. 
 So pure and sweet ; why should you shrink 
 From its unsullied depths to drink ? 
 Why turn toward stormier waves your eye. 
 While these untasted pass you by ? " 
 
 " I must have more of life," she said ; 
 " I cannot breathe in this dull round ; 
 Too low this sky droops overhead. 
 And by this close horizon bound 
 
S Y B E L L E . 23 
 
 All thought grows narrow, cramped, and tame, 
 
 Years pass, and others come the same ; 
 
 Changeless in change they come and go, 
 
 And I but watch their ebb and flow. 
 
 My pale pink roses bloom and fade, 
 
 My tunid violets haunt the shade, 
 
 My sunflowers, rimmed and rayed with gold. 
 
 Stand in their summer worship bold, 
 
 With just as much of life as I 
 
 Beneath this sj^ot of summer sky." 
 
 " Yet you seemed happy when I came. 
 
 Scarce one brief year ago, Sybeile; 
 Ah ! now I guess the goblin's name, 
 
 "Whose presence broke your fairy spell. 
 O, he shall penance do more dire 
 Than quenching thirst with draughts of fire ! 
 Was it my hand unstrung your lyre, 
 Sybeile?" 
 
 So sudden changed his tone, 
 
 The maiden started from liis side ; 
 His searching glances met her own, 
 
 And heart to questioning heart replied. 
 From her proud, tender eyes the ray 
 Showed that ambition held its sway 
 O'er every passion of her breast. 
 Though scarce her woman's pride repressed 
 The tears at what those eyes confessed. 
 That instant, mute appeal for aid 
 His instant answering glance repaid, 
 From calm, clear eyes that said so well, 
 You cannot ask in vain, Sybeile. 
 
24 S Y B E L L E . 
 
 Slow, by tlie broad highway they pass, 
 Slow o'er the clover-siirinklecl grass, 
 Down the long lane where sunset throws 
 Its last ray on the maple rows, 
 And pause where climbing roses twine 
 With clusters of the dark musk vine 
 Around the cottage porch, and fall 
 A robe of beauty o'er its wall. 
 
 Along the months so quickly fled 
 Have Raimond's hurried glances sped. 
 Recalling how, when first a guest 
 In this green valley of the west. 
 Brain-weary, worn with toil he sought 
 Forgetfulness of life, of thought. 
 And calm repose to cool the flame 
 Of fever burning through his frame. 
 He listened to Sybelle's sweet lay ; 
 How pleased he read the artless play 
 Of her pure thoughts, caught from the breeze, 
 The birds, brooks, flowers and forest trees. 
 Through which her soul breathed all the grace 
 That nature gave her form and face ; 
 Recalling too the proud surprise 
 Tliat flashed light from her happy eyes. 
 When he had wondered why so long- 
 Had been unheard her voice of song ; 
 And then the still, sad, thoughtful air 
 With which she nerved herself to bear 
 All he had said the world would claim 
 From those who dared to ask for flxme ; 
 Her changed and Avayward moods, and now, 
 The pleading eyes, the sweet, fair broAv, 
 
S Y B E L L E. 25 
 
 That looked so full of thought and pain, 
 So weary of its troubled brain ; 
 The strangely passionate words that sprung 
 So oft, so eager from her tongue — 
 Yes, that brief, backward glance revealed 
 All that Sybelle's proud heart concealed. 
 He saw her motives high and pure ; 
 Though doubtful yet, and half obscure 
 Within his brain the question seemed,' 
 Whether she waked or wildly dreamed. 
 
 " I almost grieve," he said, " Sybelle, 
 That e'er my darkening shadow fell, 
 So like a fated, restless wraith. 
 Across your quiet woodland path. 
 Not for myself — no, heaven knows 
 I never found a fairer rose, 
 Or music heard more pure and sweet 
 Than that which charms this lone retreat, 
 And holds me hei-e, a willing guest; 
 And I, Sybelle, were doubly blest, 
 If aught I bring of worldly store. 
 Could add to your unstudied lore 
 One worthy element or thought 
 By that strange world's experience taught. 
 I would atone, if thus I might. 
 
 For words in seeming harshness spoken. 
 Though never yet came day's foir light 
 
 Till morning clouds and dreams were broken. 
 Still, haply might the woodland stream 
 Choose in its twilight haunts to dream, 
 And rather watch the pale stars shine. 
 
2(5 S Y B £ L L E. 
 
 Than yield to guidance rude as mine, 
 
 To lead it where, with burning ray, 
 
 The sun pours down the jjeifect day. 
 
 You sigh, and turn your weary eyes, 
 
 As if afar, in foreign skies 
 
 Alone that longed-for day might be, 
 
 With years between its light and thee. 
 
 So heard I sighing, yester-morn. 
 
 The hillside brook beneath the thorn. 
 
 Thou knowest, Sybelle, what blushing ranks 
 
 Of roses bend along its banks ; 
 
 I think they grow so very fair 
 
 For love of her who placed them there. 
 
 But yester-morn the wind shook down 
 
 The hawthorn's snowy garland crown ; 
 
 And the meek roses, bending lower. 
 
 Ripe to the crimson-tinted core, 
 
 Dropped all their incense-breathing bloom, 
 
 Shrouding the stream in such sweet gloom, 
 
 It saw no heaven above it shine,_ 
 
 And pined as now I heard you pine — 
 
 When will the perfect day be mine ? 
 
 Your life has been a low sweet psalm, 
 
 A woodland streamlet, clear and calm. 
 
 In happy tones its music blending 
 
 With bloom of flowers its banks o'erbending, 
 
 Yet ever deejier, stronger growing 
 
 From wayside fountains to it flowing. 
 
 And pressing like a human soul 
 
 Unconscious toward its destined goal. 
 
 Seeking by ways it might not know 
 
 The sea where life's deep waters flow. 
 
S Y B E L L E. 27 
 
 "You sigh foi" fame. O forest child, 
 Though o'er your birth the muses smiled, 
 Though step by step in childhood's hours 
 They led you through enchanted bowers, 
 Though round your maiden brow were wreathed 
 Their crowns, and on your lips were breathed 
 Their inspirations pure and high, 
 All these are still but prophecy, 
 ]^ot deeds, that give you right to claim 
 That proud reward the world calls fame. 
 Ah, little cares that world to know 
 Wliat time your wildwood roses blow ; 
 How dimpling flows your forest stream, 
 Or how in twilight bowers you dream, 
 Ti'anced by the blended harmonies 
 Of summer leaves and sunset skies. 
 It would have thoughts born of the strife. 
 The conflicts of your hidden life. 
 Great truths from nature, and, as meet 
 From woman's hand, inwoven sweet 
 With tender human sympathies — 
 Love, grief, and joy; such themes as these 
 Reach its great heart, if from your own 
 Springs the key note, the iiioving tone, 
 The spark magnetic that alone 
 Touches all natures, and can thrill 
 The world obedient to one will. 
 O never poet's subtlest art 
 
 Could weave you laurels from the air; 
 Go down into your woman's heart. 
 
 And find your own crown jewels there ! 
 Turn from the flowery, dim ideal, 
 
28 SYBELLE. 
 
 And live and sing the present real. 
 
 Your own still life upon you palls — 
 
 Look out beyond your garden walls; 
 
 Xo close horizon's bound is there, 
 
 Nor low-drooped skies nor stagnant air. 
 
 The West ! to me the very name 
 
 Sends blood new bounding through the frame. 
 
 In wilds like these, if e'er on earth, 
 
 Might giants claim immortal birth. 
 
 True life is here, and brave and strong, 
 
 Is working out a nation's song, 
 
 As foot by foot it marks the lines 
 
 From tropic plains to arctic pines. 
 
 And stanza after stanza sweeps 
 
 From prairie bounds to mountain steeps, 
 
 The golden chorus ringing o'er 
 
 The broad, foir land from shore to shore. 
 
 Thought grows not tame in life like this. 
 
 Nor w^ere those years of nothingness 
 
 That round your young, pure being threw 
 
 Their bloom and shine, and sweet life dew; 
 
 Their springtime sunlights soft and dear. 
 
 Their autumn shadows chill and drear, 
 
 The splendors of their summer bloom, 
 
 Their Avinter nights of storm and gloom, 
 
 All were to you as suns, and shoAvers, 
 
 And winds, and dews are to your flowers ; 
 
 All molding you as they are molded, 
 
 "When in the silent seed enfolded, 
 
 In perfect form embalmed they lie, 
 
 A slow unfolding mystery. 
 
 Nor breath of Avind,nor fall of rain, 
 
 Nor dews nor sunlit skies were vain. 
 
S Y B E L L E. 29 
 
 " Still in your eager, asking eyes 
 And on your lip unansAverecl lies 
 Your heart's great question. Ah, Sybelle, 
 Words are of little worth to tell 
 What life is. Life alone can give 
 Your answer — such as they must live 
 Who dare its doubtful strife to meet 
 
 Matched hand to hand and soul to soul, 
 Nor dream of rest, nor know defeat 
 
 Though baffled oft ; but to the goal 
 For gain or fame, for good or ill. 
 Wage the stern war with tireless will ; 
 Some grasping pleasure as they go. 
 But crowning victory with their woe ; 
 Some worn and weary, conquering all. 
 And some the strongest, first to fall. 
 It is of that fierce warring world, 
 Of life in seeming chaos hurled, 
 Of mind to clashing mind opposed. 
 Of fates in life-long contest closed. 
 Of thought and passion, soul and sense — 
 The realm of mind's omnipotence, 
 That you are thirsting thus to know ; 
 I read it in your cheek's bright glow, 
 I see your small hand closer clasped 
 As if some weapon it had grasped. 
 And dark flames kindling in your eyes 
 Uplifted toward the twilight skies. 
 Where neither sky nor stars joxi see, 
 But far and dim, like prophecy. 
 That distant world whose murmur comes 
 To you like beat of rallying drums 
 
30 SY BELLE. 
 
 To armed and eager ranks, wlio wait 
 The signal note to seize their fate. 
 
 " Sybelle, you know how worn and pale, 
 And weary, to your quiet vale 
 For rest I came ; how like a child 
 I wandered in these foi'ests wild, 
 Pleased as a child whole summer days 
 To drown in that sweet, dreamy haze, 
 Made up of blossom-scents and song 
 Of birds and bees and sounds that throng 
 All fresh green summer w'oods ; and how 
 When brown nuts ripened on the bough, 
 Boy-like I grew with growing health, 
 And reveled in the autumn Avealth 
 Of forest fruits and painted leaves ; 
 
 Or helped the falloAV fields to sow, 
 Or clindDcd the stacks to toss the sheaves 
 
 Into the thresher's jaws below ; 
 Or with the merry husking band. 
 In mimic contest, hand to hand 
 With practiced men my strength I plied. 
 Or at the plow my sinews tried ; 
 Then vied with boys in winter sports 
 Of skating feats and snow-built forts ; 
 Or with mute flocks and cattle sought 
 Companionship absolved from thought ; 
 How to the slow-awakening spring 
 I lent my awkward aid, to bring 
 Your garden walks and beds and blooms 
 Out of their shroud of winter glooms ; 
 Or with the planter's j^ouch and hoe 
 
S Y B E L L E. 31 
 
 Traced o'er the fields the furrowed row, 
 Or sought for friends among the broods 
 Of birds that haunt your pleasant woods, 
 Or squirrels chattering through the glen — 
 All, anything but books and men 
 I welcomed ; and not all in vain. 
 To nerves unstrung, exhausted brain. 
 And nature all o'ertasked to gain 
 A triumph for the mind. I won 
 
 That dear-bought victory, Sybelle, 
 Against most fearful odds. The sun 
 
 Day after day, and light that fell 
 From midnight moons, and evening stars. 
 And mornings gray tlirough cloudy bars, 
 For months scarce noticed, came and went. 
 And foimd me still nntiring,bent, 
 Soul, mind and body to that strife 
 
 Of mind with might, to win the right. 
 That triumph won was won for life ; 
 
 But lost, had left me still in night. 
 
 Groping and struggling for the light. 
 From that long, stormy war to rest, 
 A wearied child I sought the west. 
 And threw myself on nature's breast. 
 So many flowers were blooming here. 
 So many song birds charmed my ear, 
 I loved to lie beside the stream 
 And blend them all in one sweet dream, 
 Yom-self among them. Was it wrong ? 
 Your song so like the thrush's song, 
 "When it comes low and trilling through 
 The deep woods heavy with mist dew. 
 
32 Sy BELLE. 
 
 Foretelling soft, sweet summer rain ; 
 
 Your face so like your roses fair, 
 I own I felt a thrill of pain 
 
 To find that you had thought or care, 
 More than your hapjjy birds and flowers. 
 For life beyond your wildwood bowers. 
 Selfish ! ungenerous ! In your eyes 
 I see the accusations rise. 
 Forgive, Sybelle, that selfishness. 
 When rest from thought to me was bliss, 
 I chafed to think of mammon's crown 
 Bending the dewy roses down. 
 Or thrushes singing for renown ! 
 But all you ask is your own right. 
 Since even your roses seek the light, 
 And lovelier grow therein. Now, strong 
 In mind and heart to right the wrong. 
 Such hapi^y penance would I do. 
 As with my pupil wander through 
 The fields of thought that wide unroll 
 From history's almost magic scroll. 
 From the far dim and distant ages, • 
 Grand j^rophet bards and hero sages 
 Shall meet us there ; poetic fires 
 Shall flash again along their lyres — 
 That true inspired flame that leads 
 
 Thought upward by its heavenly glow, 
 A fire from heaven, embalming deeds 
 
 Of men whom gods Avere proud to know. 
 And kings of nature's royal race, 
 
 Noblest among the sons of light. 
 Old kings of thought, Avho hold their place 
 
 Secui-e by mind's divinest ris^ht 
 
S Y B E L L E. 
 
 Above the sceptre, throne and crown, 
 Shnll from their heiglits serene look down 
 Their blessings on our pilgrimage. 
 As wandering on fi'om age to age. 
 We find the seed their hands have sown 
 To ripened fruit and vintage grown. 
 Those fruits we taste, that living wine 
 Shall make us like themselves divine — 
 Divine like theirs our lives to sow 
 With thoughts that shall immortal grow. 
 And harps of pleasant-sounding string 
 The bards of later birth shall bring — 
 Interpreters of life and thought. 
 Teaching us how the world is taught. 
 So shall you by their lessons learn 
 What fires on poet altars burn ; 
 How they alone successful sing, 
 Who know with skill to touch the string 
 To which all human j^assions cling 
 
 The chord of human sympathy : 
 It vibrates to ambition's claim 
 The welcome, wished-for echo, fame ; 
 It thrills to love's pervading flame. 
 
 Though all unknown the hand may be 
 Whose fingers warm, from warmer heart, 
 The sympathetic fires impart ; 
 It trembles deep to sorrow's moan. 
 Or lightly bounds to pleasure's tone ; 
 And he the truest poet lives, 
 
 Who, daring to be true and strong, 
 To human passions fearless gives 
 
 Expression in ennobling song. 
 
 33 
 
34 S Y B E L L E. 
 
 Fame on sucli brows lier crown confers — 
 The world is proud of conquerors ; 
 And life is better worth our breath 
 
 That they are born who dare to live, 
 Who scorn the coward's daily death, 
 
 And claim of life all it can give. 
 
 " Life and the world ! I feel again 
 Their call through strengthened frame and brain, 
 Warning the truant back. Too long- 
 lie lingers in this vale of song. 
 Still, ere he go, he fain would dream 
 One summer hour beside the stream. 
 While yet along its tranquil vale 
 It Avoos the wild flo^vers bending pale, 
 Reading what strange, sweet prophecy 
 In its unresting depths may be, 
 And guiding with what skill he may 
 Its progress toAvard the brighter day 
 It seeks ; till from the hill and glade 
 The slumbrous summer haze shall fltde, 
 Till over wood and cottage wall 
 No more the harvest moonlights fall — 
 An hour of months, yet all too briei^ 
 Till autumn drops her warning leaf. 
 Then, strong to measure might again 
 With iron wills of iron men, 
 His dreaming ends, himself content, 
 
 Nay, blest, if he one joy may give 
 To those sweet eyes upon him bent 
 
 In earnest asking but to live." 
 
S Y B E L L E. 35 
 
 Slow from its forest dream awaking, 
 With noon's broad sunlight o'er it breaking, 
 Through all its waves, the streamlet clear 
 Trembles with joy akin to fear. 
 To find its ocean soal so near ! 
 
 Sybelle, thou hast pressed to thy thirsting lip 
 A cup the bravest might fear to sip. 
 Was ever a goblet of brimming bliss 
 So crowned with the promise of life as this ? 
 And did ever a mad bacchante clasp 
 A more fatal cup in her trembling grasp, 
 Or drain to the dregs from its rosy brim 
 Where she saw not the beaded poison swim, 
 With a wilder joy than thine eager soul 
 Hath gi'asped and will drink from this tempting bowl? 
 No voice to thy heart hath whispered of fear, 
 No warning floats up through the nectar clear. 
 Thou hast heard but the one endearing tone 
 That low to thy listening ear alone. 
 Hath said, it is life ! Thou dost fearless stand, 
 With the wreathed and crowned cup in thy hand. 
 Thy lips are jDressed to the brim overflowing, 
 Deeper and warmer the rich draught is growing. 
 Richer and warmer its currents are glowing 
 Through all thy young being. What madness is 
 
 thine. 
 To dream life alone can give joy so divine ! 
 
 That hour of months was all too brief — 
 Tke thresher waits the ripened sheaf, 
 
36 SYBELLE. 
 
 The summer's purple haze is gone, 
 The wan moon at the gates of dawn 
 Dethroned and sceptreless lays down, 
 Sad queen, her glorious harvest crown, 
 And fast o'er all the vale and plain 
 Fall autumn's warning leaves — in vain ! 
 
 Low moans the sad autumnal gale, 
 It will not let the dead leaves rest, 
 
 See one by one adown the vale 
 
 It flings them on the streamlet's breast. 
 
 Poor withered leaves, poor silent stream, 
 Together died your bloom and song, 
 
 How brief for you the summer dream, 
 For you the autumn gloom how long. 
 
 The dreary winds moan sad and low, 
 The dead leaves sink beneath the wave. 
 
 The streamlet murmurs in its flow 
 As if it too would find a grave. 
 
 O murmuring one, thy ocean tomb 
 Far in the future years will be, 
 
 And leaves will bud and flowrets bloom 
 Along this silent vale for thee. 
 
 Low sounds November's latest sigh. 
 Soft fall the snows above his bier. 
 
 And bloom and song and beauty die 
 While winter shrouds the buried year 
 
B Y B E L L E. 37 
 
 But life is wakening in the vale 
 
 Again beneath the skies of May; 
 And June's sweet rose and lily pale 
 
 Bend o'er the wandering streamlet's way. 
 
 Yet not one passion-dimpled smile 
 
 Awakes for rose or lily fair, 
 And plaintive moans the brook the while 
 
 Beneath the bloom and foliage rare. 
 
 But soft amid the summer light 
 
 A mystic lay of love is sung, 
 O not for wild flowers wreathing bright 
 
 Or leaves upon her bosom flung. 
 
 A cloud floats in the skies above — 
 
 An angel presence, half at rest. 
 With soft enfolding wings of love, 
 
 Deep mirrored in the streamlet's breast. 
 
 That sunbright cloud ! how low it bends ! 
 
 What joy its heaven-born beauty brings! 
 With hers its being almost blends. 
 
 It folds her with its shadowy wings. 
 
 From bank to bank the bi'ook's sweet lay 
 The thrilled and rij^pling wavelets bear ; 
 
 She lingers on her tranced way. 
 Her cloud love lingers in the air. 
 
 On her soft breast his image lies. 
 And he for such sweet joy as this 
 
38 S Y B E L L E . 
 
 Would almost leave his azure skies 
 And melt amid those depths of bliss. 
 
 It may not be. O bending cloud, 
 
 Away — the parched earth calls thee now ; 
 
 Amid the gathering storm-kings proud 
 There is no prouder one than thou. 
 
 Away ! thy lightning sword must flash 
 In stormy scenes and stirring strife, 
 
 Where battling ranks with thunder crash 
 Meet on the tented fields of life. 
 
 But ever 'mid that discord Avild, 
 
 Will come to thee in grief or wrong 
 
 The memory of the forest child, 
 
 The wayward brooklet's love and song. 
 
 It may not be: alas, fond stream, 
 
 Though mirrored in each trembling wave 
 
 ThouFt bear thy cloud love like a dream, 
 A shadow to thy ocean grave. 
 
 With quiet songs adown the vale 
 
 Thou still may'st chant thy hapless lay. 
 
 Beneath November's storm clouds pale, 
 Beneath the blushing skies of May: 
 
 But dearer than the heavens above. 
 
 Or summer flowers that round thee bloom, 
 
 The memory of that cloud-land love 
 Thou bearest to thy ocean tomb. 
 
S YBELLE 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The sunset tints of amber light 
 Flame up the western skies to-night, 
 A broad, foir sea of burnished gold, 
 With cloudland shores around it rolled ; 
 "While like some glorious tropic isle 
 Where summer suns eternal smile. 
 One radiant star as day declines 
 Amid that sea of splendor shines. 
 An island heaven, where angels stand. 
 And wistful gaze on that far land 
 Whose cloud-enfolded mystery seems 
 The hidden goal of life-long dreams. 
 They see, slow moving to and fro, 
 The phantom shadows come and go; 
 They hear such music from afar 
 As never blessed their island star; 
 And bending o'er those crystal deeps 
 Where calm the pallid twilight sleeps, 
 Wave far and wide their glittering plumes, 
 Till flashing o'er the distant glooms 
 They meet those beckoning forms of air. 
 And sink in silent darkness where 
 
40 S Y B E L L E . 
 
 The rippling waves of melting gold 
 Around those cloudland shores are rolled. 
 
