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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 S]^ap'^Sl?pip#fn 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
SOI^GS OF SUI^SHINE 
 AND SHADOW 
 
 pJbx. 
 
 BY MAUDE MOORE 
 
 \^Jrv^^/\.^XJ\^f 
 
 ( 
 
 ^1/ 2- 
 
 BOSTON 
 D LOTHROP & COMPANY 
 
 32 FRANKLIN STREET CORNER OF HAWLEY 
 
 or- 
 

 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 D. LOTHROP & CO. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 -Rock of Ages 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 7 
 
 Immortality 
 
 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 If . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . i6 
 
 The Boy on the Train . 
 
 
 
 
 
 i8 
 
 Enough for Thee 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 23 
 
 Violets . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 26 
 
 Ballad of Lady Lena 
 
 
 
 
 
 31 
 
 Useless . 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Dandelions 
 
 
 
 
 
 46 
 
 Morning-Glory Bells 
 
 
 
 
 
 51 
 
 The Water-Lily 
 
 
 
 
 
 53 
 
 Death of Charles the Ninth 
 
 
 
 
 
 59 
 
 The Poplar 
 
 
 
 
 
 67 
 
 New Year's Eve 
 
 
 
 
 
 70 
 
 At Auction 
 
 
 
 
 
 75 
 
 Do You Remember 
 
 
 
 
 
 78 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Secrets 
 -A Prayer 
 
 The Honey of a Kiss 
 
 The Rhyme of the Baby 
 
 Just as of Old 
 
 The Singing Bird 
 
 A Child's Thought 
 
 Memories 
 
 The Silence of the Heart 
 
 A Sermon for Alice 
 
 The " Gone Astray " 
 
 Death of Codrus 
 
 A Song of the Summer 
 
 December Thirty-first 
 
 A Child's Question 
 
 Songs of Christmas-Tide 
 
 Fame 
 
 Old School Books 
 
 The Music of the Wires 
 
 The River 
 
 The Auld Man to his Wife 
 
 Never Again 
 
 Nightfall 
 
 The Mountain Brook 
 
 Life's Morrows . 
 
 A Voice of Spring 
 ■ Regret 
 
 Air-Castles 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 A Dream . 
 
 If I am Young . 
 
 To a Flower-Painter 
 
 Little Mischief . 
 
 Why 
 
 A Story of the Seacoast 
 
 When Jamie Died 
 
 The Legend of the Bells 
 
 Ode From Horace (A Free Translation) 
 
 To the Bandusian Fountain 
 
 We Miss Him . 
 
 In Memory of Jennie B 
 
 Lines in an Album 
 
 The Brook 
 
 To Memory 
 
 Unanswered 
 
 To G. B. M. 
 
 To C E. S. 
 
 To Maidie — Three Years Old 
 
 To R. L. M. 
 
 V. 
 
 176 
 
 179 
 182 
 185 
 190 
 196 
 199 
 206 
 208 
 211 
 214 
 218 
 220 
 
 227 
 231 
 
R 
 
 ROCK OF AGES. 
 
 OCK of Ages, cleft for me," 
 
 Thoughtlessly the maiden sung ; 
 Fell the words unconsciously 
 
 From her girlish, gleeful tongue. 
 Sung as little children sing. 
 
 Sung as sing the birds in June ; 
 Fell the words like bright leaves down 
 
 On the current of the tune : 
 " Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in thee ! " 
 
ROCK OF AGES. 
 
 " Let me hide myself in thee." 
 
 Felt her soul no need to hide — 
 Sweet the song as song could be, 
 
 And she had no thought beside. 
 All the words unheedingly 
 
 Fell from lips untouched by care ; 
 Dreaming not they each might be 
 
 On some other lips a prayer. 
 " Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in thee ! " 
 
 " Rock of Ages, cleft for me," 
 
 — 'Twas a woman sung them now 
 
 Pleadingly and prayerfully ; 
 
 Every word her heart did know. 
 
 Rose the song as storm-tossed bird 
 Beats with weary wing the air — 
 
ROCK OB- AGES. 
 
 Ev'ry note with sorrow stirred, 
 
 Ev'ry syllable a prayer — 
 " Rock of Ages, cleft for me. 
 Let me hide myself in thee ! " 
 
 " Rock of Ages, cleft for me," 
 
 — Lips grown aged sung the hymn 
 Trustfully and tenderly — 
 
 Voice grown weak and eyes grown dim — 
 " Let me hide myself in thee ! " 
 
 Trembling tho' the words and low. 
 Ran the sweet strain peacefully. 
 
 Like a river in its flow ; 
 Sung as only they can sing 
 
 Who life's thorny paths have pressed ; 
 Sung as only they can sing 
 
 Who behold the promised rest : 
 
ROCK OF AGES. 
 
 "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in thee ! " 
 
 "Rock of Ages, cleft for me," 
 
 Sung above a cofhn-lid ; 
 Underneath all restfully. 
 
 All life's joys and sorrows hid ; 
 Never more, O storm-tossed soul, 
 
 Never more from wind or tide, 
 Never more from billows' roll, 
 
 Wilt thou need thyself to hide. 
 Could the sightless sunken eyes 
 
 Closed beneath the soft gray hair, 
 Could the mute and stiffened lips 
 
 Lift again in pleading prayer. 
 Still, aye still, the prayer would be : 
 " Let me hide myself in thee ! " 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 1^ yriGNONETTE! O Mignonette! 
 
 Lift up your pure brown eyes and say 
 Are there tears in the heart of the hly-bell, 
 (I have watched her long and I cannot tell,) 
 
 Or the dews at the close of day ? 
 
 For why should the lily weep ? 
 
 Is there flower more fair? 
 
 In these garden bowers, 
 
 Mid all the flowers, 
 
 Is there one to compare ? 
 
 Clover red, O clover red ! 
 
 Look up over the garden wall ! 
 
12 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Have you heard the lily-bell heave a sigh ? 
 Or was it the night-wind a-passing by, 
 That was caught in the lilacs tall ? 
 For why should the lily weep ? 
 Is there one to compare 
 In the garden bowers ? 
 Amid all the flowers 
 Is there flower so fair ? 
 
 " I have seen," said the mignonette — 
 
 And she lifted her eyes so brown — 
 " I've seen the lily with tear-dews wet, 
 
 And the bright drops falling down." 
 " And I," said the clover red, 
 
 " I have heard her moan and sigh, 
 When not a leaf with the dew was wet. 
 
 And no night-wind was by." 
 
 Then first did the lily speak : 
 " I am dying," she softly said. 
 
IMMORTALITY. I3 
 
 (And the mignonette and the pansy meek, 
 
 And the clover bowed the head.) 
 " I'm withering day by day ; 
 
 But I would not mind the pain ; 
 I were fain to go, could I only know 
 
 I should live again." 
 
 Then they asked of the dahlia proud. 
 
 And they questioned the bold bluebell ; 
 Of the stately stocks — of the flaunting phlox ; 
 
 But never a one could tell. 
 Then they sought for the honey-bee. 
 
 Whom they found in the clover-bed ; 
 She has travelled far over lake and lea, 
 They said, and if any one knows, 'tis she : 
 
 But she only shook her head. 
 
 And they buried their darling queen, 
 — For the lily died next day — 
 
^ IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Neath the fallen spines of the sighing pines 
 
 They laid her to sleep away. 
 And oft in the midnight dark, 
 
 When all the world was asleep, 
 In the silent hours went all the flowers 
 
 Adown to her grave to weep ; 
 And often the morning sun, 
 
 When he came in the eastern skies. 
 Found the mignonette with her brown eyes wet. 
 
 And tears in the pansy's eyes. 
 
 But lo ! when the spring-time cast 
 
 On the maples her tassels red, 
 And the fields grew bright, the lily white 
 
 Came forth from her downy bed ; 
 The mignonette slumbered still. 
 
 And still in her hive the bee, 
 And the stately stocks and the flaunting phlox ; 
 
 But the pansy was there to see. 
 
IMMORTALITY. i^ 
 
 'Tis years and years ago 
 
 That this wondrous thing befel, 
 But to this hour each mother-flower 
 
 The tale to her buds doth tell. 
 So they never may fear to die, 
 
 So they never may sigh nor weep 
 For they know the spring 
 Doth a new life brins: — 
 
 To die is to go to sleep ! 
 
IF? 
 
 TF all my year were summer, could I know 
 
 •^ What my Lord means by his " made white as 
 
 snow " ? 
 
 If all my days were sunny, could I say: 
 
 " In His fair land He wipes all tears away " ? 
 
 If I were never weary, could I keep 
 
 Close to my heart : " He gives his loved sleep " ? 
 
 Were no graves mine, might I not come to deem 
 The life eternal but a baseless dream ? 
 
4 
 
 IF ? 17 
 
 My winter, yea, my tears, my weariness, 
 Even my graves, may be his way to bless. 
 
 I call them ills, yet surely that can be 
 Nothing but good that shows my Lord to me. 
 
THE BOY ON THE TRAIN. 
 
 \ LITTLE plain brown face, 
 
 That nothing claimed of grace 
 Or comeliness, lighted by mournful eyes 
 That might have matched the skies 
 In depth of blue ; brown hair 
 That held a gleam of sunshine prisoned there. 
 
 Through the long swaying train 
 
 Of cars he moved — again 
 
 And yet again scanning each form and face ; 
 
 Then drew from out its case 
 
THE BOY ON THE TRAIN. 19 
 
 His well-worn violin, 
 
 And doffed his cap to place his earnings in. 
 
 From him on either side, 
 
 Robings of silken pride 
 
 Were gathered back by jewelled fingers fair. 
 
 As with that weary air 
 
 That only heart-ache brings, 
 
 He drew his bow across the trembling strings; 
 
 Forth 'neath his hand there crept 
 
 Sad, plaintive airs, that swept 
 
 Like half-awakened memories the heart ; 
 
 Anon he played a part 
 
 Of some gay, joyous song — 
 
 And all unheeded by the busy throng. 
 
 The music ceased at last, 
 And then his cap he passed, 
 
) THE BOY ON THE TRAIN. 
 
 With hands that trembled, down each serried line ; 
 
 Many the gems that shine 
 
 Like stars, from fingers fair. 
 
 Jewels that gleam from robe and breast and hair. 
 
 Yet as he went his round, 
 
 Few were the pence that found 
 
 The old torn cap ; his voice amid the din, 
 
 Trembling, and weak, and thin, 
 
 Was only faintly heard, 
 
 And few gave heed to his imploring word. 
 
 Sadly he turned away 
 
 From faces glad and gay. 
 
 Heartsick and weary; brooding bitter hate 
 
 Against earth's rich and great, 
 
 Thinking how but one gem 
 
 Of all their store would bring so much to him ! 
 
THE BOY ON THE TRAIN. 21 
 
 " Life is gone out," they said, 
 Lifting the icy head. 
 
 Sweeping the dripping hair back from the brow. 
 Loosing the fingers thin 
 Clutching the vioUn ; 
 
 " Threw himself off the bridge : — that's all we 
 know." 
 
 Come ye glad hearts and gay ! 
 
 All ye who turned away. 
 
 Careless of pleading eyes — heedless of sigh ! 
 
 Look on this cold, damp brow ! 
 
 Say, feel ye guiltless now ? 
 
 Is there no wound to bleed, no blood to cry ? 
 
 Hungry : — ye fed him not ! 
 Thirsting : — ye gave no thought ! 
 
; THE BOY ON THE TRAIN. 
 
 Heartsick : — ye turned aside ! 
 
 O ye who go, 
 Thoughtless, o'er all life's track ! 
 Pray God, that, looking back. 
 Cause for such cursings ye never may know ! 
 
ENOUGH FOR THEE. 
 
 " I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning 
 and the end." — Rev. 
 
 T SOUGHT the Lord in the morning, 
 
 My heart was aglow with youth. 
 I prayed : " O Lord, in the battle 
 
 I fight this day for the truth, 
 Give me thy richest blessing ! " 
 
 And the answering came to me : 
 " Mine is the end, the beginning : 
 
 Is that not enough for thee ? " 
 
 I sought the Lord in the noontide. 
 My heart was a-faint with care. 
 
24 
 
 ENOUGH FOR THEE. 
 
 I prayed : " O Father, this burden 
 
 Is more than my soul can bear ! 
 My heart grows faint in the battle, 
 
 I know not what is the truth: 
 Give me the glow of the morning. 
 
 Give me the faith of my youth ! " 
 While yet I entreated, weeping. 
 
 The answering came to me : 
 " I know the end, the beginning : 
 
 Is that not enough for thee ? " 
 
 And now in the gath'ring nightfall, 
 
 I come to the Lord again; 
 Gone is the morning's glory. 
 
 Vanished the noontide pain. 
 " Father, I am so weary. 
 
 Scarce can I breathe my prayer; 
 — The dews of the night are falling 
 
 In teardrops upon my hair." 
 
ENOUGH FOR THEE. 25 
 
 I hear his voice in the darkness : 
 — His presence I cannot see — 
 
 " I am the end, the beginning, 
 Is that not enough for thee." 
 
VIOLETS. 
 
 /^^RANDMA, do violets blossom 
 ^^ In the pasture-lands below? 
 'Tis time, for the grass is peeping 
 
 From under the melting snow ; 
 The crocus-bulbs in the garden 
 
 Are covered with tiny leaves, 
 And swallows are building. Grandma, 
 
 Are building under the eaves ! " 
 
 They grew in the pasture, darling, 
 ¥/hen I was a child like you : 
 
VIOLETS. 
 
 I've found them many a morning, 
 
 All heavy with beaded dew." 
 And Grandma folded her knitting, 
 
 And listened with tender smile 
 To the sound of childish footfalls. 
 
 And listening dreamed the while — 
 Till the tender chords of mem'ry 
 
 That had slumbered mute so long, 
 At touch of unconscious fingers 
 
 Awaken'd and sung their song. 
 
 27 
 
 Violets ! — Over the meadow, 
 Down thro' the pasture-land, 
 
 Went in the early springtime. 
 Little ones hand in hand: 
 
 He in his brimless hat-crown, 
 She in her apron white, 
 
28 VIOLETS. 
 
 Gathered the dainty blossoms 
 Hiding away from sight; 
 
 Hiding mid withered grasses, 
 Hiding in mosses low, — 
 
 Violets purple-hearted ! 
 Violets white as snow ! 
 
 Violets ! — Sixteen summers 
 
 All in her dream have flown ; - 
 He, with a manhood's crowning. 
 
 She, only fairer grown ; 
 Standing, both, in the twilight 
 
 Close by the pasture bars, 
 Talking and, haply, dreaming, 
 
 Watching the coming stars — 
 She with her fair head drooping, 
 
 He, with an untaught grace. 
 
VIOLETS. 
 
 29 
 
 Twining her hair with flowers, 
 Reading her conscious face. 
 
 "Blue, like her eyes," he called them, 
 
 " Snow, like her cheek," he said. 
 Watching the blush that, answering, 
 
 Crimsoned the snow with red; 
 Dropping from careless fingers. 
 
 Strewn on the ground below, 
 Violets purple-hearted ! 
 
 Violets white as snow ! 
 
 Violets! — On the hillside, 
 Over a sunken mound. 
 
 Close by a mossy headstone 
 Sunk in the marshy ground, 
 
30 VIOLETS. 
 
 — Tangled in withered grasses, 
 Hidden in mosses low — 
 
 Violets purple-hearted ! 
 Violets pure as snow ! 
 
 " Violets ! Grandma, thousands ! " 
 
 Into the withered hands 
 Showered the dainty blossoms, 
 Fresh from the pasture-lands. 
 Slowly the trembling fingers * 
 
 Gathered them, blue and white, 
 (Folding the while her dreamings 
 
 Tenderly out of sight;) 
 Kissed them with lips that trembled, 
 
 (Thinking of years ago) 
 — Violets purple-hearted ! 
 Violets white as snow ! 
 
BALLAD OF LADY LENA. 
 
