LLEN 'OEM FOR THE TIMES LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. i. W^'J^^/ t UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, ELLEN. ^^ - r>J^' ELLEN POEM FOR THE TIMES, 3^ "^^"f r«r6 oMz-cAy^ NEW YORK; G. W. CARLETON & CO 1867. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, Bv G. W. OARLETOISr & CO., In the Clerk's Oflice of the District Court of the United States for tlie Southern District of New Yorli. 3-i^a V *s- •, '0 ELLEN. ELLEN A Sunny brook, on whose clean floor the stones Sparkle unstained, that suddenly befoul, Deep at its forest-head, putrescent bones Thrust there by murder done beneath night's cowl On trustful travellers, whose unpitied moans. Heard but in Heaven, were married to the howl Of wolves, — the brooklet's laughing hfe bedimmed. Its glad pellucid pools with poison brimmed : 8 ELLEN. II. A sward- bound bed the sun and earth and air (Wedding their bhssful craft at beauty's hest) Have hid with flowers, so fresh, so flashing fair, With tender-tinted flames they seem possest, When swiftly, — as if Hell's subjacent lair Into their veins had shot a biting pest, — They fall disbloomed, their sweetened delicate breath Quenched in the blackness of unsavory death : — III. What image else can hang within your eyes Nature disrupted, thwarted, maimed and bleak, — Ocean senseless to wind, a Paradise Ravished of blossoms, — such will faintly speak What were those youthful women who in guise Of modest maidenhood, so flattering meek, Welcomed Horatio, whose unhardened skin Flushed ruby at the sudden thought within ; — ELLEN. g IV. Then swift the bashful blood rewarmed his heart, And pale, an anger'd eye he cast around For the false comrade who had played the part Of trifler with him ; but as swift the wound Healed of Itself. An Impulse then to dart Forth from the galrish room, and at a bound Heaven's air rebreathe, shot through him. That, too, died ; And almost ere It parted, at his side Spake one whose sleepy yearning tones were links Of chain whose other end a lisping child Bound to her mother's lap a dimpled minx. Who in the mother's plundered bosom piled Such heaps of love they brimmed the very brinks Of joy at times, and overflowed in mild Unwitnessed tears, which quick were sunned away By arch look of the little girl at play. 10 ELLEN. v\. Where two small velvet valleys greenly met, To slope as one towards darkened Hudson's shore, Their cottage nestled by a rivulet That ran outleaping from the shadows hoar Of stormy oaks, and, prattling with her, wet The fondling's feet, and made her fingers more Like bursting rose-buds, as in sultry heat She dabbled in it with her hands and feet. VII. A playmate was she of the blossomed trees. The first to spy the unlooked-for gleaming rings Of wild flowers in the grass, as at her knees New violets peeped from their cold coverings To watch her joy. The summer-heated bees Sang round her, as she were of honeyed things, And birds near her in Eden were and lighted Upon her shining shoulder unafrrighted. ELLEN. II VIII. When the fleet years had poured into her veins The rapid juice of more ambitious blood, Her little longings leaped to loftier gains And taught the senses wider walks. The flood Of the quick rivulet, — more quick with rains, — She mounted gleesome to its lowering wood. There mystery answered mystery, and the deep Dim silence, like to sense-upfolding sleep, IX. Unlocked her soul and loosed a brood of thought That ranged for food within the obscurer caves Of umbrage, where in rock-strewn dusk were taught The hushed delight of awe that, like the waves Of untrod ocean, is with tidings fraught From worlds which vast imagination laves. Thence with the mimic cataracts she bounded Back to her home with naked feet unwounded. 