 O come thou cynic cold and stern ; 
 Come vestal from thy burial urn ; 
 Come cowled priest, whose dream of life 
 At best is but a fearful strife, 
 A guilty barter on thy part 
 Of all thou hast of God or heart, 
 For living death in such a grave 
 As God to nature never gave ; 
 Come watch the fires of fading day 
 Amid the gathering shadows play. 
 *8ee how the daylight veils her face 
 With blushes in the night's embrace. 
 And how upon yon cloud's dark breast 
 Tlie impassioned lightning finds its rest. 
 While bending from their thrones on high 
 The star-eyed angels smile to die. 
 If for such bliss their death atone 
 As visits not their Eden lone. 
 Though round their heaven such glory lies 
 They cloud- ward bend their longing eyes. 
 And trembling with a strange desire, 
 Slow raise their quivering wings of fire, 
 Forsake their thrones of light serene. 
 Speed o'er the amber deeps between, 
 And panting clasp those airy forms 
 To sink amid a night of storms, 
 More blest that wild desire to tame 
 Though darkness shroud their forms of flame ; 
 More blest those quivering wings to fold 
 
S Y B E L L E. 
 
 O'er pulses stilled and passions cold, 
 Than treed alike from bliss and pain 
 In yon empyrean inive to reign. 
 
 O what can virtue know of love, 
 When ice cold hands are clasped above 
 A bosom passionless as snow ? 
 And what can love of virtue know, 
 When isolate, serene and lone, 
 It triumphs on its marble throne ? 
 The deserts clasp their own green isles ; 
 
 To arid sands are fountains singing ; 
 The blasted tree in vei'dure smiles 
 
 With moss and vine leaves round it clinging. 
 The cold, bright icebergs borne afar 
 From realms beneath the polar star. 
 Give vigor to the languid breeze 
 That faints amid the tropic seas. 
 Then bend to meet the clasping wave. 
 At once their altar and their grave. 
 And lo, along yon clouded skies, 
 As mystic boreal torches rise, 
 Soft flashing o'er the deepening night, 
 They bathe the heavens in pitrple light. 
 Till earth, but now a darkened tomb. 
 Is blushing back a rosy bloom — 
 All thrilled and tremulous she glows 
 Beneath the light from arctic snows, 
 With flames more subtle, more divine 
 Than from the noonday splendors shine. 
 
 Who would forever craze on heaven 
 
 41 
 
42 SYBELLE. 
 
 If to its blue no clouds were given ? 
 Or bless the sun's eternal light 
 If nature gave no cliange of night? 
 .V stagnant jDool the Avaveless sea 
 Within its silent shores would be ; 
 And earth one broad Sahara made 
 Without its blended light and shade. 
 No flower of living joy may bloom 
 That springs not from another's tomb , 
 And life and love are only true, 
 When with the thorns and cross in view, 
 With patient strength and faith sublime 
 They dare the mount of woe to climb, 
 And brave death's dark ordeal through. 
 Its conquerors and its victims too. 
 
 What can they know of life who stand 
 Alone amid the desert's sand ; 
 Or shrink some cheerless cell Avithin 
 To die of coward shame and sin ? 
 Even pleasure grasps her own sweet rose. 
 Though sharp the thorn beneath it grows ; 
 The cross where martyred virtue prays 
 Alone is crowned with glory's rays ; 
 And heaven's high portals are undone 
 Through suffering of the Sinless One. 
 The daring heart, the hand of steel 
 Alone the conqueror's joy can feel. 
 Then welcome nature's ceaseless strife, 
 Her life in death, and death in life, 
 And let the pale lips joyful press 
 The cup they have not strength to bless — 
 
S Y B E L L E. 43 
 
 Life's bitter cup, where love divine 
 Ilath mingled wormwood with the wine. 
 
 O there be human hearts that crave 
 More of the world than just a grave ; 
 AVhile life has so much more to give 
 They must have more than just to live. 
 They would not breathe if breath were all 
 That bound them here in being's thrall ; 
 They cannot fold their hands and pine 
 Beside life's goblet brimmed with wine, 
 With thirsty lip and longing eye 
 Dream that they dream, and dreaming die 
 To make life one long breathing lie. 
 Though all those purple depths may glow 
 "With blended drops of bliss and woe, 
 With promise of but dregs at last 
 When the delirious draught is past, 
 It matters not : there be who drain 
 And wish the goblet filled again, 
 So sweet it is in life to prove 
 All hearts can know of life and love. 
 
 Such mingled draught was thine, Sybelle, 
 Though drawn from love's enchanted well. 
 Though sweet with all its honeyed store, 
 With beaded kisses brimming o'er, 
 And Avarm Avith that most subtle power 
 Love has o'er life in passion's hour. 
 O sweet and warm on lip and tongue, 
 And thrilling as the songs you sung, 
 Down to vour heart the maddening^ drauaht 
 
44 S Y B E L L E. 
 
 Went burning still and still you quaffed, 
 
 Till over lip and brow and brain 
 
 The fiery nectar flushed again. 
 
 And though the gall-drops blended there 
 
 Blanched from your cheeks the roses fair, 
 
 And clouded your calm, trustful eyes 
 
 With something of the world's disguise, 
 
 Though darker for the glory gone 
 
 The future's sunless years come on, 
 
 Still could your life go back once more. 
 
 As gladly, wildly as before, 
 
 With all that craving thirst of soul. 
 
 Your hands would grasp the proffered bowl, 
 
 And to the dregs, if dregs there be. 
 
 Your lips would drain it eagerly : 
 
 'Twere worth all life can know of pain. 
 
 To love and be so loved again ! 
 
 No longer now within those eyes. 
 Or on that lip unanswered lies 
 The heart's great question. O'er and o'er, 
 Each day more clearly than before. 
 Two hearts in conscious silence prove. 
 That love is life and life is love. 
 What other power than love could throw 
 O'er all thy world so warm a glow, 
 Or wake within that sylvan dell 
 Such songs from thy sweet lips, Sybelle? 
 
 Open, O buds, to the light that is shining, 
 Waiting and pleading to bless. 
 
 Pale in your pale hearts no longer repining 
 Wake to the soft wind's caress. 
 
S Y B E L L E. 45 
 
 Sunlight and south winds are pleading to you, 
 Night bathes your lips with her kisses of dew, 
 Morn gives you draughts of her balmiest rain. 
 Open, O buds of the valley and plain, 
 The summer is here in her fulness of bliss. 
 Why slee]) through a life of such beauty as this ? 
 
 Dreaming like you "with life's light o'er me shining, 
 
 Waiting and pleading to bless, 
 Cold in my cold heart I murmured, repining. 
 
 Shrinking from beauty's caress — 
 Beauty that wooed me to nature's pure arms, 
 Crowded and crowned all my days with its charms. 
 Longing and dreaming of life more complete, 
 Scorning the perfect one cast at my feet, 
 A.nd closing my eyes to its promise of bliss, 
 I slept as you sleep 'mid such beauty as this. 
 
 Welcoming now the pure light that is shining, 
 
 Pleading no longer in vain. 
 Flowers that I scorned in my childish repining. 
 
 Open to bless me again. 
 Winds that bring balm from the tropic isles blest. 
 Birds that sing low from the summer-full nest, 
 Grasses that quiver with life at my feet, 
 Kiver full brimmed with the summer rains sweet, 
 Proud trees bending low in your stillness of bliss, 
 What spell hath enwrapped you with beauty like 
 this ? 
 
 Soft through the valley a splendor is shining, 
 Softly and golden it falls. 
 
46 S Y B E L L E. 
 
 Over the trees with their branches entwining, 
 
 Over the low cottage walls, 
 Over the fields with their harvests and herds. 
 Over the blossoms, the river, the birds, 
 All nature so glowing and living in light, 
 Day giving Avarmth to the glory of night — 
 O heart how long darkened and dead to all bliss, 
 That lived and yet lived not in beauty like this ! 
 
 As waking from a troubled dream 
 Amid a world of light I stand. 
 
 By waters whose unfailing flow 
 
 Gleams ever bright o'er golden sand. 
 
 I breathe a blessing on thy name, 
 My guide to fountains so divine ; 
 
 I drink, believing only life 
 
 Can come from hand so pure as thine. 
 
 No mad bacchante's poisoned cup 
 Is this that to my lip is pressed. 
 
 No rosy wine inspires such bliss 
 
 As thou hast waked within my breast. 
 
 Thy words were like the prophet's wand. 
 They touched the rock, and to thy side 
 
 How quick the living waters sprang, 
 Delighted in thy sight to glide. 
 
 Now bending o'er the crystal wave 
 
 I fill life's goblet unto thee, 
 And pledge thee by that love alone 
 
 From thought of earthly passion free. 
 
S Y B E L L E. 47 
 
 No bittei" drops from Marah's stream 
 
 Are mingled in the cup I drain, 
 And pure as thou to me liast given 
 
 I give it back to thee again. 
 
 O take it from the grateful hand 
 That fills it brimming o'er for thee, 
 
 And pledge me by that love alone 
 From thought of eartlily passion free. 
 
 BloAV soft and low, sweet southern wind, 
 Blow warm and low, and swift unbind 
 Tlie fettered snowdrop ; jjale she lies. 
 Till thou unclose her sealed eyes ; 
 Pale in her cell the violet weeps, 
 And pale the sainted lily sleeps — 
 A poet dreaming over rhymes, 
 
 With sweet bells waiting all in tune 
 To welcome in with fragrant chimes 
 
 Thy bridal with the rose of June. 
 Sweet rose with thorns enguarded round, 
 And pale in clasping calyx bound, 
 No longer at thy emerald gates 
 The wind Avith patient wooing waits ; 
 Though thorns may point around, above, 
 Thorns pierce not half so deep as love. 
 Stung by that passion-barbed desire. 
 With tropic breath and pulse of fire 
 Thy lover comes ; along his Avay 
 The snowdrop fainted where she lay; 
 He kissed the violet's tears away ; 
 He touched the waiting lily bells. 
 
48 SY BELLE. 
 
 Their chime his waiting bliss foretells. 
 
 In vain in trij^le order stand 
 
 Those serried guards, a bristling band, 
 
 He comes to thee nnhai-med through harms, 
 
 He folds thee in his eager arms, 
 
 His sighs the calyx bands iinpart. 
 
 His kisses wake and wann thy heart. 
 
 Till crimson blushes, self-confessing. 
 
 Thy willing lips to his are pressing, 
 
 And both, with clasp and sigh and kiss, 
 
 Rest perfect in your bloom and bliss. 
 
 How long the silent woods among, 
 
 The willow boughs in silence hung ; 
 
 How pale, with life half understood, 
 
 The still flowers waited in the wood, 
 
 Or only stirred by passing wing. 
 
 Or by tlie fickle winds of Spring, 
 
 Till Summer came. Sweet Summer wind, 
 
 Thy loves the forest tongues imbind : 
 
 Life breaks in bloom from shrub and tree, 
 
 The wild flowers flush and pale for thee, 
 
 And whisper low through all the grove, 
 
 O love is life, and life is love ! 
 
 And low among her trembling leaves 
 
 Her own love song the willow weaves. 
 
 Come close within these clasping arms, 
 O weary wandering Summer wind, 
 
 And let the lithe and drooping boughs 
 Be with thy viewless being twined; 
 
 Then murmuring back thy whispered love 
 And folded in thy dear caress, 
 
 This charmed life to both shall prove 
 
S Y B E L L E. 49 
 
 One long sweet dream of blessedness. 
 Come closer yet ; the Avillow bends 
 
 Her glorious poet love to meet, 
 Her wreathing arms are round thee twined 
 
 In fond caresses, wild as sweet. 
 Each quivering leaf that turns to tliee 
 
 Is witness of the love fires warm, 
 First fanned to life by thy soft breath 
 
 And glowing sweet through all her form. 
 And each wild, passion-kindled song 
 
 Thou hearest in thy minstrel tree. 
 Thy presence hath inspired alone — 
 
 'Tis sung, O poet love, for thee ! 
 Thy breath parts all the gloomy boughs 
 
 Till golden noon froni azure skies, 
 And morning's blush and evening's smile, 
 
 And light from midnight's starry eyes, 
 And all the joy of beauty born, 
 
 In earth or air, beneath, above, 
 So blended with thy presence seem 
 
 That all alike awaken love. 
 Then while Avithin the minstrel tree 
 
 The willow's poet love may stay, 
 O wonder not she loves for him 
 
 To weave the warm, impassioned lay ; 
 That trembling in his clasping arms 
 
 She yields her lips to his fond kiss, 
 In that long breathless draught that fills 
 
 Her summer dream Avith perfect bliss ! 
 
 Is it thy spirit. Love, that gloAvs 
 Through all the fervid summer air, 
 3 
 
60 SYBELLE. 
 
 Filling the deep woods with repose 
 
 That is not rest — a yearning care, 
 A strange and tremulous desire 
 
 Thy own intensest power to learn — 
 A breathless longing for that fire 
 
 That all consumes, since it must burn ? 
 There is no breath the leaves to move, 
 
 Yet quivering through the glowing hours, 
 In rapt unrest they bend above 
 
 The silent, upward-gazing flowers, 
 Flowers blushing at their own sweet glow, 
 And trembling though no winds may blow; 
 As she, the valley's fairest rose, 
 Alone where wild the river flo"\vs, 
 Blushes and trembles in her dream — 
 
 Her half-awakened dream of love, 
 Watching a vision of the stream 
 
 With its white bending cloud above. 
 
 On with ceaseless music ever 
 Sweeps and swells the restless river. 
 Deeper growing, swifter, stronger — 
 Ah, that guiding hand no longer 
 Turns at will the yielding current. 
 Checks or speeds the rushing torrent. 
 
 Toward the cloud up-gazing ever, 
 Smiles and sings the happy river; 
 He, an all too willing lover, 
 Beckons on and bends above her, 
 To her bright waves dimples bringing. 
 Paying kisses back for singing. 
 
SYBELLE. 51 
 
 Whither, whither are ye tending, 
 Cloud and stream together blending I 
 Passion-blinded, maddened, dying, 
 But to quench that fiery sighing, 
 Burning cloud and throbbing river, 
 In the flame that burns forever ! 
 
 On the gulf's dark brink the river 
 One brief instant pauses ever. 
 Breathless from its dream awaking, 
 Pauses ere that last plunge taking, 
 Down to depths where never, never, 
 Comes another dream forever ! 
 
 Blinded by love's fatal kisses, 
 
 Will they see those dark abysses ? 
 
 Lo, in music breathing ever, 
 
 To the cloud the waking river, 
 
 ' Mid the white spray round her clinging, 
 
 On that tatal brink is singing. 
 
 Startled by the echoes wailing, 
 With her cheek now flushing, paling. 
 Fair Sybelle, from dreams awaking. 
 With that love-light round her breaking, 
 Where the warm rays glance and quiver 
 Sings beside the waking river. 
 
 " I who placed my hopes above 
 All that Avoman hopes from love, 
 In my eager grasp for fame 
 Plunged into the fital flame. 
 
52 SY BELLE. 
 
 What but love is this that turns 
 All my thoughts to one that burns 
 Lava-like through nerve and vein, 
 Filling soul and sense and brain ? 
 Wliat but love that makes the skies 
 Dark, when from those earnest eyes 
 Mine must turn with maiden dread, 
 Fearful lest the truth be read ? 
 What but love makes every tone 
 Falling from those lij^s alone 
 Sweeter far than music's own, 
 Every smile that they have given 
 Dearer than my hopes of heaven, 
 Every word that they have spoken 
 Binding like a spell unbroken 
 Since I gave, in trusting hour. 
 Thought and being to their power ? 
 Yielding to ambition's spell, 
 Drinking deep from learning's well, 
 I have drank of love as well. 
 Lovei Whence came it? I nor sought, 
 Knew, nor dreamed it in my thought. 
 Childlike to his guiding hand 
 Mine I gave, and loved to stand, 
 Heedless of my flowers and birds. 
 Listening to his dearer words — 
 Dear, that to my wondering sight 
 They vmveiled such worlds of light ; 
 Teaching me that life is where 
 Soul and sense Avith being are, 
 Bounded not by realm or zone, 
 Crowded street or forest lone ; 
 
S Y B E L L E. 53 
 
 Drawing from the trees and fiowers 
 Lessons sweet for summer hours — 
 Such as I had never known, 
 Though my life Avith theirs had grown ; 
 Waking beauty from the sod 
 In the very path I trod ; 
 Calling back the immortal dead 
 From the deathless page we read ; 
 Grandest truth and noblest thought 
 From those lips new beauty t;aught ; 
 Lowliest objects owned the spell 
 Where those words of music fell. 
 I, who loved the words, have grown 
 Strangely dear to prize the tone ; 
 Strangely dear the soul to prize 
 Looking on me from those eyes 
 Bending oft so close above. 
 Offering life but taking love — 
 Taking, till mine eyes no more 
 See the future's shadowy shore, 
 For this ever blinding flame 
 Shrouding all my hopes of fame ; 
 Taking, till my cheek groAvs pale, 
 And my throbbing pulses fail. 
 When his presence may not give 
 That sweet fire on which they live ; 
 Till between the heavens and me 
 Evermore those eyes I see ; 
 Till no other voice I hear, 
 Till that smile alone is dear. 
 And I tremble with a fear, 
 Strange and sweet as sorrow is 
 
64 S Y B E L L E. 
 
 On the brink of happiness. 
 Still with sealed lips and heart 
 I mnst act the pupil's part ; 
 Listening-, calmly as I may, 
 To his teachings day by day, 
 As he points with steady hand _ 
 
 Where ambition's votaries stand, 
 Gii'ded strong the race to run 
 Ere their laurels may be won, 
 Urging me ^itli purpose high 
 In their fame to share, while I 
 All would give if one caress 
 On that hand my lips might press. 
 Madness ! folly ! But this horn- 
 Bend I thus to passion's power; 
 Back to life my soul must turn, 
 All these idle dreamings spurn : 
 Hiding in my heart alone 
 All of love that I have known. 
 Gathering round me, fold on fold, 
 Vestal garments pure and cold, 
 On ambition's nobler shrine 
 I Biust light the fires divine. 
 And beside that deathless flame 
 Sing alone for name and fame." 
 
 Ah, proud resolves, you lived your little hour, 
 Then drooped and faded as some fragile flower 
 Long nursed in shadows chill, may- droop and fail, 
 When noon's full blaze falls on its petals pale ! 
 Ah, more than Avoman hadst thou been, Sybelle, 
 Successful to resist that wondrous spell 
 
SY BELLE. 55 
 
 Love wrought upon thy woman's heart ! And more 
 Tlian man, or less, who daily bending o'er 
 The bright, up-giancing stream, could fail to know 
 His own form clasped in every wave, while low 
 His name blent ever with their murmuring flow. 
 Ah, more than man Avho had not longed to lavo 
 Lip, brow and bosom in that swelling wave, 
 "Who, thirsting unto death in deserts lone, 
 "Would shrink to taste a fountain all his own ! 
 
 Love's miracle of love, its life in life is this, 
 That breath of time that spans an age of bliss, 
 When eyes long gazing into eyes have learned 
 All that sweet wisdom by the stoics sjnirned ; 
 When lips, long pressing sweeter lips, grow pale 
 Giving and taking, and the breath half fail. 
 The arms clasp closer, and the burning brain 
 Scarce dreams that virtue yet may warn in vain ! 
 Blest they who on the gulf's dark brink have turned, 
 And, safe with all that dangerous wisdom learned. 
 Walked back to life more perfect, pure and strong, 
 Full of love's bliss, without its guilty wi'ong ; 
 Warm with the breath drawn burning through each 
 
 vein . 
 From the sweet lips they dare to ]>ress again, 
 Full of the light from eyes more dear than heaven, 
 Strong with the strength that clasping arms have 
 
 given. 
 By those dear arms and eyes and lips to prove 
 That perfect love is life, and life is lo^e. 
 
 With all its perfectness of bliss endowed, 
 
53 SY BELLE. 
 
 Proud in her happy love, and pure as proud, 
 Sybelle, the tmiid forest child, no more 
 Walks in vague dreams beside the river shore. 
 So many eves through all the summer's prime, 
 And glowing noons in golden harvest time, 
 So many morns of fading splendor drowned 
 In di'eamy forest depths all autumn-browned. 
 So many months of days with loving hand 
 Has Raimond led her through historic land. 
 So long for her the poet's images turned 
 While on his lips their inspiration burned. 
 So oft, so earnest to her eager mind 
 Life's purest aims, its noblest hopes defined, 
 Leading her thoughts still outward from her heart 
 To claim in great humanities their part, 
 That she has caught his spirit's higher tone. 
 And pure and strong in his strong nature groAvn ; 
 Self-conscious of that strength too, but no less 
 A perfect woman in her tenderness. 
 
 And she has grown so beautiful : there lies 
 The light of that long summer in her eyes — 
 All that came down from the unclouded noons. 
 From the love-burning stars and tender moons. 
 Made softer, tenderer in those depths of blue. 
 By the loved eyes long gazing in them too. 
 The pure, fvir cheeks, so rounded, clear and soft. 
 Change their bright rose and delicate tints so oft. 
 That love may read by his mysterious art 
 Quick telegraphic flashes from the heart- 
 On the red lips they pla}^ too, those sweet fires, 
 To other lips like charged electric wires. 
 
S Y B E L L E. 57 
 
 All- that warm bloom and half the blue eyes' light 
 
 Are woman's, love's own dower and beauty's right. 
 
 But round the tender mouth so firmly pressed, 
 
 In movements free, yet all so self-possessed, 
 
 In darker flames that sometimes light her eye, 
 
 In the firm calmness of her forehead high. 
 
 And in the voice, true prophet of the soul, 
 
 There lives and speaks, unconscious of control, 
 
 Strong in its gentleness, the spirit pure 
 
 That well can love and silently endure, 
 
 That half its strength and all its passion caught 
 
 From well learned lessons by her lover taught. 
 