 /^^N the borders of the Rhineland 
 
 So the legend runs to-day, 
 When so many years have vanished 
 
 From remembrance — far away 
 On the borders of the Rhineland, 
 
 Where the river falling down 
 From the glacier of Adiilla, 
 
 Joins that from Lucmania's crown, 
 Where, uniting, dash they wildly 
 
 'Gainst the cliffs on either hand — 
 Then, their fury spent, glide swiftly 
 
 To the vales of Switzerland — 
 
32 BALLAD OF LADY LENA, 
 
 Underneath o'erhanging mountains, 
 Stretching far beyond, away 
 
 To the very gates of heaven — 
 Stands a castle old and gray. 
 
 And the Switzers tell the story 
 
 How the lord of all the vale, 
 (And they turn away their faces. 
 
 Shuddering as they tell the tale,) 
 Fought and slew his only brother. 
 
 And, from the avenging hand 
 Of his countr}^, fled his castle. 
 
 On the shore of Switzerland ; 
 How his wife, the Lady Lena, 
 
 Sickened with her grief and died ; 
 How with sorrowing hearts they laid her 
 
 Lowly by the water side ; 
 • How the little Lady Lena 
 
 Grew than all her race more fair! 
 
BALLAD OF LADY LENA. 
 
 Blue her bright eyes as the heaven, 
 Gold the gleaming of her hair ! 
 
 So the long years passed — 
 
 Twas an early morn of Autumn: 
 
 Shone the yellow sunlight down 
 On the glacier of Adulla, 
 
 O'er Lucmania's icy crown ; 
 On the river winding swiftly 
 
 To the slumbering lake below — 
 Robing mountain-top and valley 
 
 In a haze of golden glow ; 
 Up and down the mountain passes, 
 
 Bugle-blast and clarion-clang, 
 Hurrying steps and wailing voices 
 
 Thro' the morning stillness rang ! 
 
34 BALLAD OF LADY LENA, 
 
 All the valley heard the story 
 
 Echoed back from shore to shore- 
 " Searchmg for our Lady Lena," 
 
 — Missing since the night before- 
 " Lady Lena ! Lady Lena ! " 
 
 (Holy mother ! hear the prayer,) 
 Only echo answered mocking, 
 
 Died the wailing on the air ! — 
 Hark ! a shout ! an awful stillness ! 
 
 Then a wild and woeful sound 
 Shuddered up thro' all the valley 
 
 And the hills repeated, "found!'' 
 
 O'er the threshold of the castle 
 With a measured, noiseless tread, 
 
 'Mid the weeping — 'mid the wailing, 
 Shuddering they bore their dead : 
 
BALLAD OF LADY LENA. 35 
 
 White her upturned face and ghastly ! 
 
 Dim lier bright hair's golden gleam, 
 Tangled by the mountain brier, 
 
 Dripping from the mountain stream ; 
 *' Lady Lena ! " — (loud the weeping) 
 
 " Lady Lena ! " — but the cry 
 Brought no answer to its pleading — 
 
 From the mute lips no reply ! 
 
 Hark ! the noise of angry tumult ! 
 
 Hush ! a silence, breathless, deep, 
 As was hers who lay among them. 
 
 Ghastly, in her dreamless sleep — 
 And behold ! there stood before them. 
 
 Never knew they w^hence or how, 
 With defiance in his stepping, 
 
 With defiance on his brow, 
 Crossed with clanging step the threshold, 
 
36 ' BALLAD OF LADY LENA. 
 
 Entered at the open door — 
 Were they sleeping? Were they dreaming? 
 
 Him they thought to see no more ! 
 Over all the gather'd household 
 
 Ran the whispered words like fire : 
 " 'Tis the exiled Lord of Mania ! 
 
 'Tis the Lady Lena's sire ! " 
 From beneath his iron helmet 
 
 Fell his long hair white as snow, 
 And his eye was like an eagle's 
 
 In the fury of its glow. 
 Yet his white and ghastly features 
 
 Told the story of his woe. 
 Silently each mailed retainer 
 
 Stood aside and gave him place ; 
 Bent he lowly there beside her, 
 
 Fell his hot tears on her face. 
 All unmindful of their wonder, 
 
BALLAD OF LADY LENA. 37 
 
 He, the mighty man, the strong, 
 Laid his cheek to hers and whispered, 
 
 " I have loved thee, oh so long ! 
 'Twas for thee I sought my country, 
 
 'Twas for thee I dared to live — 
 Hast thou never word of greeting ? 
 
 Can thy lips no answer give ? 
 Mine the heart that would have kept thee 
 
 Safely from the mountain storm ! 
 Mine the arms that would have borne thee, 
 
 Mine the breast have kept thee warm! 
 Lena ! Lena ! Wake thou ! hear me ! " 
 
 But his low despairing cry 
 Brought no answer to its pleading, 
 
 From the white lips no reply. 
 
 Slow he rose, and with a shudder. 
 Turning from the corse away, 
 
38 BALLAD OF LADY LENA. 
 
 Broke his sword, and tore his hehnet 
 
 From his flowing locks of gray. 
 " Where are ye who sought to take me ^ 
 
 Come ye not to bind me ? Know 
 That in tender babe or woman 
 
 Ne'er ye fought an easier foe ! 
 Think ye that I care for freedom } 
 
 What were freedom to me now ! 
 Ask ye .? Yonder corse will answer 
 
 Mutely, eye and lip and brow ! 
 'Twas for her, my child, I fought you, 
 
 'Twas for her — and she hath died ! 
 Freedom ! say ye ? Look upon her ! 
 
 There is none I love beside." 
 
 Fell he on his knees beside her, 
 
 (Lying there in icy rest,) 
 Fell his gray head on her bosom. 
 
 Trailed his gray hair down her breast ! 
 
BALLAD OF LADY LENA. 39 
 
 Into eyes all strange to weeiDing, 
 Over cheeks all scarred and brown 
 
 With the storming and the battle 
 Glist'ning teardrops trickled down. 
 
 One by one each mailed warrior, 
 With a hushed and noiseless tread, 
 
 Turned aside with awe-struck wonder. 
 Turned, and left him with his dead. 
 
USELESS. 
 
 '' I ^HE autumn day was over; 
 
 In silence hushed and deep, 
 The weary earth was lying 
 With close-shut eyes, asleep. 
 
 Upon the quiet meadows. 
 From distant hilltops brown, 
 
 The misty twilight shadows 
 
 With noiseless wings came down. 
 
 The starry lamps of" heaven 
 Were lighted one by one. 
 
USELESS. 41 
 
 As tender angel -tokens 
 
 To earth that day was done. 
 
 Then high above the tree-tops 
 The moon in silence crept, 
 
 And hovered o'er the fair earth, 
 To watch her as she slept. 
 
 Straying along the meadow 
 
 With listless, idle feet, 
 Where sombre lengths of shadow 
 
 The moonlight came to meet, 
 
 Amid a maple's branches, 
 A noise like summer rain 
 
 Came to my ears, and list'ning, 
 I heard her thus complain : 
 
 " The pear-trees in the orchard 
 With fruit are loaded down ; 
 
42 USELESS. 
 
 The cone-caps of the pine-tree 
 
 Already turned to brown ; 
 The acorns from the old oak 
 
 But wait a breeze to fall ; 
 The early grapes in clusters 
 
 Drip purple o'er the wall. — 
 I, only, bear no burden, 
 
 Most useless of them all ! 
 
 " When to his earthly garden 
 
 The messenger shall come, 
 Sent by the Lord of Harvest 
 
 To bear the ripe load home, 
 The yellow pears he'll gather, 
 
 The seed-cones of the pine, 
 Brown acorns from the oak-tree, 
 
 And from the grapes pure wine ; 
 From e'en the lowly wheat-field 
 
 He'll gather golden sheaves^ 
 
USELESS. 43 
 
 While I have naught to give him — 
 I, only, bear but leaves ! " 
 
 The maple ceased : a shiver 
 Through all her branches crept, 
 
 As in low, sobbing cadence 
 
 The night-wind 'mong them wept. 
 
 Then forth from out the shadow, 
 
 A form in glist'ning white, 
 And crown with fair stars glowing, 
 
 Stepped forth into the light: 
 
 "I am the Lord of Harvest," 
 
 He said in clear, low tone : 
 " Unto my earthly garden 
 
 I come to claim my own. 
 
 " I planted thee O maple. 
 In this my garden fair, 
 
44 USELESS. 
 
 Not that, like pear or oak tree, 
 Thou shouldst a burden bear 
 
 Of glowing fruit or brown nut. 
 Or, like the low wheat, sheaves, 
 
 But that, a thing of beauty, 
 Thou wear a robe of leaves. 
 
 " Nor has thy life been useless ! 
 
 How oft from noontide sun 
 Hast sheltered weary laborers ? 
 
 How oft when day was done 
 Have zephyrs, heavy laden, 
 
 Close in thy bosom crept ? 
 And weary winds and houseless 
 
 Beneath thy branches slept ? 
 
 " O maple, cease thy sobbing ! 
 
 A greater work is thine 
 Than that of pe^r or oak tree, 
 
 Than that of wheat or vine : 
 
USELESS. 45 
 
 They, for the Lord of Harvest, 
 Shall shower their treasures down; 
 
 Thou, from thy wealth of beauty, 
 Shalt weave for Him His crown ! " 
 
 As through the quiet meadow 
 
 I homeward took my way. 
 With weary step and thoughtful, 
 
 A low voice seemed to say : 
 " O human one, thou faithless ! 
 
 Whene'er thy spirit grieves, 
 That in the Lord's fair garden 
 
 Thou bearest only leaves. 
 Remember this : thy life-work 
 
 Cannot all useless be, 
 If thou but bear the burden 
 
 The Master laid on thee ! 
 
T 
 
 DANDELIONS. 
 
 HE breath of summer was on the breeze, 
 The robins sang in the budding trees : 
 
 The willow branches a-bending low, 
 
 Had dropped their tassels, Oh long ago ! 
 
 And old earth rang with the glad refrain; 
 " The sunny springtime is here again ! " 
 
 On all the hills, in the valleys low, 
 Wherever a sturdy weed could grow. 
 
DANDELIONS. 47 
 
 Or bit of soil for their roots be found, 
 The dandeUons starred all the ground. 
 
 The farmer said, as he plied his hoe : 
 
 " These dandelions ! How weeds do grow ! " 
 
 But the children, baby boys and girls. 
 Made the stems into shining curls. 
 
 And all day long till the sun went down, 
 They wove the blossoms in chain and crown. 
 
 The golden blossoms, the pliant stems. 
 Were richest treasures, were rarest gems. 
 
 The mothers said, and softly smiled : 
 " What a thing it is to be a child ! " 
 
 But it puzzled the children's brain to know 
 How the golden blossoms came to grow ; 
 
48 DANDELIONS. 
 
 And many a curly head was bent, 
 
 And brow was furrowed with thought intent. 
 
 'Twas a weighty subject they thought about, 
 And this is the way they thought it out : 
 
 " They fell from the place where the bright skies 
 
 bend, 
 They're bits of sunshine the angels send ! " 
 
 The days went by, the June days long, 
 Bright with sunshine and sweet with song ; 
 
 And the dandelions' heads of gold 
 
 Grew dull and faded, grew brown and old. 
 
 But the children's i\.pril tears were dried, 
 For buttercups blossomed just beside ; 
 
 Till lo ! one day such a sweet surprise ! 
 — A miracle in the children's eyes — 
 
DANDELIONS. 49 
 
 In place of the dandelion's glow 
 
 Came downy blossoms as white as snow. 
 
 The farmer said as he pulled a weed : 
 " The dandelions are gone to seed." 
 
 And the mothers said, as mothers will, 
 " The thoughtless children are happy still." 
 
 But it puzzled the children much to see 
 The down where the gold was wont to be, 
 
 And tiny footsteps to rest were brought, 
 And baby faces grew grave with thought. 
 
 'Twas a weighty subject they thought about. 
 And this is the way they thought it out : 
 
 " Angels have given 'em wings to fly 
 Back to the sun in the shiny sky ! " 
 
5° 
 
 DANDELIONS. 
 
 Dear little children, your queer thoughts seem 
 Wiser to me than your elders dream. 
 
 Teach me to keep, as my life grows old, 
 My faith in the dandelion's gold ; 
 
 Teach me to see, where my footsteps tend, 
 The bits of sunshine the angels send ; 
 
 Teach me, hearts that are undefiled. 
 To love God's world like a little child ! 
 
MORNING-GLORY BELLS. 
 
 T^MBOWERED is my garden wall 
 
 "^ In wild-thorn branches, and in vines 
 Of blackberry, while over all 
 
 A morning-glory wreathes and twines, 
 'Till from each leafy nook and cell, 
 There hangs a morning-glory bell. 
 
 I see them swinging in the air, 
 — For breezes toss them as they list — 
 
 Each dainty blossom shining fair 
 In azure, rose or amethyst; 
 
MORNING-GLORY BELLS. 
 
 But, though I've listened many a time, 
 I never hear them ring or chime. 
 
 I think, sometimes, if I should see 
 
 The first faint flush of morning rise, 
 — Prophetic of the day to be — 
 
 An opal splendor in the skies, 
 And birds would hush their waking note 
 
 As on the earth the radiance fell, 
 From out each dainty blossom-throat 
 
 I'd hear a morning-glory-bell. 
 With mimic, fairy clash and din, 
 Ringing the morning glory in. 
 
THE WATER-LILY. 
 
 WATER-LILY afloat! afloat! 
 Tell me the thought that keeps thee waking ! 
 Daylight died with the last bird-note ; 
 
 Leaves in the twilight breeze are shaking : 
 Still, on the breast of the lake afar 
 Thy pure face gleams like a silver star. 
 
 The other lilies are all asleep, 
 
 Their hoods drawn over their fair pale faces; 
 The bull-frog-sentinel watch doth keep, 
 
 The guardsman-rushes are in their places : 
 
54 THE WATER-LILY. 
 
 What are the dreamings that keep thine eyes 
 Open wide to the evening skies? 
 
 Is it the song of the humming bird? 
 
 Thy golden heart with his wings he stirred — 
 
 Did he murmur the old love rhymes 
 
 He's told to others a thousand times? 
 
 O Water-lily, beware ! beware ! 
 
 A reckless lad he is known to be ! 
 He's drunk the sweetness of many a fair 
 
 And tender flower ere he came to thee ! 
 He gives no thought to the woe he makes, 
 He has no heart for the heart he breaks. 
 
 What was the song of the dragon-fly ? 
 I heard him sing as he passed me by 
 
THE WATER-LILY. 55 
 
 And bent to kiss thee — his murmured song 
 
 Has filled my musing the whole day long. 
 
 O Water-lily, beware ! beware ! 
 
 The dragon-fly has no love for thee! 
 
 He lives on sweets as he lives on air- 
 Tender or faithful he cannot be ! 
 
 Listen, O Lily! to what I say^ 
 
 He only wooes thee to fly away! 
 
 Water-lily afloat ! afloat ! 
 
 Banish the dreams that keep thee waking! 
 Daylight died with the last bird-note ; 
 
 Leaves in the twilight breeze are shaking: 
 Stars are lit in the evening skies — 
 O Water-lily! close thou thine eyes! 
 Then over the water to where I stand, 
 
 The voice of the lily floats, pure and sweet 
 
56 THE WATER-LILY. 
 
 As a harp-String struck by the night-wind's hand, 
 Or the echo when fairy cymbals meet : 
 
 " It is no story the wild bird told, 
 
 I know his whispers too well of old ; 
 
 It is no song of the dragon-fly, 
 
 Light as the zephyr it passed me by; 
 
 I know a secret the waters keep, 
 
 I cannot shut up my eyes in sleep ! 
 
 Under the water my leaves entwine 
 
 A fair child-form with a face di\ine ; 
 
 Water-weeds in her hair of gold, 
 
 White hands over her heart afold ; 
 
 The winds have sung to her all day long, 
 
 Her sleeping ears never heed the song ; 
 
 Clouds have beckoned her from the skies, 
 
 She never opens her dreaming eyes ; 
 
THE WATER-LILY. 57 
 
 Ripples play in her hair at will — 
 All is ill vain, she is sleeping still ! " 
 
 I have told the secret the waters keep — 
 
 The water-lily may close her eyes ; 
 They have found the child in her dreamless sleep, 
 
 Her face upturned to the evening skies ; 
 Tender hands from her golden hair 
 
 The dripping water-weeds soft untwine, 
 Tender voices have breathed a prayer. 
 