 A beautiful, proud, loving woman — one 
 
 Whom Raimond has grown proud to look upon! 
 
 Part of his life, his very soul she seems. 
 
 As if his hand the ideal of his dreams 
 
 Had caught, and prisoned in that living form ; 
 
 As if from his own lips, pure-breathing, warm, 
 
 Had gone the fires through all that lovely frame, 
 
 That gave such vigor to the kindling flame 
 
 Of thought, it might be genius, that so long 
 
 Found faint expression in her girlish song. 
 
 Kindling and glowing into life so new. 
 
 So strong, so beautiful her spirit grew, 
 
 So clinging to his own, and yet so free 
 
 From weakness in its fond idolatry, 
 
 That he had grown to love her with that love 
 
 Man knows but once, nor ever soai-s above 
 
 In all the flights his bold ambition dares. 
 
 Nor yet can crush with life-long crowding cai-es 
 
 Piled mountain high upon it : all between 
 
 Life's granite cliff's will cling its tendrils green. 
 
58 SY BELLE. 
 
 From fjune's bleak iiiiinacle it blushes down, 
 The only rose twined in his laurel cro■u^^. 
 
 Thus, Raimond, though that love thou sacrifice, 
 Man-like, more free to grasp ambition's prize, 
 Thus will its de.athlcss fragrance ever twine 
 Through all thy future life ; and brightly thine 
 Will glow amid the laurel's troubled gloom, 
 In deeds born but of love's undying bloom. 
 Aye, go and join your battling ranks again, 
 Match your proud strength with' strength of giant 
 
 men, 
 Let other arms, long plighted, loved no more, 
 Welcome you nightly when the strife is o'er, 
 To gilded lialls where desolate you roam — 
 Her gilded halls, your palace prison home. 
 Seek with her gold yoiir woodland flower to hide. 
 Crush, trample on it in your march of pride. 
 Still fresh it springs beneath your iron tread, 
 Acanthus-like — immortal from the dead! 
 
 Is it her doom traced on his troubled brow 
 Sj'belle is reading, gazing on him now, 
 With those dark flashes in her tender eyes 
 That change to purple black their azure dyes ? 
 A strange o'ershadowing of jDrophetic wings 
 Seems darkening through the very song she sings. 
 Though firm and sweet and clear the music rings. 
 
 "I sing for thee, love, a love song of the moniing. 
 It wakened my soul from its night dream of bliss. 
 
 Of thy lips on my eyes, love ; O was it a warning 
 That tears should be there in the place of thy kiss? 
 
S Y B E L L E. 
 
 59 
 
 It springs from my heart as the wild bird is springing, 
 'Mid dew drops and bloom from her own forest tree; 
 
 I'll sing it aloud as the wild bird is singing, 
 In morning's sweet twilight I sing it for thee. 
 
 I sing it for thee ere the day god is sending 
 His golden-tipped arrows of brightness afar, 
 
 While yet o'er his couch the night-mother is bending, 
 Her pale forehead gemmed with one beautiful star. 
 
 Strange moment of doubt, when the worshipped ideal 
 Seems purer and holier far than the true, 
 
 When we gaze on the rising but shadowy real 
 
 Through mystical light born of starbeanis and dew. 
 
 O love, might we grasp the loved forms that are flying. 
 The visions that fade with the twilight away ! — 
 
 Alas, in the light that reveals them they're dying, 
 As night ever dies by the cradle of day. 
 
 Proud Night ! as she bends o'er the god at his waking, 
 
 His arrows are lodged in her beautiful breast ; 
 She sinks mid the splendor that round her is breaking, 
 And the stars have gone down to watch over her rest. 
 
 Farewell to thee, star-crowned and peerless Ideal, 
 Farewell to the dreams that are buried with thee ! 
 
 And welcome the strong-hearted, passionless Real 
 That riseth in power as the night shadows flee. 
 
 It comes to the world like the sunshine, revealing 
 What ages of starlight could never have shown ; — 
 
60 SY BELLE. 
 
 It comes to the heart by the lone grave of feeling, 
 And sets its broad seal on the sepulchre stone. 
 
 It comes to me now as the day beam is shining, 
 But sealed in my heart must its prophecies be, 
 
 For pale as yon stars in the twilight declining, 
 Are fading the dreams I Avas dreaming of thee ! 
 
 " Blow free and strong, O mnds of morn. 
 Blow far all dreams of dai-kness born! 
 Behold, on azure heights afar. 
 Fair shines the morning's herald star ! 
 In silence deep on plain and steep 
 The shivering shadoAvs closer creep ; 
 The twilight dies in purple skies, 
 The white mist on her starry eyes ; 
 And fair and frail above the vale 
 The night-long wandering moon grows pale. 
 Shine bright above, O star of love. 
 The purer coming day to prove ! 
 Blow strong for right, O winds of might, 
 Blow wide the morning gates of light, 
 Blow far all dreams and doubtful gleams 
 Till perfect day above us beams ! " 
 
 " Too soon it comes, Sybelle ; our dreams have 
 grown 
 So sweet, so dear amid these twilights lone, 
 I could almost have wished no other bliss 
 In life, or other world or heaven than this. 
 Too soon — again those half-defiant flashes, 
 Sybelle, burn darkly through your shadowy lashes. 
 
S Y B E L L E. Ql 
 
 What mean they, love ? I saw them once before, 
 Tliat sweet June night when by the rixer shore 
 You prayed for life, and thought your lips could 
 
 press 
 Rich yvme even fi-oni its dregs of bitterness. 
 They do ; and from theij" own excess return 
 A richer wine w^here'er their kisses burn. 
 Dear lips that give so much more than they take, 
 Close be they pressed to mine for love's sweet sake. 
 I thought to teach you life, and I have caught 
 More from these lips than all the Avorld has taught. 
 That sweet, sweet lesson let me learn again ; 
 I thought I lived and you were dreaming then. 
 But both were cold, both dreamed, both waked, and 
 
 now 
 I live in dreams and dream of life ; and thou 
 Wilt never dream again, my own, my Ioa e ; 
 God look in pity on us from above. 
 Come closer ; poiir in mine those dear, dear eyes, 
 Now warm with tender light of morning skies ; 
 Forget that ever rising day may bring 
 For thee one black plume on his golden wing ; 
 Forget, dear love, that pain or grief or wrong. 
 May jar one chord in all thy life of song; 
 Forget that dreams like ours may end in pain ; 
 Clasp me and say, I love thee, once again." 
 
 "Say that I love thee ! must the joyous earth, 
 In measured tones to the bright sun replying, 
 
 Tell of the love that in her heart has birth 
 Willie she beneath his radiant smile is lying? 
 
 Is not each blossom eloquent with love ? 
 
 Each budding germ on her warm bosom glowing, 
 
62 SYBELLE. 
 
 All mutely breathes to the blue lieavens above 
 Of love's sweet rapture through her being flowing. 
 
 Thou knowest thy smile is sunlight on my heart ; 
 Thou seest my cheek with love-warm blushes 
 burning ; 
 
 Thou knowest how tears into mine eyes Mall start 
 For very joy, when thine are on them turning ; 
 
 And dost thou ask me yet by words to prove 
 
 How dear thy presence is, how true my love? 
 
 Say that I love thee ! Yes, the vernal sun. 
 
 Earth's glorious lover in his azure heaven, 
 Ne'er blessed the world he deigns to smile upon 
 
 With deeper joy than thou to me hast given. 
 Not by fond words of flattering tenderness. 
 
 By vows that lips have made and hearts have 
 broken ; 
 But by thy spirit's perfect power to bless 
 
 Through words of life and love thy lips have spoken. 
 Love thee ! O, love, life evermore to me 
 
 Had been a cold, sad sense of being, lonely. 
 And lost and weary, without love and thee, 
 
 Life without life, a drear existence only ; 
 Now warm with bliss that cannot change to pain, 
 And light with light that grows not dark again. 
 
 It is no sin to love, and tell thee so ; 
 
 Ours is no passion born of youthful gladness, 
 Flushing at once to summer's ferAdcl glow. 
 
 Dying as soon by its own burning madness. 
 Love found us with our senses all awake ; — 
 
 Thine from their world life, mine from their life 
 seeming, 
 
S Y B E L L E. (33 
 
 It wove round us no brittle chains to break, 
 
 Or wax-like melt beneath the clay's first beaming. 
 
 O love, our love can no more die in us 
 
 Than God's light from the sun in mid-day heaven 
 
 Though I might see no more, nor clasp thee thus, 
 Though all now mine to other arms were given. 
 
 The life thou gavest me and the love I give, 
 
 Immortal both, in each must ever live." 
 
 To other arms ! Sybelle, canst thou divine 
 Why shrinks thy lover from the clasp of thine ? 
 Why at thy words, through nerve and pulse and 
 
 brain. 
 Shot the keen torture of some deadly pain ? 
 Why the warm lips grow pale and cold as clay. 
 And cheek and brow as white and chill as they V 
 Why all the anguish of a life-long agony 
 Seems gathered into that one glance for thee, 
 As the wliite lips are on thy foreliead pressed. 
 And thou one instant folded to his breast, 
 Then left, thyself half chilled, and pale and numb. 
 With the wild fears that o'er thy spirit come ! 
 Aye ; fold those cold hands o'er and o'er again, 
 Press them to your still heart and throbbing brain, 
 Rally your startled senses as you may. 
 Go out into the morning cold and gray ; 
 The black, bare earth alone will meet you there, 
 The damp, sad pressure of the autumn air, 
 And heaven with all its stars and glor}- gone 
 And low with lead-cold storm clouds overdrawn. 
 Alone, alone ! Your pale face grows more pale, 
 And down the leaf-strewn pathway to the vale 
 
64 S Y B E L L E. 
 
 Yoiir stejis move strangely slow ; the very air 
 Around seems heavy with the woe you bear. 
 A dread you feel and yet you cannot name, 
 Creeps slow, and dark and cold through all your 
 
 frame 
 And gathers round your heart. Where now the 
 
 light 
 And glow of love that made the morn so bright? 
 Dark bend the clouds, and dark along its bed 
 The stream, its sands with dead leaves overspread, 
 Flows mournfully ; the leafless trees bend low 
 In silent listening to your words of woe. 
 
 "A cloud through which, alas, no eye can see, 
 Is hiding all the heaven's sweet light from me. 
 I knew, I felt its outline faint and dim, 
 SloAV darkening up the flir horizon's rim. 
 Yet shut my eyes and would not see it grow. 
 And would not see the lightnings round me glow — 
 The fierce, bright flashes, and the gloom that came 
 More darkly after every blinding flame. 
 I might have known — alas, too well I knew 
 Such gloom and flame from happy love ne'er grew. 
 What secret power these elements have nursed, 
 Or when or how the fatal storm will burst 
 It matters not. I know that it must come ; 
 I felt it in those arms, those cold lips, dumb 
 With sorrow that they dare not press on mine. 
 () love, if gall be mingled in this wine, 
 Both, both must taste its bitterest bitterness ; 
 Both have so deeply quafied : nor thou the less, 
 Nor I, long-thirsting lips have eagei- j-ressed, 
 
S Y B E L L E. 
 
 Ql 
 
 To di-aiu the bowl so brimming and so blest. 
 
 My life, my love, my Raimond, thou hast given 
 
 All my proud heart could ask for this side heaven ! 
 
 My guide, my teacher ; to my darkened eyes 
 
 Making earth bloom a glorious paradise. 
 
 I drank in knowledge from thy lips as flowei's 
 
 In thirsty gardens drink the summer showers 
 
 And grow by them; and I grew up by thee 
 
 So proud, so fearless and so trustingly. 
 
 Molding my very being into thine 
 
 Till my own nature seemed no more as mine, 
 
 But strong, and high, and noble as thine own ; 
 
 And thine so noble ! O love, I had grown 
 
 Almost to worship ere I dared to love ; 
 
 80 high thy own life aims — so fir above 
 
 All my weak foncy dreamed. In very shame 
 
 I blushed that I had even thought of fame 
 
 Before thee. Blank and aimless until tlien 
 
 All being seemed. It cannot be again. 
 
 Teacher and pupil, each in each we grew 
 
 And each from each a new existence drew. 
 
 Love came to thee as knowledge unto me, 
 
 Transforming life. How free, how gloriously 
 
 Thy soul came forth in that new being's dawn ! 
 
 Thy form such beauty and such strength put on. 
 
 Such consciousness of joy in life as lives 
 
 Alone where love's pure inspiration o-ivos 
 
 To heart and soul and sense and being all 
 
 They crave of bliss that fills bat cannot pall 
 
 The senses. Tliine, love, thine and mine all this — 
 
 Hearts, lips, and eyes, and arms, so filled with bliss 
 
 Tbey never shall grow cold again. Mine own. 
 
(5(3 SYBELLE. 
 
 My life, thou canst not leave me thus, alone ! 
 
 Alas, not mine to drown these rising fears, 
 
 The weakness and the blessedness of tears ! 
 
 If honor bids thee go and me to stay, 
 
 I must look in those eyes and trusting say : 
 
 Go, love, though light go out of heaven with thee, 
 
 Thou canst not take the light thou gavest me. 
 
 Or if ambition lure thy spirit for, 
 
 And love oi- I thine upward pathway bar, 
 
 I could, as brave as thou, that love lay down, 
 
 Nor dim by one weak tear thy victor crown. 
 
 That is not love that victim-like would bind 
 
 Love to its altar, fettered, shorn and blind. 
 
 But O, not this, nor this ; my soul would go 
 
 In widening circles farther from its woe ! 
 
 A dark, dark thought I cannot speak for pain, 
 
 Lies like a teiTor on my heart and brain. 
 
 Love long confessed, and soul with soul as one, 
 
 Why still in Avord and thought the future shun ? 
 
 Why call such life as this a dream, and pray 
 
 God's pity on us both, as if Avith day 
 
 Some horror came to blacken all our bliss ? 
 
 Why on the very breath that gave love'skiss 
 
 Came warnings of dark plumes, and grief, and pain? 
 
 Why all my earnest words of love in vain ? 
 
 In vain ! alas, even as I sang there came 
 
 A shivering chill like terror through that frame. . 
 
 I watched it all with love's most jealous eyes, 
 
 l^rom whitening lips to whiter forehead rise ; 
 
 I felt it in the cold, strong energy 
 
 Of fingers clasping mine unknowing why ; 
 
 And that last glance of heart-Avrung hopelessness — 
 
S Y B E L L E. Q1 
 
 Rainiond, ■\vere it mine tliy life to bless, 
 And dying I could bless tliee, I would die 
 Mather than see again that agony. 
 
 1 think — and yet I will not — dare not — no ! 
 Far from this brain thou maddening phantom, go. 
 With thy proud eyes, and heart and arms as cold 
 As are thy lands and piles of yellow gold ! 
 What if thy proffered coins, were piled so high 
 Ambition on them might mount to the sky? 
 Two strong, true, loving hearts before them rise 
 Yet higher, above, beyond those very skies. 
 
 Must they be crushed, life stripped of all its charms, 
 That he, a skeleton in your cold arms, 
 May clink your gold, and call that wealth and fame 
 That brands liis perjured soul with guilty shame ? 
 Black, black the pictui'e grows! I see it there ; 
 Down the pale shoulders streams the long black hair. 
 Black all the garments, and the cheek's blank Avhite 
 Gleams ghastly in the death-gift's yellow light — 
 That heritage that binds him to thy doom 
 And throws o'er me this shadow fi-om the tomb ; 
 Black, soulless eyes, yet cruel, cold and vain, 
 Their glance of triumph burns into my brain. 
 It shot through his that same, same baleful glow. 
 And it will part us yet ! Alas, I knoAV 
 Too well his haughty spirit's power to berid 
 His OAvn sti'ong will to gain the purposed end ; 
 And well I know that firm, imshrinking soul, 
 Would soar through flame to gain its wished-for goal; 
 ISTor love nor I his onward course could bar 
 More than the clouds the pathway of a star. 
 Is this man's love ? O Raimond, is it thine ! 
 
(53 S Y B E L L E. 
 
 Can gold or fame so far our love outshine, 
 That thou, betraying all my holy trust, 
 Canst bury all beneath that gilded dust; 
 Canst call its dreary gleam thy being's light, 
 And clieat thy heart of life's divinest right ? 
 And I — I asked thee but for life, not this, 
 O love, thou more than life, and more than bliss! 
 To have the draught that I must drink or die 
 So dashed with drops of blackest agony — 
 Black ! all is black ! are not those mocking eyes 
 Opening upon me from these darkened skies, 
 Showino- the trees that gave their summer charms 
 To autunui's gilding, blighting, blackening arms ? 
 Proud trees! in vain your moanings through the air, 
 You paid the price for all the woe you bear! 
 Why stretch your arms in helpless wailing down 
 To the poor stream who holds your summer crown 
 Deep in her bosom, black and dead and cold i 
 Poor little stream ! your sands of shining gold 
 Are blackened too, by once bright golden leaves 
 O'er whose dead forms your troubled bosom heaves 
 In mournful murmurings, yet ever presses 
 Closer and closer in its chill caresses, 
 As I the summer hopes that floated down 
 Into my being — love's most regal crown. 
 Glowing and purple with the life drops wrung 
 From the great heart that proudly o'er me hung. 
 Showering its wealth upon me, as the trees 
 Poured theirs on thee with every passing breeze ! 
 O love, I rave ! Such wealth of love and liglit 
 Could never die ! Are not the sands all bright 
 And golden yet within thee, sighing stream. 
 
SYBELLE. 69 
 
 As when the summer jjoured its ardent beam 
 Into thy breast i The blessed rains will fall 
 And wash away this dark, death-seeming jaall, 
 And thou wilt bear along thy glittering sands 
 Thy own sweet woodland song to other lands — 
 A song so wayward, deep, and strange and wild, 
 The world shall bend to hear the forest child, 
 And wonder whence such music came. And thou, 
 Forgetting half the gloom that shrouds thee now, 
 Remembering all the splendor and the blaze 
 Of light and bloom that crowned thy forest days. 
 Wilt pour new joy upon the world ; thy song- 
 Will bless all hearts, and make the faltering strong ! 
 Love should make souls like pure, lite-gladdening 
 
 streams. 
 Not pools all blackened o'er with boding dreams, 
 Silent, and dark, and dead, and poisoning all 
 On whom their blighting exhalations fall. 
 
 lost to me, yet ever loved as lost, 
 
 1 can but bless the star whose rays have crossed 
 My darkened path ! My Raimond, thou shalt know 
 The life thou gavest will outlive the woe 
 
 Of losing thee, though that go down to death. 
 And claim the last sigh of my parting breath ! 
 God bless thee, love ; and be His strength to thee 
 As the great love of thy true heart to me. 
 Ennobling all the future. We must part ; 
 O bitter words to come from woman's heart! 
 Yet bitterer far that life-long, dark remorse 
 Wrung from man's soul o'er honor's blackened corse. 
 No, Raimond ! if that call thee from my side 
 And nlace within thine arms another bride, 
 
YO SYBELLE. 
 
 Still go ! I trust tliy love as I trust heaven ; 
 Not all in vain the lessons thou hast given." 
 
 Strong hands long locked in fetters sweet 
 Unclasping nevermore to meet ; 
 Arms trembling with their last caress ; 
 Pale lips that nevermore may press 
 The lips their life went out on ; eyes 
 All blank and wild, as if the skies 
 Had lost the sun at noon, and night 
 Dropped black upon a world of light ; 
 Low, faltering words, the heart's faint knells ■ 
 This is the sum of love's farewells ! 
 
 The world has gained a bi-aver heart, 
 
 A hand more bold and strong, 
 A soul more firm to battle for 
 
 The right against the wi'ong, 
 Since from that woodland vale came forth 
 
 The hero of my song ; 
 Came forth, endowed with Avoman's love, 
 
 A love he could not claim, 
 For one who long in plighted faith 
 
 Had waited for his name — 
 Whose hand the golden ladder held 
 
 Whereon he climbed to fame ; 
 Came forth with such a blessing pressed 
 
 On hand and lip and brow, 
 As consecrate them all for truth 
 
SY BELLE. 71 
 
 By love's most holy a'ow — 
 A blessing hallowed through all time, 
 
 And ever fresh as now. 
 He cannot raise that hand for Avrong, 
 
 Whate'er the guerdon be, 
 Nor falsely sjjeak with lips that hers 
 
 Have sealed in purity; 
 He cannot hold within that brow 
 
 A thought unworthy thee — 
 Unworthy thee, beloved Sybelle; 
 
 Beloved not all in vain, 
 Since to the needy world he came 
 
 A better man again, 
 With iiiore of faith in womankind — 
 
 Of man's success less vain ; 
 A better man for having had 
 
 His own heart depths to prove. 
 To find though blinded passion soar 
 
 All reason's guards above, 
 It cannot touch with tainted breath 
 
 A pure and perfect love ; 
 A better man for all the bliss, 
 
 Perhaps for all the woe. 
 That maddening passion half withheld, 
 
 Half given in tortures sloAV, 
 Had mingled in the goblet rare 
 
 Whose depths he might not know. 
 O wondrous love ! not woman's cheek 
 
 A i^aler hue could wear, 
 Not woman's lip in agony 
 
 Could frame so v.'ild a prayer. 
 
72 S Y B £ L L E . 
 
 As wrung his soul with anguish in 
 
 That parting of despair ! 
 O wondrous love, that steadfast still 
 
 In lier blue eyes could burn, 
 Bent over his, as sorrow bends 
 
 Above a burial urn. 
 Then half-despairing, turns, alone, 
 
 Life's fearful task to learn ! 
 Alone, back to the needy world - 
 
 A pui-er man he came, 
 With holier motives to redeem 
 
 The pledge he gave to fame — 
 Among the noblest of the land 
 
 To write the noblest name. 
 Alone, she wanders in the vale, 
 
 Alone beside the stream, 
 Half-wondering if the memories 
 
 That all so real seem, 
 Are not her wild imaginings 
 
 In some bewildering dream. 
 She holds one hand upon her heart 
 
 To still its throbbing pain, 
 And one upon her brow to cool 
 
 Tliat almost frenzied brain, 
 And murmurs with those lips so pale — 
 
 "'Twere sweet to dreana again." 
 But he had said that nevermore 
 
 To her a dream would come ; 
 And must the brain that once could think. 
 