 Loving tears on the cold face shine. 
 
 The wild bird lies in his downy nest, 
 
 .The reeds in the river are all asleep; 
 The dragon-fly to his dainty rest, — 
 A silent watching the fair stars keep ; 
 
58 THE WATER-LILY. 
 
 But ah! the lily no more shall float 
 A silver star on the water gleaming, 
 
 Daylight died with the last bird-note, 
 Moonlight over the lake is streaming ! 
 
 Softly the child's cold hands enfold 
 
 To the still bosom, that heart of gold. 
 
DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH. 
 
 It was a festal day in Paris. Since early morning had the 
 streets been filled with hurrying multitudes ; but as the sun went 
 down, and all the thousand lamps of the great city were lighted, 
 the festivities were laid aside, for a messenger had come from the 
 Palace bringing word that the young king was dying. Slowly the 
 gathered throng dispersed, till, instead of the vast multitudes that 
 so lately thronged the streets, the city was silent and deserted. 
 
 T ^r^THIN an upper chamber lay the king, 
 
 His white face, 'gainst the pillow scarce as 
 white, 
 Gleamed ghastly — lip and hand and brow 
 Were chilling with the icy touch of him 
 Who comes but once — who comes alike to all. 
 About the room the waxen tapers tall 
 
6o DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH. 
 
 Lit up the shadows, while the black-robed priests 
 Stood round the couch with " Host and Crucifix," 
 The ceremonial of the sacrament. 
 
 But the king sees them not ; his soul is back 
 With the past years — he whispers! Ha! he 
 
 dreams ! 
 He sees the streets of Paris all aglow 
 With gleaming fire of the torch and lamp ; 
 He stands beside his window — from below 
 Thro' all the streets he hears the ceaseless tramp 
 Of armed men — the crash of arms — the cry 
 Of gathering forces ; on the midnight air 
 He hears the wild, wild accents of despair 
 In groans and curses, as the throng go by; 
 And 'bove them all, o'er every sight and sound 
 He hears the bell of St. Germain slow toll 
 
DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH. 6 1 
 
 The signal for the massacre ; — the ground 
 Beneath his feet is red with blood : the roll 
 Of musketry is drowned in dying groans! 
 
 Within the chamber still the dark-robed priests 
 Move noiselessly; from out his fever dream 
 The king awakes, his sunken, gleaming eyes 
 Fast dark'ning with the gathering gloom of death; 
 In vain the trembling priests essay to calm 
 His troubled soul — " I murdered them !" he shrieks ; 
 "I saw them butchered; now their vengeful souls 
 Are come to mock me! Hear the tower bell! 
 
 "'No bell?' ye mock me! Hear it peal! 
 
 Aye, hear it ! Marking slow 
 
 The shrieking of the murdered ones 
 
 In all the streets below ! 
 
62 DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH. 
 
 I see them — their uplifted hands, 
 
 Their pleading eyes — oh, there ! 
 
 See ! see their life-blood flowing down 
 
 Around me everywhere ! " 
 
 " Nay, nay, my son ! this crucifix 
 
 Put to thy lips in prayer ! " 
 
 *' What ! pray ? I pray ? I press my lips 
 
 Upon that holy thing? 
 
 I pray ? 'twere blasphemy ! no prayer 
 
 Peace to this heart can bring! 
 
 The bell ! the bell again ! shut out. 
 
 Shut out its ringing knell ! 
 
 ' A fever dream ? ' Great God, my soul 
 
 Doth know the sound full well ! 
 
 Have I not heard it pealing slow 
 
 Above me night and day ! 
 
 Has it not hung about my neck 
 
 Whene'er I've tried to pray! 
 
DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH. 63 
 
 Have I not heard it ? hear the peal ! 
 
 Louder and louder yet ! 
 
 I shall go mad ! Shut out the sound ! 
 
 O God, could I forget ! 
 
 And hark ! it brings another sound , — 
 
 Hush ! sure, you heard it then, 
 
 The shrieking of the helpless throng, 
 
 The groans of dying men — 
 
 The curses ! hear them ! " 
 
 From his couch 
 They raised the dying king, 
 And sought with soothing, prayerful words 
 A calmer frame to bring. 
 " My son " — the aged father spoke — 
 " But idle dreams are these : 
 You hear no bell — there is no sound 
 But wind amonof the trees. 
 
64 DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH. 
 
 See, here I hold the crucifix : 
 
 Now lay aside thy care, 
 
 And gaze thou on the holy cross, 
 
 The while I kneel in prayer." 
 
 The king sank back with ashen lips. 
 
 The holy father bent. 
 
 And to the heavenly throne above 
 
 His supplication sent : 
 
 " Have mere}', Lord ! " the white-haired priest 
 
 In reverent accents prayed; 
 
 " Have mercy on the sons of men. 
 
 For thou thyself hast said — " 
 
 Quick started from his royal couch 
 
 The dying king. " Be still ! " 
 
 He shouted to the kneeling priest, 
 
 " Stay, hold thy peace ! Be still ! 
 
 Did He not say ' be merciful } ' 
 
DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH. 65 
 
 Did I show mercy when 
 IJy mine own word the very streets 
 Flowed down with lives of men ? 
 Did I show mercy when that wail 
 Of anguish rent the air ? 
 Did I show mercy e'en to one 
 In all that black despair? 
 I saw them murdered — did I raise 
 My hand to stay the fire ? 
 Did I show mercy when they prayed, 
 To babe, or gray-haired sire ? 
 
 Mercy ? ye mock me ! " 
 
 From his hand 
 The holy symbol fell, 
 And from his white lips fell the cry : 
 "The bell, the tower bell! 
 Shut out the sound ! " 
 
66 DEATH OF CHARLES THE NINTH, 
 
 His voice grew faint, 
 His eye with death grew dim ; 
 Slowly the icy shadows crept 
 O'er hand, and brow, and limb; 
 The holy fathers gathered round 
 In silence where he lay ; 
 About the room the tapers tall 
 Grew dim with dawning day ; 
 And ere the sun had lit the east, 
 A soul had passed away. 
 
o 
 
 THE POPLAR. 
 
 POPLAR, grim and tall, 
 Who foldest like a pall 
 Thy leafy garments round thee, tell me why. 
 Never, like other trees. 
 Thou laughest in the breeze, 
 Or readiest eager fingers to the sky ? 
 
 E'en in the leafy June, 
 When other trees in tune. 
 
 Sing chorals to the queen of all the year. 
 Like to a harp unstrung. 
 From out thy heart is wrung 
 
 But sighing sound, and sobbing sad to hear. 
 
68 THE POPLAR. 
 
 Answer the poplar made : 
 
 " Human, a curse was laid 
 Long centuries ago upon my race ; 
 
 Henceforth in all the mirth 
 
 And gladness of the earth, 
 Can never poplar have a name or place. 
 
 " When the Lord ('hrist, come down 
 From heavenly throne and crown, 
 
 By wicked hands was crucified and slain, 
 The cross they on Him laid, 
 Of poplar wood was made ! " 
 
 She ceased to speak, and silence reigned again. 
 
 " O poplar tree," I cried, 
 
 "Think'st thou that He who died 
 To save the precious souls of sinful men 
 
 Knows not the cross you bear ? 
 
 Knows not the curse you wear .? 
 The cruel cross man laid upon you then ? 
 
THE POPLAR. 69 
 
 " And oh, hast never heard 
 
 His tender pitying word 
 To all who suffer here, O poplar tree? 
 
 ' They who shall bear my cross 
 
 On earth, or suffer loss, 
 They in the heaven above shall reign with me ! ' 
 
 " Perchance in that fair land 
 
 Where dwell the ransomed band 
 Of all who see the glory of His face. 
 
 Within those deathless bowers 
 
 Of fadeless trees and flowers 
 He keeps for thee, O poplar tree, a place ! " 
 
NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 /^^NE New Year's eve in the long ago, 
 
 Longer than you and I can remember, 
 When a week of the frost-king's ice and snow 
 Followed the rule of a green December, 
 In a farm-house kitchen, low and wide, 
 Three children sat in the chimney-side ; 
 The fitful shadows, grotesque and tall, 
 Flickered and danced on the lighted wall. 
 
 Outside, the wind thro' the leafless trees. 
 
 Laughed and shouted the boughs among, 
 Whistled under the farm-house eaves, 
 
NEW YEAR S EVE. 7 1 
 
 Snowflakes into the chimney flung ; 
 
 And ever and ever, all dense and white, 
 
 The snow was hiding the earth from sight. 
 
 There is a legend that sages tell, 
 (And they in the farm-house knew it well,) 
 How, just as the new year greets the old. 
 And the heart of the dear old year grows cold, 
 An angel comes thro' the " gates of gold ; " 
 
 And whoso listens to hear his feet 
 
 Bright from the tread of the golden street. 
 
 May wish one wish, ere he doth depart, 
 
 (A pure, true wish, from a true, pure heart,) 
 
 And the angel, spreading his wings of love, 
 
 Will bear it safe to the throne above. 
 
 The tall old clock in the kitchen low 
 Ticked slowly, solemnly, to and fro, 
 
72 NEW year's eve. 
 
 And still the children, with faces bright, 
 
 Shouted and laughed in the wintry night ; 
 
 Sleepy ?. Not they ! When the clock struck ten 
 
 They roasted apples and nuts, and when 
 
 It tolled eleven, in voices low. 
 
 They talked of the old year out in the snow. 
 
 " 'Tis Nellie's turn for the wish," they said; 
 Dear little Nell, with the golden head ! 
 She sat by the fire, demure and calm. 
 Her fair face bent on her chubby palm ; 
 " Come, tell us, Nellie," the children cried, 
 '' What shall you wish ? " and the child replied : 
 " I shall not tell what the wish will be, 
 Nobody knows but the Lord and me ! " 
 
 Stiller and stiller the kitchen grew, 
 
 And lids drooped over brown eyes and blue ; 
 
NEW year's eve. 73 
 
 Dim grew the light on the painted wall ; 
 Fainter the tick of the old clock tall ; 
 The old sand-man, with his bag of sand, 
 Was round, recruiting for slumber-land. 
 
 The clock struck twelve, and the fair moon broke 
 Through storm-clouds, scattering them like smoke; 
 The wild wind died with a few faint sighs; 
 The stars looked in with their wondering eyes ; 
 The embers lay in a dying heap — 
 Three little children were fast asleep. 
 
 Whether that night (for they tell no more,) 
 The angel came to the farm-house door, 
 Came in the hush of the midnight cold 
 To hear the wish that was all untold, 
 They never knew ; and the old year crept 
 Thro' the gates of time, and the children slept. 
 
74 
 
 Ever and ever the years go by, 
 
 New years are born and the old years die, 
 
 And things are wished, as they come and go, 
 
 That only God and the angels know; 
 
 But in the legend, I think sometimes, 
 
 ( As I gravely ponder the quaint old rhymes,) 
 
 I read this truth : that the while men sleep, 
 
 In palace high, or in dungeon deep. 
 
 The angel-visits for which they sigh — 
 
 The golden chances of life — go by. 
 
AT AUCTION. 
 
 T HAVE a heart to sell, Maclaline ! 
 I have a heart to sell, lady fair ! 
 ' What is the price to be ? ' 
 True love — thy love — shall be 
 All that I ask of thee, 
 
 Madaline ! 
 
 " Have I then, ' gold and lands ' Madaline ? 
 Have I then, 'lands and gold,' lady fair? 
 Nay, nay ! the price shall be 
 Love, not of gold, but me! 
 Ah — glad I turn from thee, 
 
 Madaline ! 
 
76 AT AUCTION. 
 
 " I have a heart to sell, Marian ! 
 I have a heart to sell, lady fair! 
 * What is the price to be ? ' 
 Love, dear, the love of me, 
 All that I ask of thee, 
 
 Marian ! 
 
 " Have I then * wealth and fame,' Marian ? 
 Have I, you ask, 'a name,' lady fair? 
 Nay, nay ! thy love must be 
 Price not of fame, but me ! 
 Thankful I turn from thee, 
 Marian ! 
 
 "' I have a heart to sell, Margaret ! 
 I have a heart to sell, lady fair! 
 ' What is the price to be ? ' 
 True love, the love of me 
 Only, I ask of thee, 
 
 Margaret ! 
 
AT AUCTION. 77 
 
 *' List ! do I hear aright, Margaret ? 
 Stay ! have I still my sight, lady fair ? 
 No thought if wealth be mine ? 
 Only two eyes that shine ? 
 Only two hands in mine, 
 
 Margaret ? 
 
 "What about lands and gold, Margaret? 
 What about name and fame, lady fair ? " 
 Lowly she bent her head, 
 "You've a true heart," she said, 
 " Tis all you need to wed 
 
 Margaret ! • ' 
 
 " Though gold and lands are mine, Margaret ! 
 Though mine are name and fame, lady fair ! 
 Proof that thine heart will be 
 Giv'n not to them, but me. 
 Thrice dear shall render thee, 
 
 Margaret ! '' 
 
DO YOU REMEMBER? 
 
 DO you remember the brook-tree, May? 
 The birch tree down by the brook ? 
 How shadows over the waters stray, 
 And leaves in the sunshine dance and play, 
 And into its bosom look? 
 
 Do you remember the birchen boats 
 
 We loaded with grass and sand, 
 That ventured forth from the water's edge, 
 Or tangled lay in the grassy sedge 
 And never came safe to land ? 
 
DO YOU REMEMBER? 79 
 
 Have you forgotten the rude seat, May, 
 We made 'neath the old tree's shade, 
 When we sat and told what we would be 
 When our ships of life went out to sea 
 And a longer voyage we made — 
 
 Till the shades of twilight swiftly fell 
 
 On the rustling leaves o'erhead, 
 And fairy fingers there seemed to be, 
 And goblin forms, in the old brook-tree, 
 And how at the thought we fled ? 
 
 The days of childhood are gone, dear May, 
 
 But the brook-tree stands there still ; 
 And 'neath its branches the children play 
 The joyous games of a vanished day, 
 And the air with lauirhter fill. 
 
8o DO YOU REMEMBER? 
 
 But as I listen to their glee, 
 
 'Mid the waters' splash and flow, 
 A tender memory comes back to me 
 
 Of days in the long-ago ; 
 And again together, you and me, 
 
 I see in a rosy dream, 
 Two children under the old brook-tree, 
 
 A-sailing boats in the stream ! 
 
D 
 
 SECRETS. 
 
 EEPLY, darkly, low in the grass 
 
 Hide it! 
 Slyly! even the winds that pass 
 
 To and fro, 
 
 Must not know ! 
 
 Hide it! 
 Bid the field lily true 
 Keep watch the long day through ! 
 Brown nest with eggs so blue, 
 
 Hide it! 
 
 Deeply, darkly, under the snow 
 Hide it! 
 
82 SECRETS. 
 
 Shelter it safe from winds that blow 
 
 Rudely past ! 
 
 From the blast 
 
 Hide it! 
 Till the bright sun shall shed 
 Warmth o'er its frozen bed ; 
 — Snowdrop with drooping head, 
 
 Hide it! 
 
 Deeply, darkly under the sea 
 
 Hide it! 
 Hide it ! Where the clear waters be 
 
 Calm and still, 
 
 Hushed and still, 
 
 Hide it ! 
 Where bright sea-mosses grow, 
 Where crimson corals glow; 
 Rare pearl of tinted snow ! 
 
 Hide it! 
 
SECRETS. 83 
 
 Safe was my nest so brown 
 
 Hid in the meadow, 
 Fern-frondlets bending down 
 
 Hung it with shadow ; 
 Lilies — they loved it so — 
 
 Bent to enfold it : 
 Now all the world doth know — 
 
 — Mother-bird told it. 
 
 Safely beneath the snow 
 
 Grew my fair flower, 
 Hid from rude winds that blow 
 
 Thro' spring's bleak hour. 
 Coyly my lady gay 
 
 Wrapped her leaves round her, 
 But the spring did betray, 
 
 And the sun found her. 
 
84 SECRETS. 
 
 Safely beneath the sea 
 
 Was my pearl biding, 
 Shell, rough as shell could be, 
 
 Was its glow hiding. 
 Sea shadows went and came. 
 
 Seeking to save it; 
 But the pearl-diver came, 
 
 And the sea gave it. 
 