 Grow by its waking numb ? 
 And must the lips that once could sing, 
 
 Forevermore be dumb ? 
 
SYBELLE. 73 
 
 No ; she would sing the songs she wove 
 
 From fancies long ago, 
 When by her own loved sti'eani she lay, 
 
 To watch its quiet flow, 
 And crushed the roses in her hands, 
 
 And only dreamed of woe. 
 
 " All the day long, 
 With a ceaseless song 
 And the whole night through, 
 Down its path of blue, 
 A cascade falls over rocky walls, 
 In a far ofi" wood where the giant trees 
 Wrestle with storms or the passing breeze. 
 Where never a banner has floated high. 
 Or a glittering spire looked up to the sky. 
 Where the sunlight softly flickers doAvn 
 Through the summers green and the autumns brown. 
 And the cold bright light of the winter night, 
 And the tender sheen of the springtime green, 
 In changeful beauty glow and foil 
 Where the cascade sings o'er its rocky wall. 
 
 " But skies and trees, 
 
 And the changeful breeze 
 
 Like the rocks are chill, 
 
 As the cascade still 
 Pours the full tide of her passionate song. 
 Whether, of happiness, grief, or wrong. 
 Into her own cold breast of stone ; 
 And the murmurs low, and the saddening moan. 
 
74 SYBELLE. 
 
 That echo back from that dark abyss 
 
 The cry of the spirit's loneliness, 
 
 Are measured over with weary pain, 
 
 And poured on her rocky heart again, 
 
 While a misty cloud, like a cold white shroud, 
 
 Is gathered close o'ev her troubled Abreast, 
 
 To hide the passions that will not rest. 
 
 " A cascade lone, 
 
 With its wall of stone, 
 
 Is the ce'aseless strife 
 
 Of my hidden life, 
 And coldly the stream of my being falls 
 Over life's chilled and flinty walls, 
 And the moan of my spirit's loneliness 
 Comes ever up from the dark abyss; 
 I press it down with a cry of pain, 
 But it springs to my sealdd lips again, 
 And again is dashed to the heart below 
 Where the wild and passionate waters flow, 
 And I di-aw a cloud, like a cold white shroud. 
 Between the world and my weary breast. 
 And long for a night of eternal rest." 
 
 "Wild November winds are sighing. 
 
 Mournful, wailing winds of woe, 
 Sad the darkened stream replying 
 
 Murmurs through the valley low ; 
 Mourning over all the splendor 
 
 Lost amid that autumn gloom, 
 Mourning for the blossoms tender 
 
 Dead on autumn's icv tomb. 
 
S Y B E L L E. 
 
 Pale they saw the rose leaves fiiUing 
 Drenched with sorrow's chilling rain. 
 
 Faint they heard the willow calling 
 For her summer love in vain. 
 
 "See they not the rose-heart glowing, 
 
 Ruby-like amid the frost, 
 Life more strong within her erowino- 
 
 Than in all the petals lost? 
 See they not the willoAv keepino- 
 
 Loving watch the stream above, 
 All her frame, for all her weeping, 
 
 Golden Avith her summer love? 
 Winds of autumn cease your sighino-, 
 
 Cease your murmuring mournful river, 
 Truth and beauty are not dying, 
 
 Love in them shall live forever." 
 
 O there be flowers all fiir and frail 
 That shrink not from the autumn o-ale, 
 Full of the blissful summer past 
 They smile amid the wintry blast, 
 And smiling die, as if still dreaming 
 j Of love's warm sunlight o'er them beaming; 
 No faded leaves are foiling low, 
 N'o blight lies on their summer glow. 
 All fragrant breaks their parting breath 
 In love's sweet triumph over death. 
 And tlnis, with trust undimmed by tears, 
 Sybelle waits through the passing years. 
 Till long that Avell beloved name 
 Has graced the honored lists of fame. 
 
 75 
 
76 SY BELLE. 
 
 Unscathed through trial's fieriest hour, 
 Untainted by temptation's power, 
 Worthy of all her worship past, 
 And all her love, she sees at last, 
 A nation's grateful homage done 
 To him, her purest, proudest one. 
 Once more she stands the stream beside, 
 At twilight hour, in maiden pride, 
 With all that tender bloom that speaks 
 Of tender memories on her cheeks. 
 And that dark purple flame that lies ' 
 So constant now witliin her ey-es. 
 More darkly glowing, wliile her song 
 Floats calm and clear the vale along : 
 
 "Life is a welcome gift to those who stand 
 Strong-armed and free in youth's bright morning 
 
 land. 
 When the dark clouds of error's night are gone, 
 With fainter mists that dimmed the rising dawn, 
 And fair o'er all, the sun's unclouded ray. 
 Pours the warm light of trutli's eternal day. 
 
 " A welcome gift to me, O life, art thou, 
 Crowning all nature and my being now 
 With thy most perfect fulness. All I sought. 
 Or craved, or dreamed of in my wildest thought, 
 Tliou givest — light and love and truth, and power 
 Through them to ask for fame — ambition's dower. 
 
 "It were enough to live but once to say, 
 
 I love ! biit once in all life's pilgrim way 
 
 Tliat Mecca shrine to touch ; but once to know 
 
 How bright in human liearts love's flame may glow. 
 
SY BELLE. 77 
 
 Once and forever— here, O Love, thy bliss, 
 That what hath been but once, forever is! 
 
 " Forever thus with thee, my guiding star, 
 Whose i-ays fall on and bless me from afar, 
 Undimmed it glows ; and purer that the years 
 Watching thy course to higher, nobler spheres. 
 Witness no faltering, no eclipses there. 
 To dim the promise of thy dawning tair. 
 
 " I were unworthy of thy love and trust. 
 
 Unworthy of myself, if in the dust 
 
 I could bow down with weak and wailing cries, 
 
 Making that life a sinful sacrifice 
 
 That heaven and thou have blessed with light and 
 
 truth. 
 So craved and prayed for in my darkened youth. 
 
 '" Love is the dawn of truth unto the soul — 
 
 Life's morn, and noon, and night — its perfect whole I 
 
 I knew thy daAvn, thy glorious noon, O Love, 
 
 And through thy night by starry memories prove 
 
 That thou art life ! To thy undying flame, 
 
 I wake in hope my song for name and fixme!" 
 
ADELAIDE 
 
ADELAIDE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Beloved and bright, though to the world unknown 
 As the small spring that from the hillside breaks, 
 Glad in the music of its childish tone, 
 
 And in the life its purity awakes, 
 Now joyous in the April sunlight dancing, 
 Now on the stars, now. on the blossoms glancing, 
 Such was the childhood of a gentle maid, 
 Such were the infant years of Adelaide. 
 
 Blest childhood ! with thy smiles and artless mirth 
 
 Thou crownest life's dark years with hope and joy ; 
 Thou diamond pure in this dark mine of earth 
 Where scarce a gem is free from sin's alloy ! 
 Bright as the ray that shines from heaven upon thee 
 Ere earthly pleasure to her arms hath won thee, 
 Such be thy life, thou angel just from heaven, 
 Thou cherub to a mortal's guidance given ! 
 
 Fair as the opening rose at dewy morn 
 
 That bloomed in beauty by her cottage doo r, 
 4* 
 
82 ADELAIDE. 
 
 So fair was Adelaide ; and she was born, 
 
 When radiant June its greenest foliage wore ; 
 When leaves on leaves among the vines Avere wreath- 
 ing, 
 And summer flowers their richest fragrance breathing, 
 With perfume filled the rustic cot that stood 
 Like a lone hermit in the sheltering wood. 
 
 Alone it stood ; yet in its loneliness 
 
 A refuge was it for three loving hearts ; 
 To tliem a shield from sorrow and distress, 
 Far from capricious fortune's luring arts. 
 There lived they to the distant world as strangers, 
 There shared they each the otlier's toils and dan- 
 gers, — 
 The high-souled Ellis, Maiy his young bride, 
 And Ruth, his sister dear, in friendship tried. 
 
 His fortune lost by trust too oft betrayed, 
 
 By bitter wrongs his high ambition checked. 
 Here found he in the tranquil forest shade 
 
 A joy that prosperous fortune oft has wrecked — 
 The joy of life ; the gladness too of knowing 
 What love for him in other hearts Avas glowing. 
 The joy of life! now Avould he scorn to claim 
 That glittering toy, the tinsel wreath of ftime. 
 
 Each day the love that solitude endears 
 He saw in Mary's rapture-beaming smile. 
 
 And Ruth, though yet almost a child in years. 
 Seemed like an angel destined to beguile 
 
 From his proud heart each vain and wild emotion, 
 
 And soothe his spirit by her true devotion ; 
 
ADELAIDE.' 83 
 
 But ]iow, a purer, holier joy tlmii tliis, 
 Was Adelaide, the crown of all tlieir bliss. 
 
 Thrice hallowed, loved and helpless infancy ! 
 
 Blessed in thy helplessness, thy strong defence ; 
 Blessed in the tenderness that springs for thee, 
 
 Blessed in thy beauty and thine innocence ! 
 How wert thou welcomed, of all joys the dearest, 
 Tliou light that still the humblest cottage cheerest ; 
 For thee burned Avoman's love with purer flame, 
 And man forgot ambition, 'wealth and fame. 
 
 Yes ; all ambition but the wish to bless; 
 
 All fame but that which heaven itself ordained — « 
 The heart's own praise ; all we:dtli but happiness. 
 
 And the dear treasures his own cot contained. 
 What festal light o'er scenes of sj^lendor streaming. 
 What dazzling gems on brows of beauty beaming. 
 Could match the sunlight breaking o'er her rest 
 AYho slept with that sweet babe iipon her breast? 
 
 Through wreathing vines and forest branches green 
 The rosy beams of summer morning smiled. 
 
 How brightly fell they on that cottage scene — 
 The youthful mother and her first-born child ! 
 
 How fair that cheek the snoAvy pillow pressing, 
 
 How soft those arms her infont's form caressing; 
 
 The father's heart throbbed with sweet hopes and 
 fears, 
 
 And Ruth's dark eyes were filled with happy tears. 
 
 Affection true and holiest love wei'e there. 
 It sealed their lips as with a mystic charm ; 
 
84 ADELAIDE. 
 
 O few and brief such raptured moments are 
 
 When words would fill the bosom with alarm ; 
 When silent bliss from heart to heart is stealing, 
 And cheeks and eyes such speechless love revealing. 
 Tears, tears will flow, for nature claims them then, 
 From woman's eyes and from the hearts of men. 
 
 And they were blessed, for not more lovely grew 
 
 The fairest bud on summer's blooming brow. 
 By sunshine warmed and nursed with ft-agrant dew, 
 
 Than Adelaide, their bud of promise now. 
 Life's opening rose in artless beauty smiling. 
 Their light of life, now all their griefs beguiling ; 
 She was their joy when daily toils were done, 
 She was their starlight and their morning sun. 
 
 Soon fled those brief and blissful summer hours. 
 
 And faster sjoed the autumn months away ; 
 Stern winter passed, and spring's reviving showers 
 
 Fell on the tender leaves and blossoms gay. 
 Again the summer sunshine trembled lightly, 
 Where through the leaves the streamlet glistened 
 
 brightly; 
 Sweet June, the first of summer's dazzling train. 
 Came back to earth with all her charms again. 
 
 O radiant June, thou month of bloom and balm, 
 Thrice welcome art thou to our northern clime ! 
 
 What deep repose pervades the forest calm 
 
 When spring's perfection joins with summer's 
 
 jorime 
 
 Morn breaks upon a world of deAvy splendor. 
 And night falls gently o'er tlie twilight tender. 
 
ADELAIDE. 85 
 
 Soft zephyrs fan the languid brow of noon, 
 And beauty sleeps amid the woods of June. 
 
 Thus in still beauty by the placid stream 
 
 The oak, the willow and the aspen stood ; 
 The rich wheat ripened in the golden beam, 
 
 While, like a strongly banded brotherhood. 
 Line after line in emerald armor shining, 
 With lance and streamer to the earth inclining, 
 Stood the green corn ; yet all invisibly 
 'Twas rising upward, vipward toward the sky. 
 
 Oft sheltered fi'om the noontide's ardent ray 
 
 Would Ellis thankful o'er the landscape gaze ; 
 Along the verdant sloj^es spread far away 
 
 Stretched the soft outline of the summer haze. 
 There the bright river in the distance fading. 
 Here the tall oaks his lowly cottage shading, 
 And those rich fields, by his own toil subdued, 
 All cheered and strengthened him in solitude. 
 
 ' Twas thus with Mary's fair hand clasj^ed in his, 
 He stood beneath the oak's embowering shade. 
 
 The smiles that spring from conscious happiness, 
 And mutual love, ujjou their features played. 
 
 When music, clear as from the deep sky falling. 
 
 Came to their hearts, their own bright youth re- 
 calling, 
 
 'Twas Ruth's sweet voice that through the green- 
 wood rung 
 
 While thus to Adelaide she playful sung: 
 
86 ADELAIDE. 
 
 Child of the dark eyes 
 And beautiful brow, 
 
 Bud of the wilderness, 
 Why bloomest thou ? 
 
 For joy in thy sorrow, 
 For light in thy gloom. 
 
 For life and for beauty. 
 Thus do I bloom. 
 
 Life is a moment, 
 And joy ends in fear, 
 
 Bud of the wilderness, 
 Why art thou here ? 
 
 Emblem of Heaven 
 Its truth and its love, 
 
 I show thee the beauty 
 Of angels above. 
 
 Blest be thy beauty. 
 
 And hallowed thy birth, 
 
 Bud of the wilderness, 
 Welcome to earth ! 
 
ADELAIDE 
 
 PART II. 
 
 How swiftly pass the bright meridian hours 
 
 That measure manhood's years of ardent prime, 
 How few at noon will stoop to note the flowers 
 
 That charmed them in the balmy morning time. 
 Still in the shade the blossom blooms as sweetly, 
 Matures and strengthens as the years pass fleetly, 
 And when the proud, one droops in weariness. 
 Its love shall cheer him and its beauty bless. 
 
 Thus bloomed the gentle Adelaide ; while years 
 
 Brought added cares to Ellis' thoughtful brow, 
 And Mary watched with love's prophetic fears 
 On Ruth's fair cheek the hectic beauty glow. 
 Nor watched alone ; for other eyes were reading 
 That fatal page ; another heart was pleading 
 That heaven in pity might avert the doom 
 And save its idol from an eai-ly tomb. 
 
 The young, proud Edmond, who for her sweet love 
 Forsook the world, forgot his hopes of fame. 
 
88 ADELAIDE. 
 
 Nor knew nor cared to know a joy above 
 
 Her humbler lot ; and oh to hear his name 
 From such pure lips, to see her dark eyes beaming 
 With love so true, so angel-like in seeming, 
 Was more than life to him — 'twas his life's light, 
 Without whose presence all Avas death and night. 
 
 O it is beautiful, yet sad, to see 
 
 How man's proud strength in gentleness can bend, 
 How it can cling with fond idolatry 
 
 To woman's form, and with her being blend 
 Its life-long hopes ; how, on her love relying. 
 He braves all dangers ; but when she is dying. 
 He powerless fills, or, like the blighted oak, 
 Defies the storm and dares the lightning's stroke. 
 
 So Edmond fell, when from his clasping anus 
 
 His p]"omised bride, his gentle Ruth was torn ; 
 So Ellis stood, when o'er her pallid charms 
 
 He saw in grief his sti'icken Mary mourn. 
 From the sweet dream of love and hope awaking, 
 The lover raved, his weary heart was breaking ; 
 While the calm brother, pale and tearless by, 
 Checked his own grief to soothe his Mary's sigh. 
 
 And Adelaide, the gentle, loving one, 
 
 The watchful angel of the household band, 
 Forever present with her cheerful tone, 
 
 Her words of love, her ministering hand. 
 How did she with strong purpose check the gushing 
 Of tears that ever to her eyes were rushing. 
 How did she strive with woman's tenderness 
 The maniac lover's hapless lot to bless. 
 
ADELAIDE. gg 
 
 Death changes not the dying only ; no 
 
 The living too are molded by his power, 
 As doth the fruit in full perfection grow 
 
 Above the dust where sleeps the withered flower. 
 So in the maiden's heart new strength was springing, 
 New thoughts were there, a holier purpose bringing, 
 At once from her the bloom of life was gone. 
 At once the destiny of woman won. 
 
 She felt what hearts like hers but once can feel — 
 That she had loved ! With what a mad'ning pain 
 
 Did that dread truth upon her spirit steal ! 
 How did she strive to banish it in vain ! 
 
 With every thought of girlhood's hours of gladness 
 
 Was linked his name ; and though it now Avere mad- 
 ness, 
 
 Though hope was dead, and reason's sun was set, 
 
 True to her destiny she loved him yet. 
 
 But oh, with such a chastened, fearful love 
 
 As seldom girlhood's guileless heart has known; 
 She would not wrong the sainted one above, 
 To wish one thought, one smile, one tone. 
 Of all the blissful past to her were given. 
 Or could be hers ; not for her hopes of heaven 
 Would she to mortal eyes the love unveil. 
 That jjreyed upon her heart, that made her young 
 cheek pale. 
 
 It was enough that through the weary years 
 His blighted spirit might be doomed to live, 
 
 Her voice could cheer, her presence calm his fears, 
 Or to his life one gleam of pleasure give. 
 
90 ADELAIDE. 
 
 It was enough amid that night of sorrow, 
 One ray of hght, one trembling hope to borrow 
 From his sad smile, when wandering by her side, 
 He talked of Ruth, and called her his lost bride. 
 
 He told her that when years of grief were spent, 
 
 And he had wandered many a weary way. 
 When his lithe form with feeble age was bent, 
 
 And his dark locks were sprinkled o'er with gray, 
 Then should he find her, just as she had vanished. 
 When light and beauty from his life were banished ; 
 And she Avho loved him with such holy truth 
 Could bring him back to beauty, strength and youth. 
 
 He was a gentle maniac, and his eye 
 
 Had more of sadness than of reason lost ; 
 As if the star that lights the morning sky 
 
 By dark'ning clouds and sudden storms wei'e cross- 
 ed. 
 Still shines the star, and though so dimly beaming. 
 One Avatchful eye still marks its fitful gleaming. 
 One heart yet hopes, when storms have passed away, 
 Its light shall dawn upon a haj^pier day. 
 
 That happier day ! When shall its dawning be ! 
 
 Alas, the clouds ai'e threatening deejier gloom ; 
 And Adelaide, thy star of destiny 
 
 In dark eclipse seems hovering o'er the tomb. 
 By the low couch, in prayerful sorrow bending, 
 Despair and hope are in thy bosom blending; 
 Hojje for the spirit feebly struggling there, 
 Hope for the mind, but for the life despair ! 
 
ADELAIDE. Ql 
 
 O patient watcher, tliy fair brow is pale, 
 
 Thy native rose blooms on thy cheek no more. 
 A year has passed, and now the autumn gale 
 
 Sweeps with sad Avail the cheerless landscape o'er 
 All nature dies, and lo, before thee lying-, 
 The one thou lovest all too well seems dying. 
 No cloud of mental gloom, no madness noAv, 
 Dims his clear eye or darkens his pale brow. 
 
 And he is looking up to thee ; his hand 
 
 Clasps thine ; he faintly murmurs, " Adelaide.'^ 
 
 Dear is that voice to thee as breezes bland 
 Unto thy emblem rose of June, sweet maid! 
 
 Bend low ; the rose bends when the breeze is singing . 
 
 Bend low; the rose bloom to thy cheek is sprino-ino-' 
 
 O child of hope ! thy fervent prayer is heard ; 
 
 'Tis answered by that softly murmured word: 
 
 Another June with its blue, cloudless skies. 
 
 Its shadowy forests and its world of bloom, 
 Its sparkling stream that now in sunshine lies. 
 
 And now is lost amid the greenwood gloom — 
 Another June, and Edmond's cheek is glowing 
 With health's warm hue ; through azure channels 
 
 flowing, 
 The rich blood tints the lately pallid brow. 
 So dark with sorrow once — the throne of reason now. 
 
 And there is music by the stream once more — 
 A sound of song upon the breezes flung ; 
 
 Not the soft notes of Ruth's sweet voice of yore 
 When to the infant Adelaide she sung: 
 
92 ADELAIDE. 
 
 But manlier tones with deeper cadence thrilling, 
 And the fair listener's eyes with radiance filling. 
 Tis Edmond sings, and Adelaide is near, 
 Nor lists she now with thoughtless childhood's ear. 
 
 Tlie ocean wanderer loves the star 
 
 That guides him to his home ; 
 Though oft he views the meteor lights 
 Or on the billow's crested heights 
 
 Admires the sparkling foam. 
 He heeds them not, but turns away, 
 And heavenward looks so wearily, 
 To where the only light he loves 
 Beams o'er his path so cheerily. 
 
 The traveler 'mid the desert sands 
 The green oasis sees, 
 And what though gems from every mine 
 In tempting radiance round him shine. 
 More dear to him the breeze 
 That mai'ks the fluttering palm tree nigh, 
 
 Beneath whose shade untiringly 
 The fountain springs, and warbling birds 
 Sing to his heart inspiringly. 
 