A PRAYER. 
 
 IF I were dead, and thou couldst see me lying 
 With face of soulless clay, 
 And know that on my lips' impassioned crying 
 
 Eternal silence lay. 
 Thou wouldst forgive me all thy life's undoing, 
 
 Thou wouldst forget it all. 
 And over me, my stony face bedewing, 
 Thy tender tears would fall. 
 
 I cannot die — that gift of God's bestowing 
 Will not be granted me 
 
86 A PRAYER. 
 
 Until long years in their relentless flowing 
 
 Gain the eternal sea. 
 But oh, if thou, with tenderest forgiving 
 
 Of one who seeks to save, 
 Wouldst blot me from thy record of the living. 
 
 And write instead a grave. 
 And think of me sometimes with tender sorrow 
 
 As of a friend who died. 
 Then I could bear the burden of my morrow — 
 
 I should be satisfied ! 
 
THE HONEY OF A KISS. 
 
 [For Louie H., just five years o/d.] 
 
 TT THEN the cares of day are ended, 
 
 ' ^ And my baby's prayer is said, 
 When he lies in peaceful slumber 
 
 In his little trundle-bed, 
 As I sit beside him, listening 
 
 To his breathing calm and deep, 
 Comes the question that he asked me 
 
 Just before he went to sleep — 
 With the rosy lips a-tremble 
 
 And his laughing eyes a-light — 
 
88 THE HONEY OF A KISS. 
 
 " Is there honey in the kisses 
 Of your little boy to-night ? " 
 
 For I tell my little Louie, 
 
 If he has been good all day, 
 True and tender in his speaking, 
 
 Kind and thoughtful in his play, 
 Just as in the fragrant blossom 
 
 Of the clover for the bee, 
 There is honey in the kisses 
 
 Of my little boy for me. 
 
 Then my thoughts turn from the present, 
 And go climbing up the stair 
 
 That the years will build for baby. 
 If his life is bright and fair, 
 
 When the kisses that he longs for 
 As a honeyed draught divine. 
 
THE HONEY OF A KISS. 89 
 
 Will no longer be his mother's, 
 But from younger lips than mine. 
 
 But I envy not your fairness, 
 
 Little maid he'll love so well. 
 Nor your treasure in the story 
 
 That his loving lips will tell; 
 But I envy his caresses, 
 
 By a loving mother's right, 
 And the honey in the kisses 
 
 Of my only boy to-night ! 
 
 But a little noise of nestling 
 From my baby's trundle-bed, 
 
 And a dimpled arm tossed upward 
 O'er a moist and curly head, 
 
90 THE HONEY OF A KISS. 
 
 Bring me back from out my musing, 
 From the world of dreams to this, 
 
 And I send him back to slumber 
 With the honey of a kiss. 
 
 Dainty maiden of his manhood, 
 
 Who perchance this night may lie, 
 Just another " dimpled darling," 
 
 Neath a loving mother's eye, 
 Tho' the kisses of his future 
 
 May be thine, I claim the bliss 
 Of the living, loving present. 
 
 In the honey of a kiss! 
 
THE RHYME OF THE BABY. 
 
 [Written for Rita — born Oct. 6th, 1877.] 
 TTAVE you seen the little lady 
 
 Who has lately come to town ? 
 She came in gold October, 
 
 When the leaves were dropping down ; 
 In the early gray of morning, 
 
 — Fast asleep each bird and flower — 
 She came into the kingdom 
 
 Where she rules this very hour. 
 
 t 
 Is she pretty — do you ask me? 
 Could you see my lady's eyes, 
 
THE RHYME OF THE BABY. 
 
 Soft and velvet-dark as pansies, 
 When she opes them in surprise, 
 
 You would never ask the question — 
 Could you see her mouth, her hair, 
 
 Her little rose-leaf fingers, 
 
 And her feet, the dainty pair. 
 
 Is she fascinating ? Bless me ! 
 
 Could you see the throng that waits 
 On her every look and motion 
 
 In the realm within her gates ; 
 Could you see how every subject 
 
 Is her loving slave at will, 
 You would never ask the question, 
 
 You would wonder, and be still. 
 
 Is she wealthy } Countless millions 
 Could not buy the love she owns! 
 
THE RHYME OF THE BABY. 93 
 
 She is richer in her dowry 
 
 Than the queens upon their thrones ! 
 In the hearts of father, mother, 
 
 Uncles, aunties and the rest, 
 She's the very queen of babies, 
 
 Just the. sweetest and the best! 
 
JUST AS OF OLD. 
 
 '' I ^HE morning sun is shining on the river, 
 ■^ The early mists receding fold on fold: 
 So comes a new day into the forever 
 Just as of old. 
 
 " Time is so slow ! " the children murmur, frowning, 
 "Just as of old the weary years go by; 
 It takes so long for life to reach its crowning ! 
 The moments only creep when they should fly ! 
 
 "The tardy spring gives place to tardy summer, 
 Then ling'ring autumn drops her tarnished gold, 
 
JUST AS OF OLD. 95 
 
 And winter is so long," the children murmur, 
 "Just as of old!" 
 
 We smile to see the eager children frowning, 
 We on whose heads has fall'n the frost of years ; 
 To hear them prattle of the future's crowning, 
 We smile — but hidden 'neath the smile are tears; 
 Our fleeting spring gives place to summer's glory, 
 And all too soon to autumn's sheaves of gold 
 Comes winter, like a reaper old and hoary, 
 Just as of old. 
 
 Just as of old? Ah, no! our skies were bluer 
 Than skies are now ; the earth was fairer, far ; 
 Men's hands were stronger, and their hearts were 
 
 truer. 
 In the dear past, than in the now they are. 
 
 Just as of old? O Time, thus idly mocking! 
 Give the old days when we with eager feet 
 
g6 JUST AS OF OLD. 
 
 Walked the old ways, our eager fingers knocking 
 At doors that opened into life so sweet ! 
 Give the dear faces that have vanished from us ! 
 Give the sweet words, the heartbeats strong and 
 
 true, 
 Give back the joy in life, the faith, the promise 
 That all were ours when life to us was new! 
 Thou canst not ! and we hear the children asking 
 That slow old Time would haste him in his flight; 
 Thou dost not heed, but bringest them life's tasking, 
 And unto us the darkness of the night. 
 We see the sunset shining on the river; 
 The dying day is brightening in its gold ; 
 So fades the dim day into the forever. 
 Just as of old. 
 
o 
 
 THE SINGING BIRD. 
 
 H, sweet, sweet, sweet, the swallow sun 
 
 & 
 
 From the nest he builded high ; 
 And the robin's raptured echo rung 
 
 From his leafy perch close by. 
 " Oh sweet, sweet, sweet," rang the joyful tune, 
 " Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet, is the world in June.' 
 
 "Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet," the maiden said 
 As she twined her hair with flowers; 
 
 From bird and blossom the echo sped 
 Thro' the long and blissful hours. 
 
98 V- THE SINGING BIRD. 
 
 " Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet," ran the joyful tune 
 " Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet, is the world in June.' 
 
 " Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet," the swallow sung 
 
 On the summer's dying night; 
 And "sweet, sweet, sweet," the echo rung 
 
 As the robin plumed for flight ; 
 "Oh, sweet is the summer when just begun. 
 And sweet, sweet, sweet, when her life is done ! 
 
 But the maiden, never a word she said 
 As she donned the weeds of woe ; 
 
 The bird that sung in her heart was dead 
 With the summer of long ago ; 
 
 The sweet, sweet, sweet, of the bloom and bird 
 
 As idle mocking her dull ear heard. 
 
THE SINGING BIRD. 99 
 
 Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet, is the whole glad earth 
 
 When the summer days are here ; 
 And sweet, sweet, sweet, is the time of dearth, 
 
 Tho' the autumn days are drear; 
 If only deep in the heart is heard 
 The gladsome song of the " singing-bird." 
 
A CHILD'S THOUGHT. 
 
 T'M wondering if the woodlands 
 
 Are full of the wild birds' song, 
 Where nobody comes to hear them, 
 
 Or listens, the whole day long; 
 Or if the far-away meadows. 
 
 Where no man has ever trod, 
 Are full of beautiful blossoms 
 
 Upspringing on all the sod? — 
 Do you think the birds and the blossoms 
 
 Just blossom and sing for God? 
 
 Perhaps sometimes, when the twilight 
 Of a softer glory falls 
 
A CHILDS THOUGHT. lOI 
 
 On the streets of the Golden City, 
 
 And over the shining walls, 
 God leaves some trustiest angel 
 
 In charge of the great white throne, 
 And comes through the gate of heaven, 
 
 To visit the earth, alone! 
 
 How they must watch for his coming, 
 
 The birds and the blossoms sweet ! 
 And listen in silence tender 
 
 For the coming of his feet ! 
 There are fairer birds and blossoms, 
 
 They say, in His land of rest ; 
 But maybe they are the angels' , 
 
 And the Lord loves tliese the best! 
 
 And oh, if I were a blossom 
 To gladden the summer long, 
 
102 A CHILD'S THOUGHT. 
 
 Or bird to weave with the sunshine 
 My silvery thread of song, 
 
 Away in the far-off woodlands 
 That no man has ever trod, 
 
 I'd be a bird or a blossom 
 
 That blossomed or sung for God! 
 
MEMORIES. 
 
 T TOW oft some chord of music, struck 
 
 By idle, unknown hand. 
 Has led the way-worn spirit back 
 
 To childhood's fairy land ! 
 How oft the breath of some wild flower, 
 
 Some untrained, common weed. 
 Has brought the memory of an hour 
 
 That made the stern heart bleed! 
 Or some sweet, long-forgotten name 
 
 Is idly said or sung, 
 And the buried years awake again 
 
 And find themselves a tongue. 
 
I04 
 
 MEMORIES. 
 
 So ever where in any land 
 
 Are hearts attuned to song, 
 Or blossom-scents of flower or name 
 
 By winds are borne along, 
 Tho' sacred script of scent or song 
 
 To faithless eyes be dim, 
 God makes them all his messengers 
 
 To lead us back to him. 
 
THE SILENCE OF THE HEART. 
 
 OOMETIMES I dream that in some minster 
 *^~^ storied 
 
 In olden rhyme, along whose sculptured walls, 
 Adown from painted windows rainbow-gloried, 
 The broken sunshine falls, 
 
 I sing a song in strains that never falter, 
 A tender, passionate song of Him who trod 
 Gethsemane for us, till off the altar 
 I lift a soul to God. 
 
 I have no voice to render back the giver : 
 The songs I sing in dreamland never come 
 
Io6 THE SILENCE OF THE HEART. 
 
 To waking hours ; forever and forever 
 My longing lips are dumb. 
 
 But He who gives the nightingale her dower 
 Of raptured, sorrowing songs, 
 And to the wild wind's harp the magic power 
 That to its chords belongs. 
 
 And to the sighing pine, the flowing river. 
 In his great chorus, part, 
 Draweth unto his worshiping forever, — 
 The silence of the heart. 
 
c 
 
 A SERMON FOR ALICE. 
 
 OME to "goodnight," little Alice, 
 One two and three 
 Kisses for father and mother. 
 
 One left for me ; 
 Dear little birds in the twilight 
 
 Fly to their nests. 
 Little wee buds in the garden 
 
 Fold them to rest. 
 Stars in the blue of the heaven 
 
 Come one by one, 
 Shut the blue eyes, baby Alice, 
 
 Daylight is done. 
 
I08 A SERMON FOR ALICE. 
 
 One of these days, little Alice, 
 
 No one knows when. 
 Or in the now, little Alice, 
 
 Or in the then, 
 Thou wilt hear God's angel calling 
 
 Out of the skies : 
 "Thy day is done, little Alice, 
 
 Shut the blue eyes." 
 Just as the birds in the twilight 
 
 Fly to their nests, 
 Just as the buds in the garden 
 
 Fold them to rest, 
 No cause for fear, baby Alice, 
 
 No need to weep, — 
 Men call it death, baby Alice, 
 
 God calls it sleep. 
 
 Mayhap that day, little Alice, 
 These eyes so blue 
 
A SERMON FOR ALICE. 1 09 
 
 Will have grown dim with the watching 
 
 Weary years through: 
 Mayhap that day, little Alice 
 
 This head so bright, 
 Lying here on my bosom. 
 
 Will have grown white ; 
 No matter how, little Alice, 
 
 No matter when. 
 Or in the now, little Alice, 
 
 Or in the then. 
 No cause for fear, little Alice, 
 
 No need to weep, — 
 Men call it death, little Alice, 
 
 We know 'tis sleep. 
 
 Once more "good-night," little Alice, 
 
 One two and three 
 Kisses for father and mother, 
 
 Now one for me; 
 
no A SERMON FOR ALICE. 
 
 Stars in the blue of the heavens 
 
 Close watch will keep, 
 While in her crib baby Alice 
 Lies fast asleep. 
 
THE "GONE ASTRAY." 
 
 'T^HEY who bow over a coffin-lid 
 
 "^ Under whose blackness their hopes are hid, 
 And they who turn from the new-made mound 
 Leaving their treasures all under ground, 
 Deem that they feel in their depth of woe 
 The greatest sorrow the heart can know ; 
 But the bitterest tears that are shed to-day 
 Are not for the dead, but the "gone astray." 
 
 Mother, whose babes, in their virgin white, 
 Lie softly cradled in earth to-night, — 
 Father, the hope of whose life lies low 
 In dreamless sleep 'neath the winter snow, — 
 
112 THE " GONE- ASTRAY. 
 
 Thank your God that the tears you shed 
 Are loving tears for the peaceful dead ! 
 Such tears are balm to the tears that they 
 Must shed who weep for the " gone-astray." 
 
 The dead make temples of land and sea ; 
 The empty cradle a shrine may be ; 
 Every threshold that death hath crossed 
 Hath holier grown for the loved and lost; 
 But empty forever the place that they 
 Have vacant left who are gone astray. 
 
THE DEATH OF CODRUS. 
 
 When the Dorian army was encamped before the walls of 
 Athens, the Athenians, on consulting the oracle of Delphos, were 
 told that the Dorians would be victorious, as long as Codrus, king 
 of Athens, remained unharmed. On hearing this, Codrus resolved 
 to sacrifice himself for the city, and going out of the gates suffered 
 himself to be slain." 
 
 TT THERE the river Cephissus sweeps 
 
 His gentle tide by her rocky steeps, 
 And tending southward, meets the flow 
 Of the stream Illissus winding low 
 O'er the Attic meadows broad and green. 
 Are the towers of ancient Athens seen ; 
 Within the castle the sunbeams fall 
 On bright spears hanging against the wall, 
 
114 THE DEATH OF CODRUS. 
 
 On gleaming helmet, on corselet bright, 
 Trophies they of the well-won fight ; 
 Without, they gleam on a garden fair, 
 On glittering fountains poised in air; 
 While, *neath the city, the distant sheen 
 Of Dorian camps on the plain is seen ; 
 But, guarded strongly by both bright streams, 
 Secure in the sunlight the city dreams. 
 
 In his turret-chamber the young king sits, 
 And a shade of care o'er his fair face flits, 
 As he turns with questioning lip and eye. 
 To the aged warrior standing by; 
 " O Sage, " he questions, " and thinkest thou, 
 That the Dorian army to ours will bow ? " 
 And the warrior answers : " The Delphi said,' 
 (And he lowly bows his crested head,) 
 
THE DEATH OF CODRUS. II5 
 
 " That the Dorian arms shall victorious be, 
 
 As long as no death-blow reacheth thee." 
 
 Over the hilltops the sun went down ; 
 
 Over the city the pale moon shone, 
 
 Lighting the gloom of the dusky night, 
 
 Breaking the shadows with silvery light. 
 
 Still sat the king in his hall of state, 
 
 And in his heart grew a purpose great: 
 
 He flung the robe from his kingly form, 
 
 A peasant's garment he girded on ; 
 
 And as he noted the fitful fall 
 
 Of moonlight on turret, tower and wall, 
 
 " O Athens ! dear city ! " he softly said, 
 
 " Who shall rule o'er thee when I am dead ? 
 
 O Goddess Athena ! " he prayed ; " may'st th(;u. 
 
 The city's guardian, keep well thy vow ! 
 
 Ever, I pray thee, may Athens be 
 
 At rest 'neath the boughs of thine ' olive tree ! ' " 
 
 Forth from the courtyard he softly stept. 
 
Il6 THE DEATH OF CODRUS. 
 
 And silently on in the shadow crept, 
 While the city, unconscious of evil, slept. 
 
 Slumber reigned in the Dorian camp ; 
 
 Came on the silence the ceaseless tramp 
 
 Of the wary sentinel pacing slow 
 
 His beat in the moonlight to and fro. 
 
 Was that a footstep? Nay — but the breeze; 
 
 He turns, and a shadowy form he sees : 
 
 A ghostly figure, looming high, 
 
 On the moonlit plain, 'gainst the moonlit sky. 
 
 " Halt ! " but the phantom does not pause : 
 
 The trembling Dorian his weapon draws ; 
 
 — A gleaming circle the bright sword made, 
 
 And the phantom foe on the plain is laid. 
 
 Over the figure the soldiers bend : 
 
 " Ho there ! Say, art thou foe or friend ? " 
 
 The silver moonbeams their pale light fling 
 
 On the stony features of Athens' king ! 
 
THE DEATH OF CODRUS. II 7 
 
 Morning came ; and the sun's first beam 
 
 Gilded tower and mead and stream ; 
 
 But not as yesterday falls the light 
 
 On the tents of the Dorians gleaming white ; 
 
 Stiri both streams through the meadows stray, 
 
 But the Dorian army is far away. 
 
 O King of Athens ! O Codrus wise ! 
 
 Great was thy courage, thy sacrifice ! 
 
 Well may Athens revere the deed ; 
 
 Well for thee may their stern hearts bleed ! 
 
 Dearer thy city than life to thee ! 
 
 O thou who died that she might be free ! 
 
A SONG OF THE SUMMER. 
 
 A ROBIN built in the apple-tree, 
 ■^ "^ (Sing high, sing low,) 
 A robin built in tlie apple-tree 
 A dainty nest for her blue eggs three, 
 
 And the spring was all aglow 
 With the apple-blossoms drifting down 
 
 In a shower of tinted snow. 
 
 The robin sang in the apple-tree, 
 
 (Sing high, sing low,) 
 The robin sang in the apple-tree 
 A mother-song to her birdlings three, 
 
A SONG OF THE SUMMER. II9 
 
 And the summer was all aglow 
 With the golden buttercup-glory, spread 
 In the waving grass below. 
 
 A ruthless hand from the apple-tree, 
 
 (Sing high, sing low,) 
 A ruthless hand from the apple-tree 
 Tore nest and mother and birdlings three, 
 
 And only the Lord did know 
 Where the blood of the robin, gory-red, 
 
 Fell over the grass below. 
 
 The leaves are gone from the apple-tree, 
 
 (Sing high, sing low,) 
 The leaves are gone from the apple-tree, 
 And nest and mother and birdlings three 
 Are forgotten long ago ; 
 
A SONG OF THE SUMMER. 
 
 And out of the leaden clouds o'erhead 
 Falls softly the drifting snow. 
 
 But the angel who keeps the "book of years," 
 On the page of the summer long, 
 
 In letters of fire all dim with tears, 
 Wrote over against this wrong: 
 
 "Lost — from the beauty the dear Lord wears — 
 Stolen — a summer-song!" 
 
DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST. 
 
 T SAW the Old Year standing in the field ; 
 
 "^ 'Twas long past harvest time ; 
 
 Naught did the ground but frozen stubble yield, 
 
 White with December's rime ; 
 And by his side, his brow with sorrow white, 
 Stood Father Time to bid the year good-night. 
 
 The Old Year held against his aged breast 
 
 A boy with sleeping face ; 
 His slumbering form in warrior-trappings dress'd, 
 
 With helmet, sword and mace ; 
 The old man laid his burden in the snow, 
 And turned to waiting Time a face of woe. 
 
122 DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST. 
 
 " I come, O Sire ! into the fields to-night," 
 
 In trembling tones he said, 
 "To have once more my treasures all in sight, 
 
 My living and my dead ; 
 My dead are here, I brought them long ago; 
 
 See, all around they lie ! 
 Could I but lay my last-born in the snow, 
 
 I were content to die. 
 
 *' Bright Spring, my eldest born, my fairest one, 
 
 There is her grave, just where 
 Yon maple's boughs have caught the sinking sun- 
 
 Wild, withered boughs and bare ! 
 Yet were they clothed in wealth of living green, 
 
 When first I laid her down; 
 I planted flowers her head and feet between, 
 
 I wove for her a crown 
 Of starry violets ; arbutus sweet — 
 
 The flower she loved to wear. 
 
DECEMHER THIRTY-FIRST. 1 23 
 
 I planted at her head and at her feet ; 
 See, sire, the ground is bare ! 
 
 " And by her side, see, where the night-wind lifts 
 
 The tangled grass that creeps 
 Its trailing length above the* scanty rifts 
 
 Of snow — there Summer sleeps! 
 Sweet Summer ! she was fairer than the rest, 
 
 — If one could be more fair 
 Than tender Spring — in richer beauty dressed, 
 
 Darker of eyes and hair, — 
 And, sire, I loved her ; she it was whose birth 
 
 Awakened in my breast 
 The hopes I thought forever fled from earth 
 "When Spring I laid to rest. 
 
 " My Autumn " — but the old man's voice grew 
 low — 
 " I cannot speak," he said ; 
 
124 DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST. 
 
 " I am weighed down with burden of my woe, 
 
 So late hath she been dead ! 
 Her grave is there — I cannot see the place, 
 
 My eyes with tears are dim ; — 
 ril take the mantle from my boy's sweet face. 
 
 That you may look on him. 
 
 "He is the last — would I might lay him here, 
 
 My brave, my only son ! 
 If his fair brow an icy crown might wear. 
 
 His work, like mine, be done, 
 I'd joy to lay him as I here laid down 
 
 His sisters long ago ; 
 But see — his flowing locks with youth are brown. 
 
 And mine are white as snow ! " 
 
 He held the sleeping boy against his breast. 
 Like rain the tears he shed 
 
DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST. I 25 
 
 Upon the brow in its unconscious rest ; 
 
 Then bending low his head, 
 And raining tender kisses on the face, 
 
 Within the arms of Time 
 He laid the boy — and turned him from the place 
 
 In all the snow and rime ; 
 And Time took up his burden with a sigh. 
 
 And went his weary way ; 
 The old year laid him down beside his dead, 
 
 And died ere dawn of day. 
 
A CHILD'S QUESTIONS. 
 
 ' I ^HEY vanish out of my sight," she said, 
 
 -^ " The Httle friends that I love so well ; 
 And wheji I ask you, you say ' they're dead,' 
 But where they go to I cannot tell. 
 
 " What is dead ? Can you tell me, sir ? 
 Is it lying so still that you cannot stir ? 
 Is it having your two hands folded down 
 White and still on a long white gown ? 
 Baby's hands were all still and cold 
 As he lay asleep on his little bed, 
 
A child's questions. 127 
 
 And he had roses and buds to hold — 
 Is that 'dead'? . 
 
 " 'Tis only yesterday Robbie died, 
 
 But little Nellie went long ago : 
 I've seen her grave on the green hill-side, 
 
 But she isn't i7i it — you see I know, 
 For I have been there many a day, 
 
 And laid my head on the grassy mound, 
 And, parting the flowers and vines away, 
 
 I've listened and listened to hear a sound. 
 I have called, ' Little Nellie, are you down there ? 
 I'm your little lady bird ! Can't you see ? ' 
 
 There came no answer from anywhere — 
 And I know little Nellie would answer me! 
 
 "Oh, what is 'dead'? Does any one know? 
 Will somebody tell me when I grow 
 
128 A child's questions. 
 
 As old as you ? Shall I know some day, 
 Where they go to, who go away ? 
 Do the flowers know ? Can the bright stars tell ? 
 Do the birds and the butterflies know it well ? " 
 
 I clasped the child in a close embrace, 
 
 And told the story I had to tell, 
 With my hot tears wetting her upturned face : 
 
 "My darling baby, both Rob and Nell 
 Are safe forever, for hand in hand 
 They walk in the streets of the heavenly land ; 
 They live in a beautiful home up there. 
 With birds and blossoms more bright and fair 
 Than any we dream of. They never weep 
 For pain or sorrow, for God doth keep. 
 
 "And some day, when you and I, my dear, 
 Have both grown tired of living here. 
 
A GUILDS QUESTIONS. 129 
 
 God will call us to come and dwell 
 
 Forever and ever with Rob and Nell." 
 
 My baby lifted her glad blue eyes 
 
 To my tear-wet face, in a quaint surprise, 
 
 And the red lips questioned : " If in God's sky 
 
 They are safe and happy, why do you cry ? " 
 
SONGS OF CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 
 
 T HEARD two songs of the Christmas time, 
 
 In a winter of long ago, 
 And one was sung to a merry rhyme. 
 
 And the other was sad and slow ; 
 Light was one as a Christmas chime, 
 
 And heavy was one with woe. 
 
 I heard a mother whose heart was light, 
 
 As she laid her babe to rest, 
 Sing sweet a rhyme of the Christmas time 
 
 O'er her baby's cradle nest ; 
 
SONGS OF CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 131 
 
 And this is the song she sung : " Oh, fair 
 
 And bright the' the morn will be, 
 Naught can compare with the gifts most rare, 
 
 The morrow will bring to thee; 
 There are treasures bright as the jewelled light 
 
 That glows in the sunset red; 
 And treasures fair as the jewels rare 
 
 That lie in the ocean's bed ; " 
 And over and over she sang : " Oh, fair 
 
 And bright tho' the morn may be, 
 Naught can compare with the gifts so rare, 
 
 That the morrow will bring to thee." 
 
 And I heard a mother whose heart was wrung 
 With grief than the sea more deep. 
 
 Sing low a rhyme of the Christmas time 
 As she laid her babe to sleep ; 
 
132 SONGS OF CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 
 
 And this is the song she sung: "Oh, fair 
 
 And bright tho' the morn may be, 
 And the church-bells chime with a merry rhyme, 
 
 I've never a gift for thee. 
 I would give my heart's blood, drop by drop, 
 
 If only a gift were thine — 
 But the wheels of poverty never stop 
 
 For the merry Christmas time." 
 And ever thro' tears, she sang : " Oh, fair 
 
 And bright tho' the morn may be. 
 And the church-bells chime to a merry rhyme, 
 There is never a gift for thee." 
 
 And I saw the angel, who deeds of men 
 
 Records at the close of day. 
 Write down both songs with his golden pen 
 
 As he flew on his homeward way ; 
 And he gathered the happy mother's smiles, 
 
SONGS OF CHRISTMAS-TIDE. 133 
 
 And the sorrowing mother's tears, 
 And laid them both (in a golden cup) 
 Wherever the prayers of saints go up 
 
 To.. God thro' the endless years; 
 And he said, as he hastened thro' the night. 
 
 With a smile where a frown had been, 
 '"Tis the mother-love (in the dear Lord's sight) 
 
 That makes all the world akin — 
 'Tis . mother-love in its wondrous might 
 
 That makes the whole world akin." 
 
FAME. 
 
 " Lives of great men all remind us, 
 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time." 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
 " The lives of great men all remind us thivt they have made their 
 own memories sublime ; but they do not assure us that we can leave 
 footprints like theirs behind us. If you do not believe it, go to the 
 cemetery yonder. He lived — he died — he was buried, is all 
 that the headstone tells us." — Holland. 
 
 ^^ILENT they lie, "ten thousand upturned faces," 
 ^^^ " Ten thousand bosoms " in a dreamless sleep ; 
 And other forms shall fill their vacant places. 
 While they throughout the years their slumber keep. 
 
FAME. 135 
 
 There was a time when, in those breasts undaunted, 
 The fire of ambition burned ; and dreams 
 
 Of fame and power those hollow skulls once haunted, 
 Where now from sightless eyes no life's fire 
 gleams. 
 
 " Those bones that once were feet " beat to the 
 measure 
 Of sixty,, yea, of seventy years of life; 
 Yet where the prints they left? their grief and 
 pleasure 
 Are buried with the record of the strife. 
 
 " We move among the monuments ; " mid creepers 
 Of shadowing ivy are the sculptures hid ; 
 
 And no voice comes to us to say the sleepers 
 Are now remembered for the deeds they did. 
 
136 FAME. 
 
 The fleeting years pass by in measured numbers ; 
 
 The churchyard sod grows green, the tombstone 
 gray ; 
 And this the record is of him that slumbers : 
 
 " He lived awhile on earth — he passed away," 
 
OLD SCHOOL-BOOKS. 
 
 1)UT a heap of school-books, 
 -*— ' Old and torn; 
 Only yellow pages, 
 
 Faded, worn. 
 Yet unto my sad heart 
 
 Dear are they ; 
 Tender memories bringing, 
 
 Sad and gay ; 
 Thoughts of days now vanished 
 
 Far away. 
 But a heap of school-books — 
 
 That is all: 
 
138 OLD SCHOOL-BOOKS. 
 
 Yet while gazing on them, 
 
 Bright tears fall, 
 And the past comes o'er me, 
 
 Like a dream 
 Filled with shadowy faces, 
 
 Till there seem 
 Bright forms bending o'er them, 
 
 Cheeks of snow. 
 Forms and faces vanished 
 
 Long ago. 
 Ah, these shadowy faces ! 
 
 Where are they? 
 O'er the yellow pages 
 
 Sunbeams play. 
 Though they bring no answer 
 
 From their glow, 
 Yet my heart gives answer 
 
 Faint and low : 
 
OLD SCHOOL-BOOKS. 139 
 
 " Gone like gleams of sunshine « 
 
 Long ago ! " 
 But a heap of school-books, 
 
 Faded, worn ; 
 Only yellow pages, 
 
 Soiled and torn ; 
 But the busy fingers 
 
 Them have pressed. 
 With unspoken blessing, 
 
 On them rest. 
 While I gaze upon them, 
 
 Teardrops fall — 
 But a heap of school-books, 
 
 That is all! 
 
THE MUSIC OF THE WIRES. 
 
 T T TITH the " music of the masters' " 
 
 ^ * Has the world for ages rung ; 
 Of the Timbrel, Harp and Organ, 
 
 Poets oft have rhymed and sung, 
 — Of music universal — 
 
 But did ever poet sing 
 Of the " music of the wires," 
 
 When the messages they bring? 
 
 Oh the moaning of the wires 
 
 When the south or east wind blows ! 
 
 Oh the dreamy, weird-like music 
 That o'er them comes and goes ! 
 
THE MUSIC OF THE WIRES. 141 
 
 Now soft, now swelling louder, 
 
 Till a full, wild choir there seems ! 
 
 Then dying — fainter, fainter, 
 
 As the voices fade from dreams ! 
 
 Do they know — the sounding wires — 
 In some strange, mysterious way, 
 
 The purport of the tidings 
 They carry day by day ? 
 
 Do they gladness know, or sorrow ? 
 
 Feel they happiness or pain ? 
 Else why that burst of triumph? 
 
 Or why that sobbing strain? 
 
 Oh spirits of the south-wind ! 
 
 Give answer ! Do ye know 
 The words the wires utter 
 
 When over them ye blow? 
 
142 THE MUSIC OF THE WIRES. 
 
 Do ye, too, hear the tidings ? 
 
 Know ye what it can be, 
 That makes them sob so wildly 
 
 In that sighing, minor key ? 
 
 Alas ! they give no answer ! 
 
 Perchance, though all they know, 
 They have sworn to keep the secret 
 
 Till they have ceased to blow ! 
 
 Perhaps they do make answer, 
 But the message no one hears ! 
 
 For the tongue in which they tell it 
 Is unknown to mortal ears! 
 
^ 
 
 THE RIVER. 
 
 T DO not fear," she said, 
 
 " To die ; and yet I dread 
 The darkness and the coldness of the river 
 
 I long for that bright land, 
 I long to join the white-robed angel band 
 Around the throne, — 
 But I can never 
 Into the river 
 Go down alone ! 
 