 A wanderer I on life's dark sea, 
 A traveler 'mid its sands ; 
 The star I loved has set in gloom. 
 And where I saw the oasis bloom 
 A mocking mirage stands. 
 I cannot love that dai-kened sky. 
 The desert winds blow chillingly, 
 
ADELAIDE. 93 
 
 And life bereft of love might turn 
 And welcome death most willingly. 
 
 Yet from that dreary ruined jiiast, 
 My Adelaide, to thee, 
 To thee, beloved from early years. 
 To thee, whose smile my spirit cheers, 
 I turn for sympathy. 
 No wealth or 2:)ower I offer thee, 
 
 To tempt thy heart beguilingly; 
 I only ask that for my love 
 
 Thou'lt look upon me smilingly. 
 
 I cannot say that sad regrets 
 
 Will never cloud my brow, 
 But while thy voice can charm my ear. 
 And while thy loving eyes are near 
 To smile on me as now, 
 How can I choose but bless the day. 
 
 When wildly and despairingly, 
 
 I looked on death, and, but for thee. 
 
 Had left the world uncaringly? 
 
 For thou hast won me back to life. 
 To life, to love and thee ; 
 My Adelaide, beloved and blest, 
 To thee the wanderer turns for rest, 
 For love and constancy. 
 No fame or rank I offer thee 
 
 To tempt thy heart beguilingly, 
 I only ask that for my love 
 
 Thou'lt look upon me smilingly. 
 
94 ADELAIDE. 
 
 Her eyes are raised, their light has met his own ; 
 
 To him their tearful lustre far outspeaks 
 The loved and gentle music of her tone, 
 
 Or the deep tints that stain her glowing cheeks. 
 It is enough, the blush and tear are telling 
 All the fond hopes within her bosom swelling ; 
 Enough — her long-tried love is well repaid, 
 The tale is told ; farewell sweet Adelaide. 
 
MARGUERITE. 
 
 You wonder why I sing no more, 
 
 But coldly at your feet 
 Stand gazing up into your eyes, 
 With something like a strange surprise, 
 And make no flattering, sweet replies, 
 
 When you are speaking. Marguerite. 
 
 You love my simple rhymes, you say. 
 
 And urge me to repeat 
 The boyish tale I used to tell, 
 When wandering in the hazel dell. 
 Where soft the summer twilight fell, 
 
 When we were children, Marguerite. 
 
 Alas, Ave are not children now. 
 
 And trust me, 'tis not meet 
 That I, an humble country swain, 
 By rustic rhymes should hope to gain 
 What nobler bards have sought in vain — - 
 
 One grateful smile from Marguerite. 
 
 I've watched you when their tender strains. 
 With flatteiy's incense sweet, 
 
96 
 
 ]M A R G U E R I T E . 
 
 Miglit well have brought each latent grace 
 That in a maiden's soul hath place, 
 To smiles and blushes on her face, 
 
 You did not hear them, Marguerite. 
 
 Your brow was like the marble cold, 
 And when they turned to meet 
 
 The guerdon of your gentle smile, 
 
 You seemed as lost as if the while 
 
 In some far oif enchanted isle 
 
 You had been dreaming. Marguerite. 
 
 When such have foiled, what hope have I, 
 
 The lowliest at your feet. 
 To win one glance from your dark eye. 
 To wake within your breast one sigh. 
 Or on your lips one kind reply 
 
 To itiy poor song, proud Marguerite ? 
 
 You are no more the joyous child 
 
 Who in life's spring-time sweet, 
 Could roam delighted by my side. 
 With no high dreams of wealth and pride. 
 Or such proud scorn as can divide 
 
 The loved and loving, Marguerite. 
 
 But calm beyond the charati^d line 
 Where child and woman meet, 
 
 With pride enough on lip and brow 
 
 To make a king in homage bow. 
 
 In all your glorious beauty now, 
 I see you standing, Marguerit« 
 
MARGUERITE. 97 
 
 I would not from your worshiped eyes 
 
 The cold indifference meet, 
 That chills the fire on passion's tongue, 
 Checks lovers' songs ere they be sung, 
 And sends your devotees heart-wrung 
 
 From your proud presence, Marguerite. 
 
 I hide within my heart of hearts 
 
 That dream so pure and sweet. 
 The boyish love of life's young morn 
 Shall never meet your cruel scorn, 
 It dies as silent as 'twas born, — 
 
 Why are you weejiing, Marguerite ? 
 
 Can tears wash out the cold disdain 
 
 With which you loved to greet 
 The i)leading eyes to yours upturned ? 
 And has your haughty spirit learned 
 How deep their fires of passion burned 
 
 By your own tortures, Mai-guerite ? 
 
 blessed tears! my boyhood's dream! 
 
 In maiden beauty sweet, 
 Down from your cold and distant throne, 
 With love long kept for me alone, 
 Into my arms, my own, my own ! 
 
 Those tears have brought you, Marguerite ! 
 6 
 
LILLIAN GRAY 
 
 By yon low grave Avhere Lillian sleeps, 
 And where the drooping willow weeps, 
 
 The wild birds love to stay ; 
 They meet around her in the night, 
 They sing of her at morning light, 
 
 Iv^hear them all the day ; 
 But O it seems a weary song 
 To hear them singing all day long, 
 
 We mourn for Lillian Gray. 
 
 Within that grave my Lillian sleeps, 
 Above her head the willow weeps, 
 
 She has no sculptured stone ; 
 But day by day an artist old. 
 Is graving with his fingers cold, 
 
 My heart, to marble grown ; 
 And all the name he traces there 
 From dewy morn to evening fair, 
 
 Is, Lillian Gray, alone. 
 
LILLIAN GRAY. 
 
 Benoatli the tree that o'er lier weeps 
 I'll lay me where my Lillian slee])s, 
 
 To guard her while I may ; 
 For sterner seemed that form of fear 
 That traced the name of Lillian dear 
 
 Upon my heart to-day. 
 I'm dying, and the wild birds sing 
 Above the moni;ment I bring, 
 
 To thee, my Lillian Gray. 
 
 99 
 
AMY DEAN. 
 
 With lingering steps day after day 
 I've passed your cottage garden gay ; 
 I've watched the blossoms of your care 
 So sweetly nursed and tended there, 
 Your roses in their summer glow, 
 Your lily bells like perfumed snow. 
 Your poppies flaunting in their pride 
 The daisy's modest bloom beside, 
 Tlie violets in their green retreat, 
 Sweetwilliams gay, and pinks more sweet, 
 Yet ne'er a lovelier blossom seen 
 Then your own self, sweet Amy Dean. 
 
 Beside your cheek the roses fade, 
 The saintly lilies droop in shade, 
 "When near them yoiir white brow is bent 
 So pure in its serene content ; 
 The pinks where late the wild bee sips 
 Have no carnation like your lips, 
 They bend before such rivals sweet, 
 And pour their fragrance round your feet. 
 
AMY DEAN. ^Qi 
 
 The violets with their eyes of blue 
 Look up most sister-like to yovi, 
 Yet bolder in their coverts green 
 Than your OTvn self, sweet Amy Dean. 
 
 Prim in their Puritanic ways 
 The worshiping sweetwilliams gaze, 
 "With all your bloom, but not your grace. 
 Up to the heaven of your face. 
 The poppies bow their heads of pride 
 To touch your garments as you glide 
 So lightly down the garden aisles 
 To meet the daisies' morning smiles. 
 All flushed with pleasure, like that flower, 
 I've watched your coming many a hour, 
 And, trembling, wished my lips had been 
 The leaves you kissed, sweet Amy Dean. 
 
 You gave me once, with timid grace. 
 And blushes mantling o'er your face, 
 A rose bud pale ; I begged the gem 
 For it had touched your garment's hem ; 
 I thought it then a Croesus' store ; 
 ISTow, miser-like, I ask for more. 
 Not for your daisies gemmed with dew, 
 Your lily bells, or violets blue, 
 Sweetwilliams prim, or poppies gay. 
 Or pei-fumed pinks that crowd your way ; 
 I ask but one, the garden's queen, — 
 Rose of my life, sweet Amy Dean ! 
 
MY MARY. 
 
 How softly steal the twilight shades 
 
 Along the pale September sky; 
 How purely bright the diamond dews 
 
 Among the clover blossoms lie. 
 At this sweet hour when toils are o'er, 
 
 And homeward hies the weary bee, 
 I know beside my cottage door, 
 
 My bride, my Mary waits for me. 
 
 The clover bloom is on her cheek, 
 
 And in her eye the diamond dew, 
 And ne'er in virgin bosom beat 
 
 A heart more loving pure and true. 
 She thinks her hunter strangely late 
 
 As shadoAvs lengthen o'er the lea ; 
 And now beside my cottage gate, 
 
 My gentle Mary waits for me. 
 
 The bloom is fading from her cheek ; 
 
 Her eyes are dim with starting tears ; 
 When lo, adown the forest path. 
 
 My Rovei-'s welcome voice she hears. 
 
MY MARY. 103 
 
 She strives to pierce the gloom in vain, 
 For darkness deepens round each tree ; 
 
 And now along the shadowy lane, 
 My trembling Mary flies to me. 
 
 My Mary ! 'tis not fear that gives 
 Such fleetness to her steps to-night. 
 
 That makes her press so close to mine 
 Those balmy lips and eyes of light ! 
 
 My cottage by the wood no more 
 My happy cottage home would be, 
 
 If at the lane, the gate, the door. 
 My Mary might not wait for me ! 
 
JENNY. 
 
 Of all the farmers' girls I know, 
 
 And they, to say the truth, are many ; 
 
 There's scarce among them one, I trow. 
 In all things can compare with Jenny. 
 
 Jenny with the laughing eyes. 
 
 And her darkly braided tresses ; 
 Jenny with her fairy form, 
 
 And her dainty foot that presses 
 Lightly as the leaves that fall 
 
 On the grass from boughs above her ; 
 Would that you my Jenny saw, 
 
 For you could not choose but love her. 
 
 She can spin and knit and sew, 
 
 With those fingers fair and slender; 
 She can mould the whitest loaves. 
 
 And bake them brown and tender. 
 And the cows at morn and eve 
 
 For her coming look with pleasure, 
 Yielding to her skillful hand 
 
 Richest milk in flowing measure. 
 
JENNY. 105 
 
 At her call the lambkins run 
 
 Down the clover paths to meet her; 
 
 For her care the garden blossoms 
 
 Send then- sweet perfumes to greet her. 
 
 Never over her dear face 
 
 Discontent its gloom is flinging ; 
 And she sings as honey bees 
 
 At their own sweet work are singing. 
 In that little head she bears 
 
 Such a wondrous stock of knowledge, 
 That were I to tell you half, 
 
 You would think she'd been to college ! 
 But if I should sing a month, 
 
 Praising her above the many, 
 You would never be content 
 
 Until you had seen my Jenny. 
 
 There may be scores of city girls 
 
 Can boast of fairer faces. 
 And forms more shaped to fashion's mold, 
 
 Tricked out in silks and laces. 
 And useless fingers lily fiir 
 
 With gilded trifles playing, 
 And rosy lips, and languid eyes, 
 
 May tempt young hearts a-straying ; 
 But if from these you turn aside, 
 
 A Aviser man than many. 
 And seek a woman for your bride. 
 
 Perhaps you'll find my Jenny, 
 
JOSEPHINE. 
 
 How like a blossom fair and frail, 
 
 Is she I love, my bosom's queen ; 
 My fragile lily of the vale. 
 
 My gentle Josephine. 
 So fair, so pure, so frail she seems 
 
 I dare not half my passion own, 
 Lest, like the angel of my dreams, 
 
 I wake to find her flown. 
 
 I've seen the tender flower of spring 
 
 With such i;nconscious blushes dyed. 
 When low the amorous breeze would sing 
 
 What I to speak have tried. 
 I've watched it still as flushed and pale 
 
 It trembled to the breeze's sigh. 
 Then drooped, while listening to the tale, 
 
 In virgin bloom to die! 
 
 And thus I fear my ruder love 
 
 Would crush the blossom I would bless, 
 I dare not ask the one sweet word 
 
 To seal my happiness ; 
 
JOSEPHINE. 107 
 
 So like a, blossom fair and frail, 
 Is she I love, my bosom's queen. 
 
 My fragile lily of the vale, 
 Mv gentle Josephine. 
 
LITTLE ALICE. 
 
 Blow soft, ye gentle summer winds, 
 
 Round the dear liome where Alice dwells 
 Waft to her songs of happy birds. 
 
 And odors from sweet lily bells. 
 Fan the pale roses on her cheeks 
 
 To rosier bloom each coming day. 
 Kiss her young lips and forehead foir. 
 
 And through her clustering ringlets play. 
 
 She is the one sweet bud of hope 
 
 To bloom upon the household tree. 
 Deal gently with her, winds of heaven. 
 
 Unfold the blossom tenderly. 
 May no rude storm or fatal blight 
 
 Reach the dear home where Alice dwells, 
 Amid the songs of happy birds, 
 
 And fragrance from the lily bells. 
 
ESTELLE. 
 
 How motionless, how pale she stands, 
 A statue cold with icy hands 
 Clasped tightly o'er a breast of snow; 
 And but that oft her dark eyes glow 
 With the strange fire that fills them now, 
 And wreathes with living light her brow, 
 She might be what at times she seems — 
 A thing to haunt your midnight dreams, 
 An iceberg worn by wind and storm 
 Till moulded to a woman's form, 
 Then left, a monument of rest. 
 On some lone isle in ocean's breast. 
 
 But words are on her parting lips ; 
 Her soul seems waking from eclipse : 
 For name and fame ! The words are said, 
 And the deep thoughts 'unto them wed. 
 Are burning in her eye's dark flame, 
 And on her brow — for name and fame ! 
 
 Back to her cheek with quivering start 
 The life blood rushes from her heart — 
 
110 ESTELLE. 
 
 So cold, so beautiful, it glows 
 
 Like sunlight on the polax- snows. 
 
 That blush becomes thee passing well, 
 
 O gifted, proud, and cold Estelle! 
 
 Yet those who know what passion wrings 
 
 The heart from whence such beauty springs. 
 
 May well the glorious boon forego, 
 
 And lose its charm to shun its Avoe. 
 
 Thy pallid lips so closely pressed, 
 
 Thy still hands folded o'er thy breast, 
 
 Thine eye unblessed by feeling's tear. 
 
 Thy brow so cold, so calm and clear. 
 
 Show that no thoughts of pleasure came 
 
 With those wild words, for name and fame ! 
 
 "What hope is thine of earthly joy 
 That time can blight or death destroy? 
 For thou hast bowed in dust to mourn 
 The idol from thy bosom torn ; 
 The cheerless grave has closed above 
 JEach object of thine earthly love. 
 Behind, each path that promised bloom 
 Ilath led thee by an open tomb ; 
 Life's troubled ocean sjireads before, 
 And thou upon its lonely shore 
 Ilast listened to its moans so long 
 Thy lips would echo back its song ! 
 
 Now Fame her brightest wreath may twine 
 Around that marble brow of thine. 
 And worshipers on bended knee 
 Their flattering homage pay to thee; 
 
ESTELLE. Ill 
 
 But laurel crowns could never press 
 
 A brow more cold and passionless, 
 
 JSTor shrined idol calmer stand 
 
 Amid her kneeling, votive band, 
 
 No word of praise, nor j^assion glance, 
 
 Can wake thee from that statue-trance ; 
 
 And but the waves that round thee moan 
 
 In echo to thy answering tone, 
 
 Can quench in death thine eyes' dark flame, 
 
 And still thy song for name and fame. 
 
ROSE OF EVANDALE. 
 
 O Rose, foil- Rose, my blooming Rose, 
 My own sweet Rose of Evandale ! 
 
 What care I for the lotus bloom, ^ 
 
 Or for the violet's sweet perfume. 
 What care I for the lily pale, 
 
 While I can feast my ravished sight 
 
 On tliy dear cheek with blushes bright. 
 
 My peerless Rose, my blooming Rose, 
 My own sweet Rose of Evandale ! 
 
 The walls that guard my chosen flower 
 
 Are mountains capped with snow-clouds pale. 
 And many a winding streamlet glides 
 In beauty down their verdant sides, 
 
 To meet and mingle in the vale. 
 Where dwells one ever-blooming spring, 
 And birds in charmed numbers sing 
 
 To thee, fair Rose, my blooming Rose ; 
 
 My own sweet Rose of Evandale. 
 
 A boAver is by the stream that winds. 
 In ceaseless music through the vale, 
 
ROS E OF EVANDALE. ^g 
 
 And thronging there, of every hue, 
 
 In wreathing garlands pearled with dew, 
 
 A thousand blossoms scent the gale ; 
 But brightest of them all is she. 
 The peerless Rose that blooms for me, 
 
 My heart's sweet Rose, my blooming Rose, 
 
 Mv own dear Rose of Evandale. 
 
KITTY'S CHOICE. 
 
 A wealthy old farmer was Absalom Lee, 
 
 He had but one daughter, the mischievous Kitty 
 So fair and so good and so gentle was she, 
 
 That lovers came wooing from country and city. 
 The first and the boldest to ask for her hand 
 
 Was a trimly dressed dandy who worshiped her — 
 "tin;" 
 She replied with a smile he could well understand, 
 
 " That she'd tnarfy no Ajye for the sal;e of his 
 skin ! " 
 
 The next was a merchant from business retired. 
 
 Rich, gouty and gruff, a presuming old sinner; — 
 Young Kitty's fair form and sweet face he admired. 
 
 And thought to himself, " I can easily win her." 
 So he showed her his palace, and made a bluff bow. 
 
 And said she might live there, but wickedly then, 
 Kitty told him she long ago made a rash vow, 
 
 '•'•Not to marry a hear for the sake of his den!'''' 
 
 A miser came next ; he was fearless and bold 
 In claiming his right to Miss Kitty's affection ; 
 
 He said she'd not want for a home Avhile his gold 
 Could pay for a cabin to give her protection ! 
 
KITTY'S CHOICE. II5 
 
 Half vexed at his boldness, but calm in a trice, 
 She curtseyed, and thanked him, and blushingly 
 then, 
 
 Demurely repeated her sage aunt's advice, 
 
 " Hot to marry a hog for the sake of his 2)€n ! " 
 
 The next was a farmer ; young, bashful and shy. 
 
 He feared the bold wooers who came from the city ; 
 But the flush on his cheek, and the liglit in his eye, 
 
 Soon kindled a flame in the bosom of Kitty, 
 " My life will be one of hard labor," he said ; 
 
 "But, darling, come share it Avith me if you can." 
 "I suppose,'' she replied, gaily tossing her head, 
 
 " I must marry the farm for the sake of the man! " 
 
ROLAND AND ROSALIE. 
 
 A wild red rose was blossoming 
 
 Upon its bending spray, 
 Beside a sparkling woodland spring, 
 
 Beneath the skies of May. 
 Around its stem their golden bells 
 
 The early cowslips hung, 
 And drowsy bees in every cell 
 
 Their dreamy murmurs sung. 
 
 A rippling brooklet from the spring 
 
 Went wand'ring on its way, 
 Among the cowslips' golden bells, 
 
 Beside the rose of May. 
 And two fair children, like the stream. 
 
 In life's unfettered hours. 
 Came out beneath the spring's soft beam 
 
 To play among the flowers. 
 
 The blooming cheeks of Rosalie, 
 
 And Roland's golden hair, 
 "Were lovelier than the rose of May, 
 
 Than cowslip bells more fiir. 
 
ROLAND A NDROSALIE, II7 
 
 The sunlight ghincing on the wave 
 
 Ne'er woke a brighter smile, 
 Than beamed from his soft azure eye, 
 
 And. wreathed her lijos the while 
 
 They scared the wild bees from their cells 
 
 Beneath the bending spray, 
 And with the cowslip's golden bells 
 
 They twined the rose of May. 
 And Roland bade fair Rosalie 
 
 Her gentle head bend low. 
 The while he bound the braided wreath 
 
 Above her brow of snow. 
 
 "Now list thee, Roland," said the maid, 
 
 " This broad green leaf shall be 
 A fairy boat to bear thy hopes 
 
 O'er life's uncertain sea. 
 And this small petal, golden-hued, 
 
 An argosy of mine, 
 Shall fear no wreck by wave or storm, 
 
 While floating close to thine." 
 
 " So may they float, dear Rosalie," 
 
 The noble Roland said; 
 And side by side adown the stream 
 
 The fairy vessels sped. 
 And down the broader stream of life, 
 
 Two barks, launched side by side, 
 Went long ago proud Roland Vere 
 
 And Rosalie, his bride. 
 
MY ROSE. 
 
 The floAver I love best is no delicate blossom;' 
 
 Tenderly nurtured in luxury's bower, 
 Fit only to bloom on a lace-covered bosom, 
 
 And flaunt in the glax-e of the ball room an hour. 
 No ; out on the prairie my wild rose is growing. 
 
 Fanned by the free Avinds that come from the 
 Avest, 
 The Avarm hue of health on her bright cheek is 
 glowing ; 
 
 My Avild rose of beauty, the Rose I love best. 
 
 The maiden I Avooed AA^as no exquisite fairy, 
 
 Fragile and dainty, and useless as foir. 
 To bask in the light like a gossamer airy. 
 
 And vanish aAvay at the shadow of care. 
 No ; brave in her loA^eliness, like my Avild blossom. 
 
 She smiles through the storms that have broken 
 my rest, 
 BrmgLug comfot and balm to my desolate bosom, 
 
 O such is the Rose I have clasped to my breast 
 
A SONG FOR THEE. 
 
 A song for thee, thou joyous chikl, 
 
 So lightly bounding o'er the lea, 
 With heart so pure, and laugh so wild, 
 
 A merry song for thee ! 
 All day the blue bird gaily sings, 
 
 The robin makes his vespers long. 
 And warbles still with folded wings 
 
 For thee a merry song. 
 
 A song for thee, thou maiden fair ; 
 
 Of hope and joy thy blue eyes speak, 
 Spring's earliest buds are in thy hair, 
 
 Its bloom upon thy cheek. 
 Thou standest by a charmed stream, 
 
 And low its murmurs sing to thee. 
 Of youth's sweet prime, its morning dream, 
 
 And angel purity. 
 
 And thou who at the maiden's side 
 
 Art pleading now with words so sweet, 
 
;J^20 -^ SONG FOR THEE. 
 
 Now half subduing manhood's pride, 
 
 And kneeling at her feet ; 
 Thou would'st not list with half the joy 
 
 To harjis, though strung and tuned above, 
 As when with lips so bright, so coy. 
 
 The maiden sings of love. 
 
 A song for thee, thou matron dear ; 
 
 There's beauty on thy placid brow, 
 Thy dark eyes moist with many a tear 
 
 Are yet all lovely now. 
 Thy children come with songs of mirth, 
 
 To thee their cheerfulness impart ; 
 No joy can be in all the earth 
 
 More Avelcome to thy heart. 
 
 A song for thee, thou mourning one, — 
 
 Ah, no ; while bending o'er the grave. 
 Thou hearest but the sullen moan 
 
 Of sorrow's whelming wave. 
 Earth has no music now for thee, 
 
 No power to charm thy heart's despair ; 
 God must thy only refuge be. 
 
 Thy only solace, prayer. 
 
 A song for thee, thou man of years. 
 
 Thou too art bending o'er the tomb ; 
 Methinks thy waiting spirit hears 
 
 The angels call thee home. 
 A blessing on thine aged head, 
 
 Thy spirit still is pure and young, 
 And soon its pinions will be spread 
 
 Those angel bands among. 
 
A SONG FOR THEE. ;^21 
 
 A song for Heaven the home of love, 
 
 The liome of innocence and ti'uth, 
 A song for those who meet above 
 
 In then- immortal youtli ! 
 Onr life the strange, wild prelude seems 
 
 To Heaven's undying minstrelsy, 
 And death the note that breaks our dreams, 
 
 And sets the spirit free. 
 
TO SUMMER. 
 
 Stay thee, gentle Summer, stay; 
 Haste not thus so soon away. 
 See, the skies are blue above. 
 Wooing thee with smiles of love. 
 Blossoms beautiful and bright 
 Tlirong around thy path of light, 
 While the bending forest trees 
 Stoop to hear the whispering breeze, 
 As its murmurs seem to say. 
 Gentle Summer, stay, O stay ' 
 
 Morning in her radiant car 
 Woos thee from the hills afar ; 
 With alternate hopes and fears, 
 Smiling now and now in tears, 
 See she flings her balmy dew, 
 Fresh from yonder vault of blue. 
 O'er the parched and drooping grass 
 Where thy glowing footsteps pass, 
 And Avith sighs she seems to say, 
 Gentle Summer, stay, O stay ! 
 
TO SUMMER. 
 
 Noon liath brought thee robes of- light, 
 Wove with clouds and sunbeams bright, 
 And thy pure and dazzling brow 
 Beams in cloudless beauty now. 
 
 See, he looks on thee with pride 
 
 Summer, thou'rt his chosen bride ; 
 Do not from his presence fly. 
 See, the love that lights his eye, 
 Half commanding, seems to say, 
 Stay thee, gentle Summer, stay ! 
 
 Evening flings her splendors free 
 O'er the sunset skies for thee 
 See beside the sparkling rills 
 Where the clouds have kissed the hills, 
 Stands she now with matron grace. 
 Wooing thee to her embrace. 
 Rest thee, beauteous Summer, rest, 
 In the crimson curtained west. 
 Haste not thus so soon away. 
 Stay thee, gentle Summer, stay. 
 
 Night hath spread her ocean blue. 
 Gemmed with isles of golden hue ; 
 Billows sleep in silence there ; 
 Cloudless all that sea of air ; 
 Save one shadowy sail afir. 
 Moored beside its island star. 
 Lovely Summer, if thou go. 
 Storms will rise and tempests blow ; 
 Wrecked will be that fairy sail 
 If it meet the autumn gale ; 
 6 
 
 123 
 
124 TO SUMMER. 
 
 Haste not then so soon away, 
 Stay thee, gentle Summer, stay. 
 
 Vainly morning spreads her feast 
 In the bright and balmy east ; 
 Vainly o'er the hills afar, 
 Evening lights her beacon star ; 
 Vainly with his luring wiles 
 Noon in manhood's beauty smiles. 
 O'er her j^lacid azure deeps 
 Night, the jewelled goddess weeps — 
 Vain the smile, and vain the tear. 
 Summer may not linger here. 
 
 Clouds are darkening round thy way; 
 Summer, here thou canst not stay. 
 Higher, darker still they rise, 
 Mountains floating in the skies. 
 Speed thee on thy pathway now, 
 Summer with the dazzling brow. 
 Ah, thy cheek is cold and pale. 
 Soon thou'lt slumber in the vale. 
 Faded flowers shall strew thy grave, 
 Drooping willows o'er thee wave. 
 Autumn winds shall sing thy knell, 
 Gentle Summer, fare thee well ! 
 
NIGHT STORMS. 
 
 To-niglit the rain is falling, 
 
 The lightning blinds my eyes, 
 The clouds to earth are calling, 
 
 The echoing earth replies. 
 I list with fearful wonder, 
 
 As nigher still and nigher 
 The rattling, crashing thunder 
 
 Bounds on its path of lire ! 
 With every bound it maketh, 
 
 With every flash of light, 
 My sj)irit backward taketh 
 
 To other days its flight. 
 One year — alas, one only! 
 
 It seems an age to me, 
 For I now sad and lonely, 
 
 Was then so blest with thee. 
 One year ago the flashing 
 
 Of light was in the sky. 
 The thunder wild and crashing. 
 
 With stormy speed went by. 
 It echoed from the hill top, 
 
 Its voice was in the vale, 
 And then as now each rain drop 
 
 Was paired with one of hail. 
 
126 NIGHT STORMS. 
 
 The fierce north wind was rending 
 
 The oaks so strong and tall, 
 Whose broken boughs descending 
 
 Fell on onr cabin wall. 
 Our lowly cabin trembled 
 
 Beneath the rushing flood, 
 And I but half dissembled 
 
 The fear that chilled my blood. 
 But thoix wert then beside me. 
 
 Thy arm was round me thrown, 
 And gently didst thou chide me 
 
 For fears to thee unknown. 
 And while the storm was sweeping 
 
 Adown the darkened sky, 
 And I in terror weeping 
 
 Clung to thee tremblingly ; 
 How fondly didst thou bless me. 
 
 And smile my fears away. 
 And to thy bosom press me, 
 
 And tell me of a day 
 When thou in early childhood, 
 
 Beside thy native stream, 
 Didst wander in the wildwood, 
 ^ Beneath the sunset beam ; 
 And how the sky was clouded 
 
 With sudden storms that came 
 Like demon spirits shrouded 
 
 In robes of living flame ; 
 And how their voices sounded 
 
 To thee, a fearless child, 
 As through the air they bounded. 
 
 Like music strange and wild ; 
 
NIGHT STORMS. 127 
 
 Like instruments from heaven, 
 
 The drum and cLarion shrill, 
 To every spirit given. 
 
 And played on every hill. 
 The stormy chorus roaring 
 
 Swept onward by the gale, 
 The rushing waters pouring 
 
 Adown the darkened vale, 
 These sang to thy young spirit 
 
 In glorious harmony. 
 For well didst thou inherit 
 
 A passion for the free, 
 A passion for the fearless. 
 
 With strength and beauty fraught ; 
 And night storms wild and cheerless 
 
 To thee no terror brought. 
 I felt my heart grow stronger 
 
 By beating close to thine, 
 The lightning seemed no longer 
 
 AVith angry glare to shine. 
 I blessed its light revealing 
 
 To me thy tranquil eyes, 
 I blessed the thunder pealing 
 
 In triumph through the skies. 
 I loved the storm for waking 
 
 Such thoughts within thy breast, 
 My fetters too were breaking. 
 
 My spirit too was blessed. 
 But noAV alone and tearful 
 
 I list the tempest's roar, 
 My heart beats f lint and fearful, 
 
 I hear thv voice no more. 
 
THOU COME ST TO ME. 
 
 Thou comest when the midnight breeze 
 
 All mournfully is sighing, 
 And but the dead leaves on the trees 
 
 In broken tones replying — 
 Then comest thou to me ; 
 Thy voice is like the night wind's voice, 
 
 In mystery enshrouded : 
 Thy form is like my thought of thee 
 Where thou dost stand all gloriously 
 
 In light and joy unclouded. 
 Thou dost enfold me as the breeze 
 Clasps in its viewless arms the trees, 
 
 Whose thousand pulses tremble 
 If but the faintest breath they feel, 
 
 Nor can their joy dissemble. 
 
 My heart is like the withered leaf, 
 
 So faded, drooping, dying ; 
 Yet one sweet joy it hath in grief 
 
 To hear thy voice still sighing, 
 ' O love, come up to me ! 
 Come up to me ! ' O spirit voice, 
 
 Mysterious in thy sweetness. 
 
THOU COMEST TO ME. 129 
 
 Fain would the withered leaf arise, 
 And to be near thee in the skies, 
 
 Outstrip the wind in fleetness ; 
 But while it waits a higher will, 
 Be thou amid the night wind still. 
 
 And still for me be keeping, 
 As thou hast kept, though all unseen, 
 
 Thy watch of love unsleeping. 
 
 6* 
 
AN APRIL DAY. 
 
 Fair children leave your careless play 
 
 And bring your sweet wild flowers to me, 
 For all too sad my heart has grown 
 
 To mingle in your revelry. 
 Come where the young spring sunlight falls 
 
 So softly on this bank of green, 
 Where pale blue violets gem the grass 
 
 Half hid beneath its emerald sheen. 
 
 Come pile your fragrant blossoms here. 
 
 And here your own fair forms recline — 
 The good beside the beautiful ; 
 
 And while I thus your garlands twine, 
 I'll tell you why so strangely fell 
 
 This sadness on my heart to day, 
 And why I siglied amid your mirtl). 
 
 And could not join your thoughtless play. 
 
 And yet, why should I speak my giief. 
 
 Since hearts like youi-s, so light and young, 
 
 Have not the power of sympathy 
 
 With those by deej^est sorrow wrung. 
 
AN APRIL DAY. 151 
 
 Nay, Fanny, dry tliose violet eyes, 
 
 And clieck your sweet reproaches too ; 
 
 But late you bade me spare a bud, 
 ISTor from it brush the morning dew : 
 
 And sliall I now the calyx break. 
 
 And rudely force a flower to bloom. 
 When svell I know the passing cloud 
 
 "Will shroud its tender heart with gloom ? 
 Your heart is like that folded bud 
 
 So gently opening hour by hour, 
 A sudden storm might wake to life 
 
 A premature and drooping flower. 
 
 But seest thou down this grassy slope, 
 
 Yon rippling streamlet wind along. 
 And dost thou hear in murmiirs sweet 
 
 Its low, but never-ceasing song? 
 I knew a stream fir, fir away. 
 
 As like to this as stream may be. 
 And sweeter blossoms gemmed its banks 
 
 Than these I tvfine for thee. 
 
 More sweet because beheld by one 
 
 Who ever wandered by my side. 
 And loved with me each flower that grew 
 
 Along that streamlet's sparkling tide. 
 O many an April day like this 
 
 We've roamed among those blooming ti-ees, 
 Tlio boxwood and the hawthorn fiir. 
 
 Whose honeyed fragrance filled the breeze. 
 
132 AN APRIL DAY 
 
 And still when conies the balmy spring, 
 
 The scented liaAvthorn blooms as foir, 
 And year by year that nameless stream 
 
 Will chant its own low music there. 
 But I shall wander there no more, 
 
 Nor clasp that once beloved hand, 
 Cold, cold in dust it moulders now, 
 
 And I am in a stranger's land. 
 
 This grassy bank, these budding trees, 
 
 Familiar flowers and flowing stream, 
 With hallowed memories filled my heart. 
 
 And made the past the present seem. 
 But when your cheerful laugh rang out. 
 
 The charm was broke, the vision flown ; 
 I saw you loving and beloved, 
 
 I felt a stranger, and alone. 
 
 And this was why I turned aside 
 
 And smiled not on your mirthful glee ; 
 And this was why I could not bear 
 
 To mingle in your revelry. 
 But now I see o'er each young face 
 
 The light of purest friendship play, 
 So take the garlands I have twined, 
 
 I'll make you sad no more to-day. 
 
MY MORNING DREAM. 
 
 I saw it in my morning dream — 
 A ship with all its sails outspread ; 
 
 Not on the sea, nor on the stream, 
 But through the waveless air it sped. 
 
 I saw it when with canvass white 
 
 Before the freshening breeze iinrolled, 
 
 The unrisen sun's first beam of light 
 Had tinged its sides with paly gold. 
 
 High up against the orient sky, 
 "Without a cloud its path to mar, 
 
 It held its way triumphantly, 
 
 While o'er it beamed the morning star. 
 
 And still as swept the twilight sea 
 That star-led ship so wondrous fair. 
 
 Sweet strains of angel minstrelsy 
 Came floating backward on the air. 
 
 I could but weep, I could but gaze, 
 And clas}) my hands and wildly pray 
 
134 MY MORNING DREAxM. 
 
 That I miglit join their angel hiys, 
 And sing as fearlessly as they. 
 
 And lo, as still I prayed and wept, 
 Still nearer to the earth they came ; 
 
 And as the proud ship downward swept 
 I heard them speak my humble name. 
 
 I heard one dear fiimiliar tone — 
 
 Familiar now, alas, no more ; 
 One hand reached forth to clasp my own — 
 
 A hand I oft had clasped before. 
 
 Without the power or wish to speak, 
 I stood, with silent joy oppressed. 
 
 Till startled by my own wild shriek 
 
 When struck the ship a rock's rude crest. 
 
 My prayers had lured it to my side 
 AVhile rung the angel anthem sweet, 
 
 And now it fell, in all its pride, 
 A glorious ruin at my feet. 
 
 Forever stilled those triumph lays, 
 
 That pilot star forever gone ; 
 And I, alas, but weep and gaze 
 
 Beside the ruined ship alone. 
 
 If this may be the doom of woe 
 
 - That waits my bark on being's stream, 
 
 I cannot tell ; I only know 
 
 I saw it in my morning dream. 
 
THE BLUEBIRD^S SOXG. 
 
 Each inoini beside my 02>en door 
 
 The bhie bird sits and sings to me ; 
 Those same sweet notes told o'er and o'er, 
 
 But prove his loving- constancy. 
 " I love tliee ; " thus tlie blue bird sings, 
 
 And while the prelude swells more free, 
 He lightly lifts his azure wings, 
 
 And turns his head to look at me. 
 
 I love thee ! gently as the dew 
 
 Upon the earth's green bosom falls, 
 So to my heart that love-note true 
 
 A thought of fonner joy recalls. 
 I love thee ! soft winds whisper love. 
 
 Earth blooms amid its light divine, 
 It smiles from yon blue sky above. 
 
 It warms thy heart and throbs in mine ! 
 
 'Tis thus the blue bird sings to me. 
 And thus he proves himself sincere, 
 
 By warbling o'er unceasingly 
 
 Such notes as these where I can hear. 
 
136 THE BLUEBIRD'S SONG. 
 
 I love thee ! ' Tis the sweetest song 
 
 That ever bird or poet sung; 
 ' Twill make the heart forget its wrong, 
 
 E'en when by deepest sorrow wrung ; 
 
 'Twill make the rose bloom on the cheek, 
 
 The starlight brighten in the eyes ; 
 No dearer words the lips can speak, 
 
 No truer joy the heart can prize. 
 Sing on, sing on, thou darling bird. 
 
 And say, I love thee, o'er and o'er. 
 But do not think I never heard 
 
 That same sweet love song breathed before ! 
 
 Once when a spring as bright as this 
 
 Was blooming o'er the grassy lea, 
 The lips that pressed on mine a kiss 
 
 Did softly whisper it to me. 
 And days and nights, for years and years, 
 
 I've listened to that tender strain, 
 And still my heart unwearied hears 
 
 The murmur of the sweet refrain. 
 
 I love thee ; love, bend close to mine 
 
 Thy loving eyes that say, I love, 
 I^lain as the night stars say, we shine. 
 
 Without a word the lips to move. 
 And thus while mine are answering true, 
 
 O love-bird by my open door, 
 Still flash in light thy wings of blue 
 
 And since, I love thee, evermore. 
 
ROSES BLOOM. 
 
 By tlie tlioniy wayside hedges, 
 Blushing o'er tlie rocky ledges, 
 Creeping 'mid the mossy sedges 
 By the woodland sti'eamlet's side, 
 
 Roses bloom. 
 In tlie palace gardens glowing, 
 When the winds of June are blowing, 
 Or in darkened windows^ knowing 
 Scarce the lamj^light from the sun, 
 
 Roses bloom. 
 
 When the summer sun declining 
 Slantly through the Avood is shining. 
 Rustic lovers sweetly twining 
 Blossoms with their vows of love, 
 
 Bless the Rose. 
 Through all life it shall remind them 
 Of the springtime left behind them. 
 Of the years that yet shall findL them 
 Like the blended bloom and fragrance, 
 
 Of the Rose. 
 
138 ROSES BLOOM. 
 
 Now the motlier watch is keei^ing 
 
 O'er her infant sweetly sleeping, 
 
 And with rapture ahnost weeping 
 
 As she sees on its fair cheek, 
 
 Roses bloom ; 
 
 Then, while grief her heart is rending, 
 
 In her silent sorrow bending. 
 
 Tears are with the dewdrops blending, 
 
 On the Rose that blooms as fan- 
 On its tomb. 
 
 Beneath the hedge the rose is dying, 
 From beauty's cheek the bloom is flying, 
 And youth and beauty lowly lying, 
 Leave the world they once have blessed 
 
 Wrapped in gloom. 
 But Avhere they died new charms are springino-j 
 As death its ceaseless change is bringing. 
 So life to life is ever clinging. 
 And still for life, for love and death, 
 
 Roses bloom. 
 
THE PINE. 
 
 As hour by hour at day's decline 
 I've sat and watched yon stately pine, 
 And seen its pencilled branches lie 
 So still against the wintry sky, 
 Or softly waving to and fro 
 To welcome down the falling snow, 
 I've wished that to my heart were given 
 The hopes that look alone to heaven ; 
 Then, like the Pine tree ever green, 
 Amid the wintry tempests seen. 
 So calmly might I brave the strife, 
 And rise above the storms of life. 
 Then soft as on yon waving tree 
 Would fall the snows of age on me. 
 And birds that chant in early spring 
 Amid my sheltering boughs would sing; 
 And winds that through the forests moan, 
 "Would sigh to me in gentler tone. 
 The soft, confiding whispering breeze 
 Would jDass the leafless forest trees. 
 
]^40 THE PINE. 
 
 And welcomed to my thrilling breast, 
 Fold up its weary wings to rest. 
 So blessed and blessing might I rise 
 Calm and serenely toward the skies, 
 So might I be, at life's decline, 
 Loved as I love yon stately pine. 
 
"HATH NOT THY ROSE A CANKER?" 
 
 Pressed with the weight of morning dews 
 Its slender stalk the rose was bending, 
 And red and white in changing hues 
 Upon its cheek were sweetly blending. 
 But underneath the leaflets bright, 
 By blushing beauty hid from sight, 
 Enamored with its fragrance rare, 
 The canker worm was feasting there. 
 
 O thou who in thy youthful days 
 
 Ambition's wreaths art proudly twining. 
 And fondly hoping worldly praise 
 
 Will cheer thine after-years' declining, 
 BeAvare lest every tempting rose 
 That in ambition' s pathway grows, 
 Conceal beneath its semblance fair 
 The lurking canker of despair. 
 
 And thou who in thine early morn 
 For sin the paths of truth art leaving ; 
 
142 "HATH NOT THY ROSE A CANKER?^' 
 
 Remember, though no ponited thorn 
 
 May pierce the garland thou art weaving, 
 Yet every bud whence flowerets bloom 
 Shall its own living sweets entomb, 
 For deep the canker worm of care 
 Is feasting on its vitals there. 
 
 Thou too, the beaxitiful and bright. 
 
 At pleasure's shrine devoutly kneeling. 
 Dost thou not see the fatal blight 
 Across thy roseate chaplet stealing ? 
 
 Time hath not touched with fingers cold 
 Those glossy leaves of beauty's mould, 
 And yet eacli bud and blossom gay 
 Is marked for slow but sure decay 
 
 O ye who sigh for flowers that blooin 
 
 In one eternal spring of gladness, 
 Where beauty finds no darkened tomb. 
 And joy hath never dreamed of sadness, 
 Tliere is a realm ye all may know. 
 Where Sliaron's fadeless roses blow; 
 Nor blighting breath of sin or care. 
 Nor sorrow's canker enter there ! 
 
APRIL AND MAY. 
 
 The changing April sunlight played 
 
 Its merry gambols on the stream, 
 Now veiling all its waves in shade, 
 
 Then glancing forth with dazzling gleam ; 
 Now touching with a softer light 
 
 The mimic whirlpools on its breast, 
 Then gilding with a radiance bright 
 
 Each tiny wavelet's lifted crest. 
 The flowers that grew by thousands there 
 
 In many a careless tangled braid, 
 Gave fragrance to the restless air 
 
 That ' mid their bright corollas played. 
 The scented boxwood by the hill 
 
 Was holding all its blossoms up, 
 And April raindrops sparkled still 
 
 In each uplifted, snowy cup. 
 Beside the stream the snow white thoi*n 
 
 Spread out its virgin blossoms fair, 
 And incense with the blossoms born 
 
 Went floating throuo;h the sunlit air. 
 