 "I often dream that death 
 Is nigh. I hold my breath 
 
144 THE RIVER. 
 
 As I approach the river's icy sweeping ; 
 
 But when I reach its brink, 
 And feel its chilling damps, my footsteps shrink. 
 I hear your weeping, — 
 You sob and moan. 
 Oh I can never 
 Into the river 
 Go down alone ! " 
 
 Within my hands I took 
 Her well-worn holy Book, 
 And read, "Though walk I through the vale of 
 shadow, 
 I will not fearful be, 
 " For then thy rod, thy staff, shall comfort me 1 " 
 I paused — she slept ; 
 Yet in her dreaming 
 The shadow crept. 
 
THE RIVER. 145 
 
 I heard her moan : 
 
 "The river, 
 
 The icy river — 
 To go alone ! " 
 
 I watched her dreaming face; 
 And while I gazed, in place 
 Of doubt and fear, there came a smile of gladness ; 
 
 Then suddenly she woke, 
 And in a voice of trembling joy she spoke : 
 " The clouds are flown ! 
 Gone all the sadness ! 
 Into the river 
 My soul need never 
 Go down alone ! 
 
 " I dreamt — as oft I dream — 
 That I had reached the stream, 
 
146 THE RIVER. 
 
 And far beyond I saw the city glowing; 
 
 And lo ! a pathway wide 
 Stretched through the waves unto the other side, 
 A clear way showing ! 
 
 " And lo ! an angel stood 
 Just where the swelling flood 
 Of that cold stream my chilling feet was laving ! 
 
 In tender voice he said : 
 * Trust me, O trembling one ! be not afraid ! ' 
 And through my dreaming 
 A radiance shone ! — 
 ' Into the river 
 I'll let thee never 
 Go down alone ! ' " 
 
 So, many days went by; 
 
 But when her soul drew nigh, 
 
THE RIVER. 147 
 
 So nigh to death, we ahiiost heard the river, 
 
 And felt its icy chill, 
 To all our doubt, our fears, she answered still : 
 " How can I doubting be ! 
 When, to the river, 
 Into the icy river, 
 My Lord goes down with me ! " 
 
THE AULD MAN TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 /^■"^OME closer to my side, good wife — 
 
 The wedding revels all are done, 
 And we have given our household pet 
 
 Unto her choice — and they are gone ; 
 We sit and listen here in vain 
 
 For her sweet voice, her soft footfall : 
 We two old people must again 
 
 Be to each other all in all. 
 
 What is there in this firelight glow 
 That brings the dreams of other years 
 
 Into our hearts, that makes us now 
 
 Smile for those smiles — weep for those tears? 
 
THE AULD MAN TO HIS WIFE. 1 49 
 
 For here, in this dim firelight 
 
 I've dreamed our early love to-night. 
 
 When first, dear one — 'twas long ago 
 
 If we should count the time by years, 
 — Thy locks are sprinkled thick with snow. 
 My head a crown of silver wears — 
 
 When first I dreamt that thou mightst be 
 Dearer than all the world to me. 
 
 We stood — I see the very spot, 
 
 In memory's pages, growing dim, 
 I've marked it with forget-me-not, 
 The little wicket, quaint and trim, 
 By which we stood in the half-light 
 Of twilight stars, to say good-night. 
 
 Round us the fields were bleak and brown, 
 And o'er the tree-tops, chill and drear. 
 
150 THE AULD MAN TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 The cold night mists were drifting down, 
 — 'Twas in the autumn of the year. — 
 All this we saw, yet did not see — 
 Our world held only you and me. 
 
 And then we said "good-night," yet still 
 My hands were clasping both of thine, 
 And then we sought each other's eyes 
 — Yours fell beneath the gaze of mine — 
 
 And then, my arm round thee was thrown ; 
 My lips pressed kisses on thine own. 
 
 Ah well ! the years have taken wings 
 Since first I stole thine heart away, 
 And life has brought us what life brings 
 To mortals always — work and play. 
 Sorrow and laughter; still to meet 
 Them all with thee hath made life sweet! 
 
THE AULD MAN TO HIS WIFE. 151 
 
 And when beyond the sunset hills 
 
 We go together, you and I, 
 And with its sorrows and its ills 
 
 The life of earth hath passed us by, 
 'Twill make the joy of heaven to me 
 To live the life of heaven with thee ! 
 
NEVER AGAIN. 
 
 T ET us visit the dear old home again ; " 
 ■^^^ (For thus did my letter read,) 
 " For, in the words of the quaint old song, 
 ' 'Tis the beautiful land for which I long ; 
 The haven of rest I need ! ' 
 
 " For I have grown weary of all the world, 
 
 Its struggles, its hopes, its fears ; 
 What life has brought me of wealth and power, 
 I would give it all for one little hour 
 Away in those by-gone years ! " 
 
NEVER AGAIN. I53 
 
 "But brother," I answered, "remember thou. 
 The years that have flown since then ! 
 
 We httle children together there. 
 
 Have since known sorrow and change and care — 
 We are women now and men." 
 
 "I know," he answered; "yet could I see 
 
 Each spot that my young feet trod. 
 Perhaps the comfort I need 'twould be. 
 Perchance the years would give back to me 
 My trusting in man and God ! " 
 
 Together we went to the dear old place, 
 
 And beneath the old roof-tree. 
 We tried to dream in the old-time way, 
 Of the future — dreams so bright and gay — 
 To bring back the childish glee ! 
 
54 NEVER AGAIN. 
 
 Together we clambered among the hills 
 
 To watch for the sunset glow ; 
 And we tried to make the old rocks ring 
 With the gladsome songs we used to sing 
 But the words were faint and low ! 
 
 Together we followed the woodland path, 
 
 Where the old spring bubbled up, 
 Together we wandered hand in hand 
 By the meadow brook — thro' the pasture land, 
 For daisy and buttercup. 
 
 And did we bring to our hearts again 
 
 The joys that we used to know.? 
 Did the sunset glows, the laughing spring, 
 The buttercups and the daisies, bring 
 The dreams of the long-ago ? 
 
NEVER AC;AIN. 
 
 55 
 
 Will the dead leaves under the winter snow 
 
 Awake at the summer's call ? 
 Can the tall oak fall to the ground, and grow 
 
 Again as an acorn small ? 
 Can the stream that has well-nigh reached the sea 
 
 Return to the shady nook 
 Where its music first began, and be 
 
 Again but a mountain brook? 
 
 So, never again, though our souls may go 
 
 As gleaners o'er memory's track. 
 And glean from the past its fairest flowers — 
 Oh, never again from the vanished hours 
 Will the childhood days come back ! 
 
NIGHTFALL. 
 
 ^ I ^HE clay is clone ; 
 
 ■*- Into the distant blue 
 Come, one by one, 
 The white stars, looking thro'! 
 
 The night-wind sweeps 
 With rustling, silken sound 
 
 The grass, and creeps 
 Into the trees around. 
 
 Thro' the tall grass, 
 The fireflies to and fro 
 
NIGHTFALL. 157 
 
 Pass and repass 
 
 With strange, uncertain glow. 
 
 How near the stars 
 
 Unto each other seem, . 
 As thro' their bars, 
 
 They gaze with twinkling gleam ! 
 
 And yet what sweep 
 
 Of distance wide and vast, 
 
 Apart to keep 
 
 Between them hath been cast ! 
 
 Like human hearts 
 
 By fate together thrown! 
 
 Near — yet apart! 
 
 Together — yet alone ! 
 
58 NIGHTFALL. 
 
 Hark ! How the wind 
 
 Goes, restless, up and down. 
 As tho' to find 
 
 Something he erst hath known ! 
 
 Now rushing by 
 
 With quick, impatient sweep, 
 Now with low sigh, 
 
 As one who sobs in sleep ! 
 
 Are the stars spheres 
 
 That own some strong control 
 Throughout the years ? 
 
 And hath the wind a soul? 
 
THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. 
 
 \ TRICKLING stream the mountain rocks 
 among, 
 
 Flowed merrily along its rugged way, 
 And in a voice of rippling music sung 
 
 A cheerful song through all the summer day; 
 The gray old rocks, as o'er its tide they bent, 
 From its low words learn'd lessons of content. 
 
 At length, as days went by, grown strong and 
 wide, 
 With cheerful heart it took its way along 
 
l6o THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. 
 
 The meadow lands, and softly strove to chide 
 
 The meadow grass for sighing, with its song. 
 Each meadow flower bent down its thirsty cup. 
 And from its flow took drops of courage up. 
 
 At length it reached the barren pasture lands, 
 Where, 'mid the withered grass that formed his 
 throne. 
 
 An old tree stood, and frowned on every hand, 
 In mute complaint that he was all alone. 
 
 The pitying stream o'er him pure teardrops shed, 
 
 And with sweet words the old tree comforted. 
 
 Then, weary with its work, longing for rest. 
 
 It crept with faltering feet along the lea. 
 
 And, as an infant seeks a mother's breast. 
 
THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. l6l 
 
 Crept down into the bosom of the sea; 
 The loving sea embraced the weary one, 
 
 And murmured low : " O mountain stream, well 
 done ! " 
 
A 
 
 LIFE'S MORROWS. 
 
 CHILDISH head with locks of curling hair, 
 Pure, wondering eyes, a forehead broad and 
 fair; 
 
 A little dimpled finger, tracing down 
 
 Its lettered page, a volume old and worn, 
 
 One mystic word, on which the sunlight fell, 
 The finger strove to trace, the lips to spell. 
 The word, "to-morrow." 
 
 A fair youth climbing high a mountain side. 
 With only glowing, hopeful dreams to guide — 
 
life's morrows. 163 
 
 Fair glowing dreams of battles fought and won — 
 An eager face turned upward to the sun ; 
 
 A heart filled high with the rich wine of life ; 
 A soul that longs to mingle in the strife 
 Upon the morrow. 
 
 A wayworn man, above whose brow the cares 
 And toils of life are writ in silver hairs ; 
 
 A heart that aches with longing for the truth 
 And trust left far behind him in his youth ; 
 
 A soul unsatisfied with its to-day, 
 And ever dreaming of a far-away, 
 
 A blest to-morrow. 
 
 A darkened room — a silence, breathless, deep. 
 And awful, as the very air were sleep : 
 
164 life's morrows. 
 
 A coffined form — cold brow, white, chiselled lips, 
 Pale, fragrant flowers in waxen finger-tips ; 
 
 Soft footsteps — silent greetings in the gloom — 
 A solemn prayer — a eulogy — a tomb, 
 Upon the morrow ! 
 
A VOICE OF SPRING. 
 
 T T THEN in early spring the branches 
 
 Don their livery of green; 
 When amid the springing grasses 
 
 Early violets are seen ; 
 When each bird and bough and blossom 
 
 Brimming over are with glee — 
 Voices of the early springtime, 
 
 Hours of sadness bring to me; 
 And I dream of other springtimes, 
 
 And a day of long ago, 
 When beneath the open window 
 
 Little feet went to and fro. 
 
1 66 A VOICE OF SPRING. 
 
 When amid the dreamy silence 
 
 Came a step upon the stair, 
 Came a sudden gleam of brightness 
 
 From a baby's tangled hair ; 
 Then a sudden shower of blossoms, 
 
 And a laughing voice said low : 
 "Violets are blosomed, sister, 
 
 And I knew you loved 'em so ! " 
 
 Spring has come again — the meadows 
 
 Dotted are with violets blue, 
 But a little voice is silent, 
 
 And a little heart so true, 
 Underneath the early blossoms, 
 
 Slumbers all the springtime through. 
 Thus when bird and bough and blossom 
 
 Brimming over seem with glee, 
 Voices of the waking summer. 
 
 Hours of sorrow bring to me ; 
 
A VOICE OF SPRING. 167 
 
 For each waking bird and blossom, 
 
 As I listen, whispers low; 
 "Violets are blossomed, sister, 
 
 And I knew you loved 'em so ! " 
 
REGRET. 
 
 TF only for one little hour 
 
 They could come back, our dear, dear dead, 
 And give our longing lips the power 
 To whisper words we never said, 
 Dear words we never said — 
 
 How many, many lips to-night 
 
 Would glow with speech of living flame, 
 And loving faces would be bright 
 
 With speaking of a vanished name, 
 A tender household name ! 
 
REGRET. 169 
 
 If only underneath the rift 
 
 Of churchyard mould, of grass and flowers, 
 The dead could hear us when we lift 
 
 Our cries of anguish for the hours. 
 The well-remembered hours, 
 
 When some cold look or word or tone 
 Wounded the heart we held so dear. 
 
 So tenfold dearer than our own ! 
 If only the dear dead could hear ! 
 Could only, only hear ! 
 
 Dear God ! that any wish so vain 
 
 Should earn such mocking ! Tho' we stand 
 With streaming eye and pleading hand 
 
 And hearts that break with woeful pain. 
 Our dead can never come again, 
 Can never come asrain ! 
 
lyo REGRET. 
 
 Oh thou, within whose wonderlands 
 
 Our dead are garnered ! Do thou teach 
 
 More tender cunning to our hands ! 
 Unto our lips more loving speech ! 
 
 That we keep not the thoughtful care 
 And all love's ministry, to fold 
 — A garment for the dead to wear — 
 Above a heart that's cold! 
 
AIR-CASTLES. 
 
 "\ /T^ Castles in Spain are wondrous fair : 
 I build their turrets of cloud and air, 
 I hang their walls with the jasper light 
 The pale moon sheds when she greets the nigh. 
 And their foundations are gray twilight ! 
 
 Within my castles I keep unfurled 
 
 The banners lost in the lower world ; 
 
 The hopes, that withered in blooming there, 
 
 Fill with their fragrance my castle fair ; 
 
 And dreams, too bright for the earth to see. 
 
 Do bud and blossom and fruit for me ! 
 
172 AIR CASTLES. 
 
 So, when at evening the wearied sun 
 Sinks in the west, and the day is done, 
 I lay the cares of the day aside, 
 All doubt and sorrow I scatter wide. 
 And on the wings of a dream I flee 
 To airy castles that wait for me! 
 
A DREAM. 
 
 T had a dream one night, a strange, sad dream, 
 ■*• So sad, so strange, that, all against my will, 
 It haunts me with its echoing sorrow still. 
 
 I thought an angel stood beside my bed, 
 
 It seemed an angel — there were wings of white, 
 
 And flowing garments — all in shimmering light; 
 
 There was a glory on the temples, shed 
 As frorn a crown, a glory like the day ; 
 But on the face a dusky shadow lay; 
 
174 A DREAM. 
 
 There was no movement of the shadowy lips, 
 No smallest sound upon the stillness brake ; 
 And yet my soul heard every word she spake. 
 
 Like as the winged light thro' ether slips, 
 There came this voiceless voice : " Oh, very fair 
 Is Paradise, and many saints are there; 
 
 "There is no word, that mortal man hath tried, 
 To tell the glory of that land of light — 
 There is no mortal eye could bear the sight — 
 
 " But tho' I have been happy since I died, 
 I feel sometimes my empty heart so cold, 
 Because I have no little child to hold ; 
 
 My little one — they took him from my side 
 When I lay dead — I watch the pearly gate — 
 My mother-heart is empty while I wait !" — 
 
A DREAM. 
 
 175 
 
 The angel's head was bowed — the light grew dim — 
 The whole dream faded — and there drifted deep 
 And deeper o'er my soul the tide of sleep. 
 
 I know, I know that in the land above 
 There is no sorrow ; that our God doth make 
 His heaven such perfect joy that naught can break, 
 That all is light and love ; 
 
 And yet that sad, sad dream against my will 
 Doth haunt me with its echoing sorrow still ! 
 
IF I AM YOUNG. 
 
 TF I am young when I die, 
 
 And my life is just begun, 
 Bury me where I shall lie 
 
 Out in the breeze and the sun; 
 Not where the graves are old, 
 
 Covered with mosses gray, 
 But where young hands are afold, 
 
 And young faces laid away ! 
 Bury me where the feet 
 
 Of children pass and repass, 
 Thro' summer and winter fleet, 
 
 In the snow or the grass ; 
 
IF I AM YOUNG. 177 
 
 If I am young, you know, 
 
 I shall not sleep so sound 
 As the old that are lying low, 
 
 Low and still in the ground. 
 I shall know in my sleep 
 
 When earth by the spring is stirred; 
 Shall hear in the stillness deep 
 
 The waking of flower and bird. 
 So if I'm young when I die, 
 
 And my life is just begun. 
 Bury me where I shall lie 
 
 In the breeze and the sun ! 
 
 IF I AM OLD. 
 
 If I am old when I die, 
 Weary, and worn, and gray, 
 
178 IF I AM YOUNG. 
 
 Bury me M'here I shall lie 
 
 Far from the world away ; 
 Where to disturb my sleep, 
 
 Ne'er shall a foot be press'd : 
 Mine must be slumber deep, 
 
 I shall so long to rest ! 
 Never bring gift of flowers. 
 
 Never come there to weep, 
 Nothing to mark the hours — 
 
 Mine must be dreamless sleep ! 
 Let the long summer grass 
 
 Cover me as it will; 
 Year after year will pass, 
 
 I shall be sleeping still. 
 So if I'm old when I die. 
 
 Weary, and worn, and gray, 
 Bury me where I shall lie 
 
 Far from the world away ! 
 
TO A FLOWER-PAINTER. 
 
 TF I had all an artist's wondrous cunning, 
 
 The magic of the painter's glowing art — 
 All the wild flowers of limpid brooklets running, 
 
 All blossoms of the field and wood a part — 
 The buttercup with disc of sunny yellow. 
 
 The blossom of the wind-flower frail and fair. 
 The honeyed clover that the brown bees fellow. 
 
 The columbine that sways the summer air — 
 I'd paint them all on tablet, panel, portal, 
 And render them immortal. 
 
 I'd whisper to the lily standing stately 
 In fair unconscious grace. 
 
l8o TO A FLOWER-PAINTER. 
 
 Or to the sweet wild rose a-blushing greatly : 
 " Bend down, O queen, bend down a little space, 
 That I may read the beauty of thy face ! " 
 
 And I would wander far in forest reaches, 
 
 Where wild-wood vines entangle woodland ways, 
 
 To find the pulpit whence the brown jack preaches 
 His silent sermons thro' the summer days. 
 
 And I would seek the crimson cup-moss, growing 
 
 In shadow'd nooks, and by the brooklet's brink 
 The fronded fern, the scarlet lily glowing 
 
 In sunny places, and the wild clove-pink ; 
 And I would gather sprays of woodbine climbing. 
 And bearded grasses from the fields and fells, 
 Lisn'ning the while, if I might catch the chiming 
 Of wild bluebells. 
 
 From sunlit heights, from billowy seas of meadow, 
 From ferny hollows and from grassy braes, 
 
TO A FLOWER-PAINTER. l8l 
 
 The blossoms of the sunshine and the shadow, 
 
 With all the grace of nature's wild, sweet ways, 
 I'd glean and paint on tablet, panel, portal, 
 To render them immortal. 
 
 And they who never see the summer's glory. 
 The treasures of the woodland and the stream, 
 
 Should learn from me to read the wondrous story, 
 Sweeter by far than poet's sweetest dream, - 
 
 (And reading, cease to count the weary hours,) 
 God's gift of flowers ! 
 
LITTLE MISCHIEF. 
 
 TTAVE you seen our little mischief? 
 "*• ■*- She was playing by the hedge 
 When the stars began to twinkle, 
 
 Just upon the evening's edge ; 
 She was carrying her kitten 
 
 In an apron far from white, 
 She was rocking it to 'by-low,' 
 
 In the dappled, gray twilight: 
 And now we cannot find her, 
 
 Tho' we search the lawn, and shout, 
 And the summer grass is dewy. 
 
 And the summer moon is out. 
 
LITTLE MISCHIEF. 183 
 
 " Have you seen her, gray grasshopper ? 
 
 Have you seen our Maidie fair, 
 With her eyes Uke starry blossoms, 
 
 And her breeze-entangled hair? 
 Have you seen her, fairy firefly ? 
 
 Did she chase your flitting light 
 Down the hillside and the meadow 
 
 Where you went to greet the night? 
 
 "Have you seen her, snowy lily. 
 
 From your shelter by the gate ? 
 Were you near enough to whisper 
 
 That the night was getting late ? " 
 But the lily does not answer, 
 
 Only stands so still and fair ; 
 And the grasshopper's shrill music 
 
 Pulses on the dreaming air. 
 
154 
 
 LITTLE MISCHIEF. 
 
 Here she is ! you little mischief ! 
 
 In a rosy, tumbled heap 
 They are lying, she and pussy, 
 
 In the fragrant hay asleep ! 
 But she only answers, waking. 
 
 When I count the fears she's cost 
 " Is you glad we's finded, mamma ? 
 
 But you see we wasn't lost ! " 
 
WHY? 
 
 TT THAT did the baby come for? 
 
 That was the question trite 
 The neighbors asked each other 
 
 That stormy winter's night; 
 What was the need of children ? 
 
 'Twas hard enough before 
 To keep care out of the window, 
 
 The gray wolf from the door. 
 
 Out on the wintry barren, 
 Over the sleeping town. 
 
l86 WHY? 
 
 Out of the cold, dark heaven, 
 Drifted the snowflakes down. 
 
 Within the low old cottage 
 Flickered the candle's flame 
 
 In the dusk of the early dawning 
 But never an answer came. 
 
 What did the baby come for ? — 
 
 A woman's heart could tell : 
 At touch of the tiny fingers, 
 
 Like to a fairy spell, 
 A heart that was hard with doubting, 
 
 A soul that was barred with sin,' 
 Opened — a tide from God's ocean, 
 
 The mother-love, swept in ! 
 
 What did the baby come for? 
 A strong man's heart had grown, 
 
WHY ? 187 
 
 Thro' poverty's constant grinding, 
 
 As hard as the nether stone. 
 Only a baby's prattle, 
 
 And yet, oh wonderful song 
 That made a man's heart grow lighter — 
 
 Made a man's hands grow strong ! 
 
 Was ever a spring or a summer 
 
 That vanished on wings so fleet? 
 Ah ! 'twas a joy to labor 
 
 When living had grown so sweet ! 
 Care never came to the window, 
 
 And poverty, gaunt and grim. 
 Never stepped over the threshold — 
 
 There was no place for him. 
 
 "Only a bit of childhood thrown away." — Beaumont. 
 What did the baby go for 1 
 
WHY? 
 
 Softly the summer night 
 Fell like a benediction 
 
 On the baby shrouded white. 
 Only two golden summers ! 
 
 " 'Twas not a life," we say, 
 "Only a bit of childhood 
 
 The great God threw away/' 
 
 Out on the dusky meadow, 
 Over the slumbering town. 
 
 Out of the silent heaven, 
 
 Brightly the stars look down ; 
 
 What did the baby go for ? 
 Flickered the dawning's flame 
 
 Into the cottage window 
 
 But never an answer came. 
 
 What did the baby go for ? 
 O thou shadovvT of death ! 
 
WHY? 189 
 
 O thou angel ! Thou demon,* 
 
 Icy of touch and breath ! 
 We cry to the sunlit heavens, 
 
 And no voice answereth. 
 
 Will ever there come a morning, 
 When, with our tears all dried. 
 
 Resting in fair, green pastures, 
 The river of life beside, 
 
 " We shall know, beyond all doubting," 
 Just why the baby died ? 
 
 Oh thank God for the children ! 
 
 Aye, give thanks, though we lay 
 Under the sod of the valley. 
 
 The fairest of all, away ; 
 Thank him for those that leave us, 
 
 Thank .him for those that stay ! 
 
A STORY OF THE SEA-COAST. 
 
 [Told by an old sailor.] 
 
 /^^NE winter's night, so long ago, 
 
 ^^ I pause to count the years that flow 
 
 Between the happening and the telling — 
 I know the earth with snow was white. 
 And thro' the gray, uncertain light 
 
 The wild north winds were swelling — 
 Before the fire, we children three 
 Were gathered at our mother's knee. 
 
 We watched the bright flame rise and fall, 
 Now throwing on the painted wall 
 
A STORY OF THE SEA-COAST. Ipi 
 
 Our dancing shadows strangely tall, 
 Now slowly dying, till the glow 
 Scarcely our faces served to show 
 Against "the ghost light of the snow." 
 
 I know not how it came about, 
 
 But soon we ceased to talk and shout, 
 
 And over us a stillness crept, 
 
 And the wind outside wailed and wept; 
 
 While, in upon the silence thrown, * 
 
 There fell in steady undertone 
 
 The sound, repeated o'er and o'er, 
 
 Of great waves thundering on the shore; 
 
 And mother sighed and said : " Ah me ! 
 
 God pity them that are at sea ! " 
 
 We nestled closer to her side. 
 
 But did not speak — her eyes with wide, 
 
192 A STORY OF THE SEA-COAST. 
 
 Fixed gaze were fastened on the fire, 
 
 Her slight hands clenched across her knee, 
 
 As wilder swept the storm and higher — 
 I knew her heart was out to sea. 
 
 The night wore on — she spoke no word; 
 
 My little brother's sleepy head 
 Fell 'gainst her knee — she never stirred ; 
 
 "It is long past the time for bed, 
 Moriier," I whispered; "little Ned's 
 Asleep : " she did not turn her head. 
 
 I put the little ones to sleep, 
 
 — I was a sturdy lad of ten — 
 
 I heard their drowsy prayers : " Oh, keep 
 And God bless mamma, brother, me 1 " 
 
 — Then came a dreamy pause — and then, 
 " And God bring father safe from sea ! " 
 
A STORY OF THE SEA-COAST. 1 93 
 
 Still mother never moved nor spoke 5 
 A chill of icy horror broke 
 
 Over me as I gazed at her ; 
 Her eyes had lost all living light, 
 Her stony face was drawn and white — 
 
 Oh, if she would but cry or stir! 
 
 The morning broke — the dawn-light gray 
 Strove tho' the room to make its way : 
 
 " Mother," I pleaded, " speak to me ! " 
 Slowly she turned ; her voice was low, 
 And yet it struck me like a blow, 
 
 So dumb it was with agony : 
 " I've seen your father's ship go down 
 This night in sight of Glo'ster town ! " 
 
 The day wore on, the storm-clouds flew, 
 Like ships, across a sky of blue ; 
 
194 A STORY OF THE SEA-COAST. 
 
 The winter sun came out to show 
 
 The gray hills " wrapped in fleece of snow ; ' 
 
 The angry winds were still ; the sea, 
 
 After the storm, sobbed ceaselessly ; 
 
 At night the message came : " Ben Brown 
 
 And crew of ship ' Good Speed ' gone down 
 
 Just within sight of Glo'ster town ! " 
 
 Swift years have gone since that wild day — 
 
 I am an old man growing gray ; 
 
 But when I hear the coast winds blow, 
 
 And see a winter firelight glow, 
 
 I see my mother's stony face 
 
 Gaze at me from the fireplace. 
 
 And hear again the wail, "gone down 
 
 Just within sight of Glo'ster town ! " 
 
 Doth God give visions ? May it be 
 That strong hearts, in the agony 
 
A STORY OF THE SEA COAST. 1 95 
 
 Of death's fierce throe, can storm and break 
 The bars of silence for love's sake? 
 Hath death the power to rend away 
 What lies between ? I dare not say ; 
 I only know she said : '' Gone down 
 Just within sight of Glo'ster town!" 
 
WHEN JAMIE DIED. 
 
 TT THEN Jamie died — our baby three-year-old — 
 ^ ^ The children sought for blossoms everywhere, 
 To lay within his dimpled hands a-fold 
 And in his sunny hair. 
 
 'Twas early springtime, and the air was chill 
 
 With melting snows ; only a few pale flowers — 
 The crocus and the golden daffodil — 
 Had come to mark the hours. 
 
 " The blossoms are so few ! " the children said ; 
 "We've hunted all the fields and pastures thro'; 
 
WHEN JAMIE DIED. iny 
 
 Does little Jamie love them, now he's dead, 
 Just as he used to do ? 
 
 *'We tried to find some violets by the brook; 
 
 Do you remember how last year we spent 
 Our May-day.— Jamie's birth-day — there, and took 
 
 Him with us when we went? 
 
 "We've only found a few arbutus sprays, 
 
 Oh, will you let us place them in his hands 
 Perhaps, you see— tho' not a word he says — 
 Perhaps he understands." 
 
 I saw them twine the blossoms in his hair, 
 
 — His little playmates — saw each sunny face 
 Grow grave and tender, as each flower fair 
 They nestled in its place. 
 
 I saw them on -his lips and on his eyes 
 Drop loving kisses (not as one who weeps. 
 
198 WHEN JAMIE DIED. 
 
 But smiling kisses) saying in surprise 
 " How very sound he sleeps ! " 
 
 I heard them say: "Wlien Jamie wakes in heaven, 
 
 With God and all the holy angels by, 
 He'll find these pretty flowers we have given, 
 And so he will not cry." 
 
 They buried him — my Jamie, three years old, 
 
 When the spring day was darkening into night, 
 — My baby, with his curls of sunny gold — 
 They hid him from my sight ; 
 
 But from my heart a shadow deep hath flown. 
 
 And thro' the days, and onward thro' the years, 
 I make the children's faith my very own, — 
 A faith too bright for tears! 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE BELLS. 
 
 'T^HERE was a sunny city by the sea — 
 
 (This is the way the legend quaint is told 
 In ancient missal rare and dim and old, 
 As all such missals be ; ) 
 
 And this great city was so passing fair, 
 So girt by sea, so hemmed by mountains grand, 
 (As held within the hollow of God's hand,) 
 So loved of light and air, 
 
 That from the farthest east, the farthest west. 
 Full many a holy prilgrimage was made. 
 
200 THE LEGEND OF THE BELLS. 
 
 And bones of many a holy saint were laid 
 Within its heart to rest. 
 
 Its greatest treasure (so the legend tells) — 
 Its richest dower — its wealth beyond compare, 
 Where all was riches — its one treasure rare, 
 Was a sweet chime of bells. 
 
 And when at morn or eventide they rang, 
 All steps were stay'd (which way soe'er they went) 
 And every head was bowed and knee was bent 
 As tho' an angel sang. 
 
 So low, so clear, so wildly sweet the chime. 
 
 The mountains bent to hearken, and the sea 
 
 Hushed his wild waves to listen breathlessly, 
 
 And it was holy time ! 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE BELLS. 
 
 For by no mortal hand those bells were rung : 
 An angel, while the dawn was in the sky, 
 Or on the summits of the mountains high 
 The mists of evening clung, 
 
 Touched with an unseen hand each silver throat ; 
 And o'er that listening city of the sea. 
 In one sweet peal of sobbing ecstasy, 
 The heavenly song did float. 
 
 One day to this fair land so strangely blest, 
 There came a ragged pilgrim old and gray. 
 Worn with the toilsome journey of the day. 
 To beg for food and rest. 
 
 The mists were gray upon the mountain side, 
 The evening chimes had rung — the dusky air, 
 
202 THE LEGEND OF THE BELLS. 
 
 So lately heavy with the breath of prayer, 
 With lights was flashing wide; 
 
 He begged his weary way from door to door, 
 — This tired stranger with the hoary head — 
 He asked so little — but a scrap of bread 
 And draught of wine — no more. 
 
 He asked in vain! — the summer night was sweet, 
 The mirth ran high — why should one pause to slake 
 A beggar's thirst ? why should one stop to make 
 'Way for a beggar's feet ^ 
 
 He spoke no word, he only on his breast 
 Bowed low his head and drifted from their sight: 
 Sheltered and still thro' all the summer night 
 The city lay at rest. 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE BELLS. 203 
 
 The morning broke — just as the morn had clone 
 Thro' countless summers : sailed the mists away 
 Before the coming of the conquering day, 
 And royally rode the sun ; 
 
 But in the city all was awesome fear — 
 Faces were pale and trembling lips were white, — 
 What awful thing had happened in the night ! 
 What dreadful deed was here ? 
 
 Where were the bells ? They hung within the tower, 
 Why were they mute ? Never had come the time 
 They had not greeted with their silver chime 
 The city's waking hour! 
 
 Alas ! alas ! the angel bells were dumb ! 
 The morning went ; the day wore on apace ; 
 
204 THE LEGEND OF THE BELLS. 
 
 Whiter and whiter grew each awe-struck face 
 
 The eventide was come 
 
 The dusk grew into darkness ; still as death 
 The city waited ! Oh, if there would float 
 Out on the air one angel-wafted note ! — 
 The blue sea held his breath. 
 