144 APRIL AND MAY. 
 
 The long grass waved its emerald plumes 
 Unceasing in the western breeze, 
 
 And birds that breathed the sweet perfumes 
 Were warbling ' midst the budding trees. 
 
 Sweet morn, the last of April days, 
 
 'Twas meet that one so fair as thou. 
 Should fade before our longing gaze, 
 
 With garlands blooming on thy brow. 
 ' Twas meet that o'er thy infant bloom 
 
 The softest breath of spring should blow ; 
 Twas meet that round thy early tomb 
 
 The fairest flowers of spring should grow. 
 For ere another morn may break 
 
 In radiant beauty o'er the earth, 
 The sweetly blushing May shall wake 
 
 To light and life, to joy and mirth. 
 And all the dew that nature showers 
 
 Like gems along thy pathway now. 
 Is but to nourish brighter flowers 
 
 To twine around her cherub brow. 
 And birds with practiced notes must sing 
 
 Their sweetest anthems on the breeze, 
 'Tis meet the favorite child of Spring 
 
 Be met with honors such as these. 
 
 And thus was born the beauteous May, 
 Amid the dew, amid the bloom. 
 
 She rose, like beauty from decay. 
 To strew fresh buds o'er April's tomb. 
 
A SONG FOR MAY. 
 
 While the fresh green grass is springing, 
 
 Starred and gemmed with countless flowers, 
 And the sweet young May is bringing 
 
 Perfume from her for off bowers. 
 While the robin's song is ringing 
 
 Through the balmy morning hours, 
 Every poet too is singing — 
 
 Singing of the sweet May showers. 
 Singing of the dawning beauty, 
 
 Of this lovely world of ours ! 
 
 Hark ! the blue bird's song entrancing 
 
 From the budding orchard rings. 
 While the rosy light is glancing 
 
 From his restless azure wings ! 
 Poets, while the spring advancing 
 
 Thus her cheering music brings, 
 O remember that to mortals 
 
 Ye are birds without their wings ! 
 Poet-birds, and bird-like poets, 
 
 Each is hnpj)iest while he sings. 
 
140 A SONG FOR MAY. 
 
 Then together join in chorus, 
 
 Welcome in the smiling May ; 
 Bless the green buds bending o'er us, 
 
 They'll be leaves another day. 
 Bless the wind that goes before us, 
 
 Waking beauty in our way, 
 Till we dream it doth restore us 
 
 Back to life's sweet April day ! 
 Birds and poets join in chorus. 
 
 Hail the l:»irth of blooming May ! 
 
OUR WILDWOOD HOME. 
 
 A lowly wildwood home is ours, 
 No spacious halls, no lofty towers, 
 No gardens gay with fairy bowers, 
 
 Nor pomp nor pride are here. 
 Yet wealth M-ith fingers nerved with gold, 
 Those magic fingers bright and cold, 
 Amid the realms of romance old 
 
 Ne'er wrought a home so dear. 
 
 Its summer roof is gay with moss. 
 And climbing vines and roses cross. 
 And blooming trees their branches toss 
 
 In breeze and sunshine there ; 
 And when her garland autumn weaves 
 Of coral seeds and painted leaves. 
 The moss grows gray along the eaves. 
 
 Like age's whitening hair. 
 
 When piled with winter's drifting snow, 
 Though fierce the north winds round it blow, 
 
148 OUR WILD WOOD HOME. 
 
 No chill can reach the liearth below 
 
 Where social love holds sway, 
 Where cheerily each winter night, 
 While blazing fires bui"n high and bright, 
 The scattered household band unite 
 Around the hearthstone gray. 
 
 The dear old hearthstone of our home ! 
 Where'er on earth our steps shall roam, 
 No purer light than thine can come. 
 
 Life's pilgrimage to cheer — 
 Light from the blazing brands piled high, 
 And holier light, that cannot die. 
 From each warm lip and loving eye 
 
 That makes our household dear. 
 
LONG AGO. 
 
 Long ago when I a dreamer 
 
 By the April brooks went strajdng, 
 I but saw the opening blossoms, 
 
 I but heard the breezes playing. 
 Pressing oft the springing mosses 
 
 Where had slept the winter snow, 
 r could feel no thorns beneath them, 
 
 In that blissful long ago. 
 
 Long ago Avhen half awakened 
 
 From that idle springtime dreaming, 
 I but saw the summer splendor 
 
 O'er life's sparkling waters beaming. 
 Twining then hope's foiry garlands, 
 
 Roseate in their summer glow, 
 Could I think of blight or darkness, 
 
 In that radiant long ago ? ^ 
 
 Long ago all dreaming vanished, 
 
 Died the springtime blossoms tender, 
 Long ago the autumn shadows 
 
 Fell upon that summer splendor! 
 I with weary hands am toiling 
 
 Where life's darkened stream moves slow. 
 And like withered leaves around me, 
 
 Lie the hopes of long ago. 
 
MY PRISONED BIRD. 
 
 I listen to each bird that sings 
 
 Among these budding trees of May, 
 And weep for one Avhose weary wings 
 
 Are folded in its cage to-day. 
 A dreamy, drooping, silent bird. 
 
 Nor note of joy nor i^laint of woe 
 Ai*e from its lonely jsrison heard — 
 
 Ah me, it was not always so ! 
 
 Poor bird ! my pet, my idol too. 
 
 In those bright years when life was joy ; 
 When ' mid the flowers in May's sweet dew 
 
 Thon sang'st of bliss without alloy! 
 Of bliss that would be thine and mine 
 
 Beyond those far unfolding gates. 
 Where by her radiant noonday shrine 
 
 The ever-glorious Future waits. 
 
 Ah me ; how wild the pathway grew 
 
 As toward life's noontide gates we came ! 
 
MY PRISONED BIRD. 151 
 
 Hot winds drank up the sweet May dew, 
 And crisped the flowers as with a flame. 
 
 Strange murmurs in the air were heard, 
 Of toil and strife and wihl unrest ; 
 
 Strange voices mocked my timid bird, 
 And drove it slirinking to my breast. 
 
 I clasped it, trembling, shrinking too ; 
 
 Yet onward urged by life's rude throng, 
 I did what sti'ong ones bade me do. 
 
 And stilled for aye its voice of song. 
 I closed it in my darkened heart, 
 
 Shut out the light of love's sweet day, 
 And there it sadly droops apart, 
 
 Uncheered by all this bloom of May. 
 
THE WHIP-POOK-WILL. 
 
 In dimness of twilight, all sadly and lonely, 
 A youthful adventurer rode o'er the plain. 
 The stillness was broke by the whippoorwill only, 
 As sadly he sounded his mournful refrain. 
 By the stream near the mill 
 Sang the lone whippoorwill, 
 And echo far distant caught up the wild strain, 
 
 Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will ; 
 She murmured it o'er to her favorite hill, 
 
 And faintly the hill sung it back to the plain. 
 
 The wanderer sighed, for his steps were departing 
 Far, far from his home and the land of his birth. 
 And, spite of his pride, the warm tear drops were 
 starting. 
 Unchecked and unheeded they fell to the earth, 
 While unceasingly still 
 Sang the lone whippoorwill. 
 And sadly re-echoed the mournful refrain 
 
 Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will ; 
 But fainter it greAV as he paused on the hill, 
 
 And turned his last look toward the valley and 
 plain. 
 
THE W H I P-P R- W ILL. 1 53 
 
 Then he thought of his parents Avho gave him their 
 blessing, 
 Of sisters wlio murmured their tearful adieu, 
 Of brothers whose hands he no more should be press- 
 ing. 
 But most of a maiden whose soft eyes of blue 
 Seemed to follow him still, 
 Wliile the lone whippoorwill 
 More sadly was sounding the mournful refrain, 
 
 Whip-pooi'-will, whip-poor-will ; 
 Till the wanderer turned with a sigh from the hill 
 And the shadows of night settled over the plain. 
 
 Now years have gone by, and the youth is a stranger, 
 
 Still far from his kindred and far from his love. 
 But there lies near his heart through all peril and 
 danger 
 A soft golden ringlet encircling a dove ; 
 It was there on the hill 
 When the lone whi])poorwill 
 So mournfully sounded the solemn refrain. 
 
 Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will ; 
 ' Tis the charm of his life, and he'll cherish it still, 
 As the gift of the maiden who dwelt on the plain. 
 
 He Avanders alone, in the twilight, in sadness. 
 
 He dreams of the maiden, the ringlet, the dove. 
 When sudden his eyes are uplifted in gladness. 
 The night birds are wheeling in circles above! 
 Never, since by the mill 
 When the lone whippoorwill 
 So sadly was sounding the mournful refrain. 
 Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will. 
 
154 THE WHIP-POOR-WILL. 
 
 Hath he heard the Avild notes that liis bosom could 
 thrill, 
 And now he could weep but to hear them again. 
 
 But in vain may he linger, in vain may he listen. 
 
 The night-birds like arrows shoot over the plain — 
 They are gone, and the cold stai-s in mockery glisten, 
 While silence and darkness close round him again. 
 Nevermore by the mill 
 Shall the lone whippoorwill 
 For him be repeating the mournful refrain, 
 
 Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will ; 
 He knows the dark omen can bode him but ill, 
 The maid is another's — his worship is vain ! 
 
MY BOYHOOD'S LOVE. 
 
 My boyhood's love ! The old man sighed 
 And shook his thin locks in the breeze, 
 
 No words in lill the world beside 
 Can thrill my aged heart like these. 
 
 My life seems like yon wintry cloud 
 Slow moving down the evening sky, 
 
 From its high station, cold and proud. 
 It darkly sinks, alone to die. 
 
 Alone, but for the one bright star 
 That far beyond it beams in heaven; 
 
 Alone, but for such joys as are 
 
 From angel minds to mortals given ! 
 
 O can it be that she who died 
 
 With youth's bright roses on her brow, 
 Who slept to Avake in beauty's pride 
 
 Will stoop to know and love me now ? 
 
156 MY BOYHOOD'S LOVE. 
 
 Wlnit dark, mysterious fate is this 
 That bids the weary still live on, 
 
 Till the last drop of wretchedness 
 From life's embittered cup is gone ? 
 
 Look on this frail, decaying form. 
 
 These sightless eyes, these locks of snow, 
 
 This pulse that once beat high and warm, 
 Scarce bids the vital current flow. 
 
 Yet sure as in its beauty fair 
 
 Beyond the cloud the star beams true, 
 So sure my boyhood's love is there, 
 
 So sure she knows and loves me too ! 
 
 Ask not her name: the angels know 
 What name her S2:)irit bears above. 
 
 The only one she has below 
 
 Is in my heart — my boyhood's love ! 
 
"LIFE IS REAL." 
 
 "Life is real! Life is earnest!" 
 
 Why that sigh V 
 Why that look of hopeless sorrow 
 When thou thinkest of the morrow ? 
 
 Why that tearful eye? 
 Bind again thy loosened tresses, 
 And unclasp the hand that presses 
 
 Thy cold brow ; 
 " Life is real ! Life is earnest ! " 
 Vainly to the past thou turnest, 
 
 That shall fail thee now. 
 
 'Tis but labor that awaits thee 
 
 On the morn; 
 Other hands have wrought before thee, 
 Other eyes are watching o'er thee, 
 
 Though from kindred torn. 
 Shall thy spirit droop and languish. 
 And these burning tears of anguish 
 
 Pale thy cheek, 
 While thy woman heart is fearing 
 Lest the world thy sighs o'erliearing. 
 
 Now should call thee weak ? 
 
 Tears from thee are like the life drops 
 
 From the vine ; 
 Let thine eyes their lustre keeping 
 Save the strength thus lost in weeping. 
 
158 "LIFE IS REAL." 
 
 Why shouldst thou repine, 
 While the promise still is given — 
 " Weary hearts find rest in heaven ! " 
 
 Look above : 
 There's one truth that cannot alter, 
 Earthly friends may fail and falter, 
 
 God is always love. 
 
 O 'tis not the far oif future, 
 
 Ever bright 
 With fair hopes around it springing, 
 That from thy lone heart is wringing 
 
 These sad drops to-night. 
 'Tis the living present, lonely, 
 'Tis the day of trial, only 
 
 Dreaded now. 
 For thy strength will come to-morrow, 
 And thou'lt look on care and sorrow 
 
 With unclouded brow. 
 
 " Life is real ! Life is earnest ! " 
 
 God of Heaven ! 
 What alternate pi-ide and meekness, 
 Giant strength and infant weakness 
 
 To the heart are given ! 
 Worn with grief and gay with gladness. 
 Crowned with reason, dark with madness, 
 
 Must it be, 
 Ere its pilgrimage is ended, 
 Ere its dust with dust is blended. 
 And its life with thee ! 
 
THE SPIRIT'S WARNING. 
 
 Every night a spirit coraeth 
 
 And it whispereth unto me — 
 Dreara'st thou yet, O shimbering mortal, 
 
 Wake and grasp reality ! 
 Dreams are for the child of fancy, 
 
 Visions haunt the idle brain ; 
 All thy youtli has passed in dreaming, 
 
 Canst thou call it back again ? 
 Think on what thy heart once promised 
 
 In its deep unsi)oken vow, 
 See that promise unfulfilled, 
 
 Waken and redeem it now ! 
 
 Thus to me a spirit whispereth 
 
 In the silent hours of sleep. 
 And my heart, awaking, pondereth 
 
 O'er its warning sad and deep. 
 Since my childhood's tAvilight morning 
 
 I have thought what life might be, 
 When the noon of womanhood 
 
 Threw its hallowed lisfht on me, 
 
160 THE SPIRIT'S WARNING. 
 
 In those dim and early moments, 
 
 Viewed through fancy's light alone, 
 Who could paint the wondrous glory 
 
 That around the future shone ? 
 All that claims the artist's pencil 
 
 In the dew-enameled flowers, 
 All that poets dream of beauty 
 
 Born amid hope's radiant bowers, 
 All that science hath of brightness 
 Circling round her earthly name. 
 All the splendor that she borrows 
 
 From religion's purer flame, 
 All of joy that love hath pi-omised 
 
 To the young heart's fondest prayer, 
 liife's sweet hopes and dreams of heaven, 
 
 Gathered in one halo there ! 
 Then from out that dazzling future, 
 
 Came a voice whose solemn tone 
 Trembling o'er my heart's deep pulses 
 
 Woke an echo in my own. 
 Lo, all prophet-like and holy 
 
 Rose the solemn voice of Truth, 
 O'er the light, beguiling numbers 
 
 Hope was chanting to my youth. 
 And it told me life was changeful 
 
 As the wind-tossed ocean wave. 
 Where each crested billow sinking 
 
 Brings another to its grave. 
 And it spoke in accents mournful 
 
 Of life's joys by sorrow crossed, 
 Of its own high shrine forsaken. 
 
 And the soul's fair Eden lost. 
 
THE SPIRIT'S WARNING. JQ^ 
 
 Knelt I then, subdued and prayerful, 
 
 Faded fancy's light away, 
 And o'er all the distant future 
 
 Shone a milder, purer ray. 
 With a purpose deep and earnest 
 
 Bent I at Truth's holy shrine. 
 Vowing from my inmost spirit 
 
 But to heed its voice divine. 
 Through my life that vow hatli ever 
 
 Promj^ted each new lay I sung ; 
 But too oft a trifling semblance 
 
 Fancy's pencil o'er them flung. 
 Like the half awakened sleeper 
 
 Clinging to his morning dreams, 
 Blending still the shades of darkness 
 
 With the light that round him beams ; 
 Dreaming though the day be breaking. 
 
 Idly pleased with each new ray. 
 Hailing, but with languid pleasure. 
 
 Tokens of a brighter day, — 
 Thus my j'outh has passed in dreaming. 
 
 Now a spirit saith to me ; — 
 " Dream no more, O slumbering mortal ! 
 
 Wake and grasp reality. 
 Lo, the light of Truth is round thee. 
 
 Hail it for the joy divine 
 It hath brought to other spirits. 
 
 Though it brings not peace to thine. 
 Though the charm of life be broken 
 
 Like the foam on ocean's wave. 
 Where each crested billow sinking 
 
 Brings another to its orave, 
 
102 THE SPIRIT'S WAIINING. 
 
 Still with higher liopes ami purer 
 Than beguiled thy aimless youth, 
 
 Let thy songs henceforth be given 
 For the earnest, living truth ! " 
 
MY HEART GROWS SAD FOR THEE. 
 
 My heart grows sad for thee, my love, . 
 
 When in thy gentle eyes 
 For my o'erburdened life so oft 
 
 The tears of pity rise. 
 
 When sympathetic weariness 
 
 On thy dear broAV I see, 
 I wish that I might build a bower 
 
 Like Rosamond's for thee ; 
 
 A bower secure from every ill 
 That human heart hath wrung, 
 
 Where thou might'st dwell without a care 
 Thy sister flowers among. 
 
 And I, who may not, dare not shrink 
 
 Life's wildest storm to meet. 
 Might sometimes come to breathe a word 
 
 Of worship at thy feet ; 
 
1(54 MY HEART GROWS SAD FOR THEE. 
 
 Might know that all the joy of love, 
 And life's sweet hopes were thine, 
 
 Though ever to ray lips were pressed 
 Its mingled gall and wine. 
 
 Thon tremblest in my arms beloved, 
 
 Thy tears are falling free, — 
 Ah, would that life had more of light 
 
 And less of gloom for thee ! 
 
 Yet by these clinging arms I know. 
 
 And by thy pleading eyes. 
 Thou still Avould'st pray to share my lot 
 
 Though darker tempests rise. 
 
 Thou would'st not give one hour of bliss 
 Our suffering love hath known, 
 
 To sit in regal jDomp beside 
 A monarch on his throne ! 
 
 Forgive the thought, though born of love, 
 That Avould have robbed thy life 
 
 Of joy that they alone can feel 
 "Who share its fiercest strife. 
 
 Thou gavest but the sympathy 
 To thy sweet nature true ; — 
 
 When bends the oak beneath the blast 
 The vine must tremble too. 
 
 Then closer clasp thy twining arms 
 Till strife and storm are o'er, 
 
MY HEART GROWS SAD FOR THEE. 1(35 
 
 I Avill not tear tliee from my side 
 While thus the tempests roar. 
 
 Misfortunes cloud our life's young morn, 
 
 The skies are dark above, 
 But side by side we'll brave the storm, 
 
 Our strenarth our steadfast love. 
 
POESY. 
 
 " Thou ai't a rock, 
 I, a ■weak wave, would break on thee and die." 
 
 Alex. Smith. 
 
 O not a rock, sweet Poesy, art thou to me. 
 
 Where thousand stronger waves than I might fall 
 iFrom thy cold front to that unpitying sea 
 
 That opes to shroud them in oblivion's pall ; 
 Where for one wave that might its foam wreaths 
 bear 
 To thy stern brow in mockery o'er them bending 
 A thousand should sink down in weak despair, 
 Their love for thee with their own death notes 
 blending ; 
 For man would love, and woman worship thee, 
 Though thou wert rock, and they but ripples on the 
 sea. 
 
 O not a rock to me, sweet Poesy, art thou. 
 
 Where braver barks than mine, with drooj^ing 
 sail. 
 
 Lost helm, and shivered mast, and broken prow, 
 Might sink beside thee in the billows pale ; 
 
POESY. 1G7 
 
 Where for one bark Avhose daring helmsman might 
 In life's last flow on thy cold breast be lying, 
 
 A thousand wrecks would strew the waves of nighty 
 And love for thee still crown the woe of dying! 
 
 For man would love and woman worship thee, 
 
 If thou wert rock, and they but frail barks on the 
 sea. 
 
 O not a rock, earth-worshii^ed Poesy"; thou art 
 
 Life's blossom-crowned and balmy breathing spring, 
 A fount of joy perennial in the world's great heart, 
 
 A bird whose song at rest or on the Aving 
 Is ever sweet ; the bright electric flame 
 
 That fills all nature with a life immortal. 
 Our angel part, the inheritance that came 
 
 From heaven, and goes before us to heaven's por- 
 tal! 
 Man well may love, and woman worship thee, 
 Thou star-eyed child of light, undying Poesy ! 
 
 O not a rock art thou to whom my panting soul 
 
 Instinctive flies in all its joy or Avoe ! 
 Thou whose sweet voice the storms of passion can 
 control, 
 
 And change wild griefs to music's softest flow ! 
 Thou on whose breast of tenderest sympathy 
 
 I still recline with confidence unfearing. 
 While the same smile in childhood bent on me. 
 
 Beams o'er me yet, more radiantly, more cheering. 
 O thus forever may I cling to thee. 
 My destiny's one hope — my heart's one idol, Poesy! 
 
MARCH! 
 
 The march of the seasons through sunshine and rain 
 Has brought the bleak March to our hearthstones 
 again ; 
 His Avinds piping shrill, 
 Over valley and hill, 
 
 Give a watchword of duty to all ; 
 To each lip the word springs, 
 But most cheerily rings, 
 
 In the morn at the farmer's loud call, 
 
 March ! 
 
 Come boys, to the barnyard, your cattle to feed. 
 And girls of your cows and your poultry take heed, 
 Though the morning is chill. 
 And the March winds blow shrill, 
 
 Come cheerfully forth at the call ; 
 There is life on the wings 
 Of the gale as it sings 
 
 In the pride of its freedom to all, 
 
 March ! 
 
MARCH. 169 
 
 Come men, with your axes and sinews of strengtli, 
 The trees in yon fallow must measure their length 
 On the ground 'neath the hill, 
 Wliere the wind whistles shrill, 
 
 Ere the shadows of evening shall fall ; 
 Let our sturdy strokes ring 
 A glad welcome to spring, 
 
 Keeping time to her life-giving call, 
 
 March ! 
 
 We'll see to our fences, our haiTows and jilows. 
 We'll give extra care to our lambkins and cows; 
 That when March winds are still, 
 And o'er valley and hill 
 
 The warm sunlight of April shall fall, 
 No hindrance they'll bring 
 To the labors of spring. 
 
 While I forth at the head of you all, 
 
 March ! 
 
 We'll march in the fuiTows so deep and so true, 
 And plant the bright corn where the dark forest 
 grew ; 
 Our rich fallows we'll till. 
 And as hopefully still 
 
 From our hands shall the golden grains fall, 
 Of the harvest we'll sing — 
 ' Tis the promise of Spring 
 
 To all farmers who now heed her call ; 
 
 March ! 
 
170 MARCH. 
 
 And thus through all seasons, in sunshine and rain, 
 Till March shall come round to our hearthstones 
 again, 
 With a steady good will, 
 We will sow, reap and till, 
 
 And, still mindful of life's coming fall, 
 We can joyfully sing 
 When our ripe sheaves we bring 
 
 At the sound of our Maker's last call, 
 
 Mai-ch ! 
 
A SPRING SONG. 
 
 The clays are lengthening on the earth, 
 
 And deepening in the azure heaven ; — 
 How thankfully our hearts look up 
 
 To Him who hath the Spring-time given. 
 Not one of all the seasons four, 
 
 Though rich in bloom and bounteousness, 
 Brings to our life such tender joy. 
 
 So sweet a crown of hope as this. 
 
 VVe take the Summer's harvest gifts, 
 
 And turn, with heat and toil oppressed, 
 To lay the burdens that we bear 
 
 On placid Autumn's matron breast. 
 Then, shrinking from her fading charms, 
 
 "We welcome Winter's icy reign, 
 Well conscious that his jDarting breath 
 
 Will wake the sweet young Spring again. 
 
 Yoimg, with that pure, immortal life 
 
 Born at the threshold of the tomb. 
 And sweet with all its prophet buds 
 
 Full of the Summer's ripened bloom. 
 O God, though from our life Thou take 
 
 The dearest treasures time can bring. 
 Blight not the tender joys that wake 
 
 Perennial with each blooming Spring ! 
 
HOEING CORK 
 
 Out in the earliest liglit of morn 
 Ralph was hoeing the springing corn ; 
 The (lew fell flashing from blades of green 
 Wlierever his glancing hoe was seen, 
 While dark and mellow the hard earth grew 
 Beneath his strokes so strong and true. 
 
 And steadily still, hill after hill, 
 As tlie sun went up he swung his hoe. 
 
 Hoe, hoe, hoe, — row after row ; 
 From the earliest light of the summer morn, 
 Till the noonday sound of the dinner horn. 
 
 What was Ralph thinking of all the morn. 
 
 Out in the summer heat hoeing corn, 
 
 With the sweat and dust on his hands and ilice, 
 
 And toiling along at that steady pace ? 
 
 A clear light beamed in his eye the while, 
 
 And round his lips was a happy smile. 
 
 As steadily still, hill after hill. 
 While the sun went down he swung his hoe ; 
 
 Hoe, hoe, hoe — row after row. 
 Faster toward nightfall than even at morn 
 He hastened his stej^s through the springing corn. 
 
JIOEING CORN. 173 
 
 Across the road from this field of corn 
 Was the stately home Avhere Ralj^h was born ; 
 Where his father comited his stores of gold, 
 And his lady mother so j^roud and cold 
 Lived but for the silks and gauze and lace 
 That shrouded her faded form and face ; 
 
 While steadily still, hill after hill, 
 Unthought of went Ralph, and swung his hoe, 
 
 Hoe, hoe, hoe — row after row. 
 Day after day through the springing corn. 
 Toward the humble home of Isabel Lorn. 
 
 This he was thinking of all the morn, 
 And all day long as he hoed the corn, — 
 " How sweet 'twill be when the shadows fall 
 Over that little brown cottage wall. 
 To sit by its door 'neath the clustering vine. 
 With Isabel's dear little hand in mine ! 
 
 So cheerily still, hill after hill, 
 From morning till night I'll swing my hoe. 
 
 Hoe, hoe, hoe — roAV after row, 
 Knowing each step through the springing corn, 
 Is bringing me nearer to Isabel Lorn ! " 
 
 O glad was he then when the growing corn 
 Shielded his steps from his mother's scorn: 
 And glad that his father's miser hand 
 Had barred all help from his fertile land ; 
 So safely he kept his forest floAver, 
 And dreamed of her beauty hour by liour, 
 As steadily still, hill after hill. 
 
174 HOEING CORN. 
 
 Through the field so broad he swung his hoe, 
 
 Hoe, hoe, hoe — row after row, 
 Knowing each step through the growing corn 
 Was bringing him nearer to Isabel Lorn, 
 
 So months passed on, and the ripened corn 
 Was laid on the ground one autumn morn, 
 While under the sod in the churchyard blest 
 Ai'e two low graves where the aged rest. 
 The father has left broad lands and gold. 
 And the motlier her wealth of silks untold ; 
 
 And sweet Isabel — why need I tell 
 What she said to Ralph when without his hoe 
 
 He sought her side ? It was not " no " 
 That made her the mistress one summer morn, 
 Of that stately home by the field of corn. 
 
KING AND QUEEN. 
 
 I am a king in my own domain, 
 
 And my little wife is queen, 
 And jointly over our realm we reign, 
 
 A royal couple I ween. 
 
 Beauty and grace are the robes that flow 
 
 From her lily shoulders down, 
 The gems of truth on her bosom glow, 
 
 And love is her golden crown. 
 
 But her dainty hands are brown with toil, 
 Her cheeks with the breezes' kiss. 
 
 And she works for a tiller of the soil 
 As if work for him were bliss. 
 
 I am the king and the tiller too. 
 
 My farm is my proud domain. 
 And the will to dare and the strength to do 
 
 Are the sceptres of my reign. 
 
 £* 
 
176 KING AND QUEEN. 
 
 At my touch the teeming earth yields up 
 Her wealth for my feast and store ; 
 
 The nectar of healtli brims high my cup, 
 My measure of bliss runs o'er. 
 
 O ne'er was a happier realm I ween 
 Than ours 'neath the arching sky, 
 
 And never a happier king and queen 
 Than mv little wife and I ! 
 
SIGNS OF SPRING. 
 
 TO MARY IX THE COUNTRY. 
 
 You wonder how we city folks 
 
 Can know that it is Spring, 
 "With no green grass beneath onr feet, 
 
 No wildwood birds to sing ! 
 With no sweet blossoms springing up 
 
 To brighten all the way, 
 You wonder how we ever came 
 
 To know that it was May, 
 You say the fragrant pastures now, 
 
 Where golden cowslips grow, 
 Are filled with calves and little lambs, 
 
 That run and gambol so ! 
 And o'er the furrows black and long, 
 
 Like emeralds clasped in jet. 
 Each holding in its folded heart * 
 
 A sparkling diamond set. 
 The tender corn is peei^ing out, 
 
 Unfolding one by one 
 
178 SIGNS OF SPRING. 
 
 The dainty leaves that soon will flaunt 
 
 More broadly in the sun. 
 You say that o'er the waving wheat, 
 
 Through all the breezy day, 
 Like fairy children at their sport 
 
 The lights and shadows play ; 
 And that the blooming orchard trees 
 
 Their branching censers swing. 
 Perfuming all the sunlit air. 
 
 And thus yoic know 'tis Spring ! 
 But wonder how we city folks, 
 
 Without the Avild bird's tune. 
 Or lambs and orchards, wheat and corn. 
 
 Can tell when it is June ! 
 
 Dear Mary, what a simple girl ! 
 
 How very countrified ! 
 Your ignorance of city life 
 
 Is shocking to my pride ! 
 You seem to think that nothing green 
 
 Can grow and flourish here ; 
 Why, greenness is the very thing 
 
 For which we're noted, dear. 
 Whichever way you go, across, 
 
 Or up, or down the street, 
 You're pretty sure some s^Decimens . 
 
 Of that bright hue to meet. 
 And if you knew our business ways, 
 
 You'd soon begin to see 
 The greenest of your grass is pale 
 
 Beside our verdancy. 
 
SIGNS OF SPRING. I79 
 
 Unlike you simple country folks, 
 
 Who in your plodding way 
 Will " trade " and « dicker," " swap " and « sell," 
 
 And always get your j^ay. 
 Our city dealers sell "on time," 
 
 They pile the profits high, 
 In hopes to make a double haul 
 
 When needed, by and by. 
 They're green enough to stretch their hands. 
 
 Expectant, for the gold. 
 But soon discover 'tis themselves. 
 
 And not the goods, are " sold." 
 And editors will trust their friends 
 
 Their paper bills for years. 
 Though warned by starving publishers 
 
 They sow to reap in tears. 
 
 never in your greenest woods 
 Where i-ankest verdure is. 
 
 Could verdant hunters come across 
 
 A o;reener thing than this ! 
 And when their duns come back endorsed, 
 
 " Poor," " Dead," or « Ran away," 
 
 1 do not think your silly lambs 
 More sheepish feel than they ! 
 
 No ; greeneys are not wanting here, 
 
 And through our city roam 
 Calves quite as big as any two 
 
 Around your country home. 
 
 You talk of growing wheat and corn 
 And orchards blooming gay, — 
 
180 SIGNS OF SPRING. 
 
 But ^ve had plainer signs than these 
 
 To tell ns it was May. 
 Soon as the snow had left our streets, 
 
 And dust had come instead, 
 Each lady took a little sign 
 
 And tied it on her head. 
 But fearing these might not be seen, 
 
 Because they were so small. 
 Each had upon her shoulders hung 
 
 A rainbow-colored shawl ; 
 And then with costly 'broideries 
 
 O'er hoops of monstrous size, 
 Or balmorals whose dazzling hues 
 
 Might almost blind your eyes, 
 O'erspread with skirts of trailing length 
 
 From fashions o'er the seas. 
 They launched ujion the avenue, 
 
 And sailed before the breeze. 
 By skirt and shawl and top-knot gay, 
 
 And ribbons fluttering, 
 Wheae'er we looked upon the street 
 
 We knew that it was Spring. 
 There roses stalked in stately pride 
 
 With flaunting lily-belles, 
 As if in sportive strife to see 
 
 Who'd make the biggest SY>^ells ! 
 And dandy-lions, neat and trim. 
 
 Enlivened all the scene. 
 With ornaments of yellow hue 
 
 Well set on living green ! 
 
SIGNS OF SPRING. Igl 
 
 So, Mary, by these signs you see, 
 
 Thovigh from your woods aAvay, 
 We needed not your grass and flowers 
 
 To tell us it was May. 
 And thus, without your sunlit dells. 
 
 Or wild bird's simple tune, 
 JSTo doubt our rose-and-lily-belles 
 
 Will tell us when 'tis June. 
 
THE SNOW. 
 
 Tlie snow is coming, the beautiful snow! 
 
 How fast through the air it is flying; 
 Like Charity's mantle it covers from sight 
 Tlie ruin that Autumn had made in his might, 
 When he ravished the blossoms so lovely and 
 bright. 
 
 And left them all withered and dying. 
 'J'he snow" covers all, the beautiful snow; 
 The si:)ringtime is gone, and the summer's bright 
 
 glow, 
 And no longer with well-feigned accents of woe 
 
 The hypocrite Autumn is sighing. 
 
 The snow, the glittering snow has come ! 
 
 From morn till nierht the bells are rinc;inef : 
 A livelier welcome was never heard 
 From the throat of a gay and gladsome bird, 
 When he saw by a leaf the wind had stirred, 
 
 The first young violet springing. 
 The snow bird too with the snow has come — 
 O Willie, throw down your noisy drum. 
 And bring to this dear little warbler a crumb, 
 
 For which he will pay you in singing. 
 
THE SNOW. 183 
 
 O rosy-cheeked and laughing girls, 
 
 For your delight the snow comes down ; 
 It melts amid your shining cm'ls, 
 
 Your raven braids and tresses brown. 
 Swift tlu'ough the air the rounded ball 
 
 By roguish boys is deftly thrown ; 
 No matter which shall break its fall, 
 
 Your head, or Fanny's, or my own ! 
 Scarce whiter than your neck it fell, 
 
 Like snow on snow bank lightly — 
 Another backward flies — that's well ! 
 
 No other hand could throw so sprightly ! 
 O merrily then, fair children, sing, 
 Not for the languishing, balmy Spring, 
 Not for the Summer or Autumn — no, 
 Sing for the snow, the beautiful snow ! 
 
THE CLOSING YEAR. 
 
 The year is dying witli tlie day, 
 And blending with tlie twilight gray 
 
 The shadows come and go ; 
 With noiseless stej^ across the floor, 
 And dusky banners waving o'er, 
 
 I see them moving slow. 
 
 The twilight deepens into gloom, 
 And darkly round my silent room 
 
 The phantom hopes arise — 
 Such haunting shapes as once had form 
 Of life and beauty glowing warm. 
 
 Beneath more smiling skies. 
 
 I see them oft at hours like this. 
 When lingering daylight waits to kiss 
 
 The blushing star of eve, 
 Then slowly pales his love-lit fires, 
 And down the crimson sky retires, 
 
 As loth that star to leave. 
 
THE CLOSING YEAR. 185 
 
 And oft I wake to hear their call 
 When midnight drops lier sombre pall 
 
 Adown yon arch of blue ; 
 And I those shadowy bands among, 
 Have still their mournful marches sung 
 
 Till I am mournful too. 
 
 But vain to-night shall be their charms, 
 Their beckoning hands and twining arms : 
 
 Come hither Adelaide : 
 Now place thy fair young cheek to mine, 
 And let thy arms around me twine, 
 
 Nor tremble 'mid this shade. 
 
 Upon thy breast no weary years 
 In sorrow born, baptised in tears. 
 
 With life's sweet hopes have died ; 
 But lovely in thy youthful morn. 
 An opening rose without a thorn. 
 
 Thou standest by my side. 
 
 Thy trusting, hopeful smiles dis])el 
 The glooms that o'er my spirit fell ; 
 
 The haunting shadoAvs flee, 
 And standing by thy side I seem 
 As walking in a blissful dream, 
 
 A hopeful child like thee. 
 
 But ah, to-morrow's light will bring 
 Another leaf to crown thy spring ; 
 
186 THE CLOSING YE AR 
 
 For me, perchance a tear ; 
 Yet in my dream methinks I see 
 A brighter day of hope for me 
 
 Is dawning with the year. 
 
A SONG FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 Awny with thoughts of pall and bier, 
 And cypress bough and funeral tear, 
 And wailings for the dying year. 
 Our household fires shall burn to-night 
 With warmer glow, while children bright 
 Dance round us in the rosy light; 
 
 Life was not given for tears and groans. 
 The god-like gift of speech for moans, 
 Or fiices made for churchyai'd stones. 
 Hang the green holly on your walls. 
 And let the children's laughing calls 
 Re-echo through the lighted halls. 
 
 Tliose who have killed the year may weep. 
 And low in dust and ashes creep. 
 With wild laments and anguish deep ; 
 But we who loved him best while here, 
 Can bid him go with festal cheer, 
 And lights and garlands round his bier. 
 
188 A SONG FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 He came to us a helpless child, 
 Amid the snows of winter wild — 
 Our hearths with blazing logs we piled, 
 We gave him shelter from the storm. 
 And closely Avrapped his shivering form, 
 In softest wools and ermine warm. 
 
 We fed him from our garden store — 
 The richest fruits our orchards bore, 
 And nuts from many a foreign shore. 
 Our corn and wine his strength supplied, 
 Till, grown to boyhood by our side, 
 We gloried in his youthful pride. 
 
 We gave him flocks and fertile lands. 
 We bowed our heads to his commands. 
 And tilled his fields with willing hands ; 
 When lo, to crown his manhood's morn. 
 The ripening wheat, and tasseled corn. 
 Were of our loving labor born. 
 
 Through all the summer's noontide heat. 
 We toiled amid the clover sweet, 
 And piled its fragrance at his feet. 
 We reaped his fields of waving grain, 
 Then plowed o'er all the vale and plain. 
 And sowed the hopeful seed again, 
 
 And Vv'hen the autumn's withered leaves 
 Fell rustling round our household ea^-es. 
 We gathered in his golden sheaves, 
 
A SONG FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE. 189 
 
 We bound his furrowed brow with maize, 
 And honored his declining days 
 AYitli jubilees of grateful praise. 
 
 His work is done ; his Harvest-home 
 Is gathered where no blight can come, 
 And his sealed lips are sweetly dumb 
 From the full perfectiKJSs of bliss, 
 The rapture trance tliat ever is 
 Just where the Heavenly life meets this. 
 
 We want for him no death bells slow, 
 No sable plumes and hearse of woe, 
 With mourners wailing as they go. 
 But bring, in place of tolling knells, 
 Tlie music of your merry bells. 
 And cheerful songs for sad farewells. 
 
 Hang the green holly on the walls. 
 Let social mirth and music calls 
 Ring through your festal lighted halls. 
 Life from the Old Year's death is born. 
 Let bright'ning hopes with smiles adorn 
 The breaking of tlie New Year's Morn ! 
 
190 ERINNA CHAINED TO THE DISTAFF. 
 
 Lily of the Lesbian Isle, 
 
 Twin in heart with Lesbos' Rose, 
 
 O'er thy life's too fleeting smile. 
 O'er thy early ended woes, 
 Fond Romance a glory throws. 
 
 Pallid as thine emblem flower, 
 In thy humble garb arrayed. 
 
 At the distaff" hour by hour, 
 
 Through all change of sun and sliade, 
 Sitt'st and sing'st thou, Lesbian maid. 
 
 "Weary grow the fingei'S slight. 
 Still the wheel with ceaseless turn 
 
 Weds the morning to the night, 
 Heedless as thy parent stern 
 Of the thoughts that in thee burn. 
 
 Endless tlu'ough the hands so small 
 Glides the thread for Lesbos' looms; 
 
 SjDinning thus thy young life's pall. 
 O'er thy spirit fall no glooms 
 And thy soul in beauty blooms. 
 
ERINNA CHAINED TO THE DISTAFF. I9] 
 
 Patient fit tlie distaff bent 
 
 To thine ear a murmur comes, 
 
 Message sweet by nature sent — 
 By eacli bird and bee that hums 
 Tlirough her forests droj^iDing gums ; 
 
 By each wandering wind tliat blows 
 O'er tlie loved ^gean waves ; 
 
 By each mountain stream that flows 
 From the naiad haunted caves 
 Where the lonely cistus waves, 
 
 Down the green hills, orange crowned, 
 O'er the sunbright slopes that lie 
 
 Garlanded by vines around 
 Where the purple clusters vie 
 With the purple Lesbian sky. 
 
 Soft the tender floods of sono- 
 
 Borne by winds and waves and streams 
 
 Lethe for the spirit's wrono- — 
 
 Pour their splendors through thy dreams 
 
 Till an eden round thee beams. 
 
 There impassioned, bold and strong, 
 Sappho o'er her golden lyre, 
 
 Rose of beauty, love and song, 
 Blushing breathes the fond desire 
 That consumes her heart of fire. 
 
 Thou, Erinna, listening all, 
 
 Tlirilling, trembling in the glow 
 Of the love-born airs that fall 
 
192 ERINNA CHxYINED TO THE DISTAFF 
 
 On the winds that come and go 
 Through thy casement dark and low, 
 
 Thou, the Lesbian Lily fair, 
 O'er thy distaif drooping cold, 
 
 Type of genius bound by care, 
 Speakest through the legend old 
 To these years of sterner mould; 
 
 Music-sweet the murmurs come 
 Where thy toilworn sisters kneel, 
 
 Wearied with the ceaseless hum 
 Of life's ever turning wheel. 
 Wounded by the distaff's steel. 
 
 Toiling hands that may not rest. 
 Hearts the world may ne'er beguile, 
 
 Lips that love hath never pressed. 
 Bless thy hopeful song and smile 
 Lily of the Lesbian Isle ! 
 
 ( KOU91862 
 
A LIST OF 
 
 BOOKS 
 
 ISSUED BY 
 
 CARLETON, PUBLISHER, 
 
 (LATE KUDD & CAKLETON,) 
 
 413 Broadway, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
^ 
 
 NEW BOOKS 
 
 And New Editions Recently Issued by 
 
 CARLETOlSr, PUBLISHER, 
 
 (LATE EUDD & CARLETON.) 
 413 £liOAI>WAT, NEW YORK. 
 
 N.B. — The Pubusitep., npon receipt of the price in advance, will send any 
 Of the following Books, by mail, postage pf.ee, to any part of the United States. 
 This convenient and very safe mode may be adopted when the neighboring Book- 
 sellers are not supplied with the desired work. State name and address in full. 
 
 Tlie Cloister and the Hearth. 
 
 A magnificent new historical novel, by Charles Reade, author 
 of " Peg Woffington," "Christie Johnstone," etc., etc., $1.25. 
 
 A Book about Doctors. 
 An amusing, entertaining, and gossipy volume about the medi- 
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 A powerful new American novel, by an unknown author, $] .25. 
 
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 The new novel by the popular author of " Rutledge," $1.25., 
 
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 A hand-book for ladies and gentlemen. Best, wittiest, most en- 
 tertaining work on taste and good manners ever printed, $1.25. 
 
 The Great Tribulation. 
 Or, Things coming on the earth, by Rev. John Gumming, D.D., 
 author "Apocalyptic Sketches," etc., two series, each $1.00. 
 
 Tl»e Great Preparation. 
 Or, Redemption draweth nigh, by Rev. John Cumming, D.D., 
 author "The Great Tribulation," etc., two series, each $1.00. 
 
 Teach us to Pray. 
 
 A new devotional work on The Lord's Prayer, by Rev. John 
 Cumming, D.D., author " The Great Tribulation," etc., $1.00. 
 
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 A remarkable and celebrated volume on Love, translated from 
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BY CAULE^'ON; new YORK. 
 
 Cesar Birotteaii, 
 
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6 LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED 
 
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 Tlie Afternoon of Unmarried liife. 
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 Flirtation 
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