 Then in the midst a seer arose and said : 
 (The hot tears raining down his withered face,) 
 " Last night into our city's market-place 
 
 Came one who begged his bread. 
 
 " His locks were white, his tired feet were sore, 
 He only asked a dole of bread and wine ; — 
 LoJ that poor begger was the Christ divine, 
 And he will come no more ! 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE BELLS. 205 
 
 " No more, no more the angel bells will chime ! 
 We have denied our Lord ! Oh woe ! oh woe ! 
 Henceforth, O land, in garb of mourning go ! 
 Repentant thro' all time ! " 
 
 The long years go — that city by the sea 
 Is fairest of all cities 'neath the sun ; 
 There many deeds of rarest meed are done, 
 Fit for eternity ; 
 
 But never (so the ancient legend tells,) 
 In all that land, at dawning of the sun 
 Upon the mountains, or when day is done, 
 Is heard the chime of bells. 
 
ODE FROM HORACE -- ODE XL BOOK I. 
 
 (A free translation.) 
 ^^ EEK not to know the span 
 *^ Of years that thine shall be, 
 For this is not for man 
 
 To know, Leuconoe ! 
 Then be content to know 
 That thou and I must go, 
 Leuconoe ! 
 
 And oh ! 'twere truer far 
 
 And better, still to wait. 
 Than our soul-peace to mar 
 
 By wresting truth from fate. 
 
ODE FROM HORACE. ODE XI. BOOK I. 207 
 
 Then be content to know 
 That thou and I must go, 
 Leuconoe ! 
 
 If Jove shall spare to thee 
 
 Full many a winter more, 
 Or this shall be thy last 
 
 Now raging on the shore — 
 Oh, be content to know 
 That thou and I must go, 
 Leuconoe ! 
 
 Be wise : the red wine flowing 
 
 Will give thy soul relief ; 
 — With hope thy days are glowing — 
 
 What tho' that day be brief : — 
 Then banish all thy sorrow. 
 And fondly trust the morrow, 
 Leuconoe ! 
 
TO THE BANDUSIAN FOUNTAIN. 
 
 Horace. Ode XIII. Book III. 
 (A free translation.) 
 /^ FOUNTAIN of Bandusia! 
 ^^ That sparkling flow of thine 
 Is clearer far than crystal — 
 
 Full worthy thou of wine, 
 And of the fairest flowers, 
 
 A rosy, fragrant twine ! 
 To-morrow then I'll bring thee 
 
 A kid whose swelling brow 
 And horns gave budding promise 
 
 Of love and strife, but now — • 208 
 
TO THE BANDUSIAN FOUNTAIN. 209 
 
 Vain promise — in the spring-time 
 And glory of his might, 
 His blood shall stain thy waters 
 
 With many a blood-red light ! 
 
 For thee the fiery dog-star, 
 The hot noon, gloweth not ! 
 
 A grateful cool thou yi eldest 
 The flocks that seek thy grot, 
 
 And to the labor-wearied, 
 
 Thy breathings fresh have sought. 
 
 Thou, too, O leaping fountain ! 
 
 Thou, too, shalt be ere long, 
 When I shall sing thy praises, 
 
 A fountain famed in song ; 
 When I shall sins: the ilex 
 
TO THE BANDUSIAN FOUNTAIN. 
 
 That o'er thy mosses strays, 
 The cool delicious water 
 
 Among thy rocks that plays, 
 And the music of thy prattle 
 
 In thy descending ways ! 
 
WE MISS HIM. 
 
 ^'^\ SILENT house, where once the sound 
 ^■^^ Of childish, gleeful laugh was heard ! 
 Where erst the ceaseless, tottering round 
 
 Of baby feet the echoes stirred ; 
 How well thine empty chambers know 
 
 The mournful words : 
 
 " We miss him so ! " 
 
 The little voice is silent now ; 
 
 The busy restless feet are still ; 
 The mischief-loving fingers rest 
 
 Upon the bosom white and chill ; 
 Yet often in the busy day, 
 
212 WE MISS HIM. 
 
 We pause amid our toil and care, 
 To listen for his voice at play, 
 
 His baby footfalls on the stair ; 
 Those dimpled feet that ne'er shall go 
 
 O'er life's rough ways — 
 
 We miss him so ! 
 
 And when the night shuts in the day 
 With gathering shadows, long and deep. 
 
 It rises to our lips to say : 
 
 " 'Tis time that baby went to sleep ! " 
 
 Forgetful that he slumbers low, — 
 The last, long sleep, — 
 
 We miss him so ! 
 
 The empty cradle — useless now, — 
 The tiny garments torn in play. 
 
 The soft curls, cut from off the brow 
 Now white in death — all laid away — 
 
WE MISS HIM. 213 
 
 Bear record to the tears of woe 
 Dropped over them — 
 
 We miss him so ! 
 
 Oh, sad, sad words ! How deeply fraught 
 
 With agony, they only know. 
 Within whose household Death hath wrought 
 The hushing change — whose hearts he's taught 
 
 To feel the words : 
 
 " We miss him so ! " . 
 
IN MEMORY OF JENNIE B. 
 
 T^IS but to fold the tired hands awhile, 
 
 'Tis but to breathe our last of mortal 
 breath ; 
 I think sometimes the list'ning angels smile 
 
 To hear us call it death ,- 
 Yet when we come to lay our loved away 
 
 In their last resting-place, 
 To shut forever from the light of day 
 
 A well-beloved face, 
 'Tis almost more than human heart can do. 
 
 To meekly "kiss the rod," 
 To bow the head and say and still be tnie, 
 
 "Thy will be done," to God. 
 
IN MEMORY OF JENNIE B. 21 C 
 
 We dare not say we loved her best, 
 The youngest in our dear home-nest: 
 We only know that when her smile 
 
 Was shut beneath the coffin-lid, 
 The earth was darkness for a while. 
 
 The very light of day was hid; 
 We only know that when her feet 
 
 We heard no more in hall or stair, 
 Nor echo of her laughter sweet, 
 A silence brooded everywhere. 
 
 We watched her thro' her baby-days. 
 Her childhood's tender, loving ways ; 
 We saw that childhood gliding fast 
 
 Into the dream of maidenhood; 
 Each day was fairer than the last, 
 
 With fairness "but half understood." — 
 And then God took her! — Oh the tears 
 
 We dropped upon her lifeless clay! 
 
2l6 IN MEMORY OF JENNIE B. 
 
 Our sweet hope, blotted from the years ! 
 Our blossom, withered in a day ! 
 
 We know that faith and reason tell 
 
 " The dear Lord doeth all things well ; " 
 
 We know that in the land afar. 
 
 Where cloud of sorrow never lowers, 
 And where the many mansions are, 
 
 She lives a purer life than ours ; 
 We know a Father's tender love 
 
 Doth guide her safely thro' the years ; 
 But when we try to look above. 
 
 Our eyes are blinded by our tears ! 
 
 We miss her when the morning beam 
 Fills all the waking world with light; 
 
 We miss her in the noontide gleam. 
 We miss her in the wakeful night ; 
 
 We miss her through the weary days. 
 
IN MEMORY OF JENNIE B. 217 
 
 By empty nook, by vacant chair; 
 We miss her in the household ways, 
 
 We miss her when we bow in prayer, — 
 
 We miss her always^ everyivhere ! 
 'Tis but to fold the tired hands awhile, 
 
 'Tis but to breathe our last of mortal breath ; 
 Perhaps in heaven, some day, we, too, shall smile 
 
 To think we called it death! 
 
LINES IN AN ALBUM. 
 
 T T THEN little sleepy Rosebud 
 
 ' * Has kissed and said " good-night,'^ 
 And mother, stepping softly, 
 
 Has taken away the light. 
 We hear a soft, low cooing, 
 
 And some one whispers, "Hark! 
 'Tis little Rosebud singing, 
 
 A-singmg in the darkl" 
 
 Ah ! it is easy singing 
 
 When life is bright and fair, 
 
LINES IN AN ALBUM. 
 
 Ah ! it is easy singing 
 
 With sunshine everywhere ; 
 
 But when His waves and billows 
 O'erwhelm thy sinking barque, 
 
 God help thee, child, like Rosebud, 
 To sing — sing in the dark! 
 
THE BROOK. 
 
 T T 7 HY is the brown brook laughing ? Does he 
 know 
 The early spring has blossomed ? Does he feel 
 Her perfumed breath along his bosom steal, 
 
 — The merry brook — that he is laughing so? 
 
 Nay — he is laughing back to laughing eyes, 
 To merry dimpled feet that come and go 
 
 To the quick music from his heart that cries. 
 The while his fill of spring delights he quaffs, 
 The merry brook is mocking when he laughs. 
 
 Why is the brown brook sighing? Does he know 
 The summer days are vanished? Does he feel 
 
THE BROOK. 221 
 
 The first frost-breath of chilling autumn steal 
 Along his bosom, that he's sighing so ? 
 
 Nay — rhe is dreaming of a fair, sweet face, 
 With pure brown eyes, and dusky, floating hair, 
 That bent above him once — was mirrored there, 
 
 And evermore within that bosom lies — 
 
 The autumn brook is dreaming when he sighs. 
 
TO MEMORY. 
 
 V^ MEMORY! On the pages of my heart 
 ^■^^ Write only pleasant scenes, words fitly spoken ! 
 That when, in after years, to heal the smart 
 
 Of wounds upon a heart that's well-nigh broken, 
 I turn thy closely written pages o'er, 
 Into my heart a healing balm thou'lt pour ! 
 
 Yet stay — I would not have thee blot them out, 
 Those hours of sorrow — if the peace they taught. 
 
 Those heavenly lessons, too, thou must blot out, 
 And with them all the good that they have 
 wrought. 
 
TO MEMORY. 223 
 
 Write as thou wilt, O Memory ! Good and ill, 
 Sunshine and shadow : only let there be, 
 
 When time the measure of the years shall fill, 
 Some happy hours (among the sad) for me J 
 
UNANSWERED. 
 
 TF YOU are the first to go," I said, 
 •^ " Over the river so dark and chill, 
 How shall I know, as the long years go. 
 
 That you love me still ? 
 Will you come from your heaven and tell me so ? " 
 And you said : " I will. 
 
 " I will come to you in the noon, the night, 
 I will speak to you, as my soul can speak, 
 
 I will fold your heart in my heart's delight, 
 I will press my kisses on lip and cheek ; 
 
UNANSWERED. 
 
 You will not fear me, but love me still ? " 
 And I said, "I will." 
 
 Many the years that have gone since then, 
 
 — Oh, earth and heaven are sundered wide ! 
 Weary earth-years my own have been — 
 
 Yours have been years on the other side ! 
 All in vain were the words I said, 
 
 Worse than vain was the pledge you gave ! 
 Cold are the lips of the sleeping dead — 
 
 None ever come from the silent grave. 
 
 My whole soul listens — you do not speak; 
 
 I wait for you in the noon — the night, — 
 I feel no kisses on lip or cheek, 
 
 I dream no dream of yoiir soul's delight. 
 
2 26 UNANSWERED. 
 
 And yet you said you would come to me, — 
 Is my soul deaf, that I cannot hear? 
 
 Is my soul blind, that I cannot see ? 
 
 Can neither hear you, nor see you, dear ? 
 
 I know — I know that you love me still! 
 
 I might, if you answered, not understand ; 
 For how can ears that the earth-dins fill 
 
 Catch whispered words from the glory-land I 
 
 So long have drifted the years between ! 
 
 — Oh, earth and heaven are sundered wide ! 
 Mine the years of the world have been. 
 
 Yours are years on the other side ! 
 
TO G. B. M. 
 
 (Three sonnets in one.) 
 
 I. 
 
 'nr^HERE sped a message, friend, to you one day, 
 "*■ — 'Twas a fair Sabbath in the new spring- 
 tide — 
 A few brief words : " This morning mother died ! " 
 But oh ! it swept its desolate, blinding way 
 Across your heart, as down a mountain gray 
 Sweeps a wild avalanche with ruin wide : 
 There seemed no refuge wherein you might hide ; 
 And love and light were blotted from the day. 
 
2 28 TO G. B. M. 
 
 You bowed your stricken head upon your breast — 
 Then love's hand bent and touched you, and you 
 wept 
 
 Great heaUng tears — the sobbing words you said : 
 
 " Mother ! O mother ! " — and a wave of rest 
 Over your heart from out God's ocean swept — 
 
 You learned to bear the thought that she was dead. 
 
 II. 
 
 But all day long, as to and fro you went, 
 Your heart was in a far New England town : 
 You saw the old elm branches, bare and brown, 
 
 Above the roof-tree of the old home bent, 
 
 And many were the loving thoughts you sent 
 To greet the spot your boyhood days had known ; 
 And o'er your heart, like fragrant breezes blown 
 
 From out the past, came days of childhood spent 
 In the old house ; you tried in vain to see 
 
TO G. B. M. 229 
 
 That home without the mother — yet you knew 
 Her hands lay folded on her pulseless breast, 
 
 Those weary hands, wrinkled, toilworn for you ! 
 — The dear old home is but an empty nest ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Brother, what can I say to comfort thee ? 
 
 Words are so poor, and written words so cold ! 
 
 This life that doth enwrap us, fold on fold, 
 Seemeth sometimes in our despair to be 
 A cloud to blind us that we may not see 
 
 Beyond the heaping of the churchyard mould ! 
 
 But can love die ? Nay ! — then let earth grow 
 old; 
 
 Death is no longer death to you and me ! 
 
 She is not dead, for love can never die ; 
 
 Her grave is but the bridge that spans the 
 
 stream ; 
 
230 TO G. B. M. 
 
 (Only to Doubt, that stream is dark and chill) 
 Deep in God's love all human love doth lie ; 
 All love is life — death only is the dream, 
 
 And mother is our loving mother still. 
 
TO C. E. S. 
 
 TF thou, dear one, wert far away from me, 
 
 -^ And continents lay between, or oceans wide, 
 
 When lone I knelt to pray at eventide. 
 
 First on my lips would be my prayer for thee, 
 
 And all the distance would as nothing be 
 
 To swift-winged blessings that to thee would glide. 
 
 Thou hast gone from me, and the grave doth hide 
 
 Thee in a shadow wider than the wide sea ; 
 
 Yet when I kneel at morn or eve to pray, 
 
 Shall I not pray for thee ? How can I bear. 
 
 Never to say : " God keep thee ! " Ne'er can come 
 
 A day I do not love thee — must I say 
 
 No, word of love ? Thou livest, dear, somewhere : 
 
 Why, if the dead are deaf, must we be dumb ? 
 
TO MAIDIE — THREE YEARS OLD. 
 
 "|\ /TY bonnie lassie, with the clear blue eyes 
 "*" ^ -■- That watch the world in such a wondering way, 
 
 Whisper to me the fancies that all day 
 Have woo'd thee, like coquetting butterflies, 
 To find the secret of the world that lies 
 
 In all these birds and blossoms of the May : — 
 
 What do the birds sing, and the flowers say ? 
 What is the sorrow in the south-wind's sighs ? 
 You will not answer ? Kiss me then, my sweet ! 
 
 'Tis not the first time kisses have been made 
 To serve as answers ; since the world begun, 
 The clinging of fond lips that joy to meet 
 
 Hath sweetened silence : Still thro' light and shade 
 The round world keeps the secrets it hath won. 
 
TO R. L. M. 
 
 TF I had power, my child, to give to thee 
 
 ■*• My choice of all the treasures 'neath the sun, 
 
 Or could endow thee when thy life begun 
 With life's one, rarest gift. Oh, woe is me ! 
 I could not choose — I dare not choose for thee! 
 
 I dare not give thee wealth — how many a one 
 
 With riches hath the "way of ruin run;" 
 Nor genius — lest a fateful snare it be ; 
 I thank my God I have no power to choose 
 
 Thy life for thee — I place thee in His keep, 
 'Full sure that what He grants thee will be best ; 
 With Him to guide, thy way thou canst not lose; 
 
 Where' re thou liest down to thy last sleep 
 It matters little, so thou find God's rest. 
 
,t.;