12 ELLEN The mould-exhaled balms of many springs So fed the fragrance of her breathful day, That she was like the perfumed offerings Of a wild wilderness of buds to May. So dashed were eye and cheek by tints from wings Of mounting morns, dyed was the mortal clay In light as from a heaven-expired air ; And sunbeams hid them in her golden hair. XI. Not closer did the summer-shrunken brook Cling to its pebbly bed, than the bereft Deserted mother worn, with heart and look To the one single child, all that was left To love of her own blood. Her eyelids shook Heart-moisture on the sleeping girl, a theft Of covert sorrow from the darkness, — tears Folded by day within blind bodeful fears. ELLEN. JO XII. Death grasping her pale child — this was the view Old dolors graved upon a bruised brain. And they were kind ; for had they limned the new Unheralded rank truth, so near, the pain Had rift her clay ; for when it fell it slew Her earthlife at a stroke; and now the rain. That made the brook laugh with her laughing child, Wets sod above her lonely body piled. XIII. Fair Death ! who look'st so dark because our sight Is dim with reek from godless fears ; so dread Because our loves are lawless ; whose deep night Is but a drooping cloud, disgorged and fed And nursed by howling fantasies that blight The fresh heart's sunshine, so thy name is wed To hideous thoughts men call thee Terrors' King, In joy forefeeling cold thy fated sting, 14 ELLEN. XIV. And at thy coming crouch, Hke a new guilt Before old conscience' doomful eye awaked. Dear Death ! grimed earthlings are we, and have built Our life with faithless mortar, whence is shaked So sharp a dust about our heads thou wilt Forgive our blindness, that we still have quaked 'Fore brain-coined demon at the name of thee, High handmaid of our immortality ! XV. Eternal beckoner to upper seats ! 'Twixt earth and Heaven winged carrier sure and swift ! [heats Life-quick'ning Death ! who seem'st to quench the Thou dost redress with finer life and gift. Haunted by glib imagination's cheats. This fear-filled mother watched for thee to lift Thy scythe and make her hearth a wilderness, And choke her veins with grief and loneliness. ELLEN. 15 XVl. But when dishonor's loathly blastment crept [blown Upon her child's warm breathing pure, — smooth From the hell of a cold lustful heart, while slept A dream-disturbed innocence, — a moan Rent her twin being, and the spirit leapt [shone Up towards its home, where Death the demon A God, relinking her to the lorn child. Her beautiful, soft, loving girl defiled. XVII. So by redeeming Death are sped the senses, A deepening freshening insight she did gain Through earth's fierce fumes and vacant violences And all the fevered joys that nourish pain. Such insight far, distracted innocences Now almost seemed what had been sinful stain : Through sifted disencumbered thought she smiled Upon her anguished flesh-imprisoned child. l6 ELLEN. XVIIL Was due this heaven-lit smile to the new friend, , God's holy harvester, the Archangel Death ; For with the lights that calm around her blend. And privileges goodness doth bequeath. Content can see that toward the loved one tend So fast Death's muffled feet, her sighful breath Grows less and less ; wherein the mother joyed, Even as when the blue-eyed babe she toyed. XIX. And the lone-watched one, she at times would turn, As though she felt her mother's voice ; and then The cottage by the brook itself would burn Into her eyes, they staring strange, of ken All vacant, till, — short respite given, — the stern Loathed present seized and crushed her in a den Of reptiles cold, created of her wings, — A cherub's plumes self-changed to scalding stings. ELLEN. 17 XX. Horatio looked into those large blue eyes, Now the dull haunts of homeless wincing woes, Once joy-flamed angels in a paradise ; And tenderly he read her spirit's throes. And reading, inly sighed her woman's sighs. And tuned his breath to such warm life as blows From April's cheeks to dry the frosty dew An unschooled night hath dropt on violets new. XXI. In wonderment looked she upon his eyes. Like a lost swimmer who on a sudden feels His feet buoyed by a rock, delight's surprise Vaults full her being, and she hears the peals Of her hushed maiden laughter, as far cries Are heard in dreams : then quick her mother steals Into her sight, part interfused with him Who stands there, overt angel, clear and dim. l8 ELLEN. XXII. For many moons, no, not for a dread year, — Not since that wild hour when, convulsed pale. She left the cottage with a shuddering fear, That yet foretold but tithe of garnered bale, — Had sound of love wooed her wan starved ear. No new-come infant with more easeful hail Doth pallid mother prayerful greet than she Those strange low words of bashful sympathy. XXIIl. They lifted her above the tainted waste. Where holiest feelings are disfranchised quite, And the heart's fairest garnitures defaced. To man's high only heaven, the self-delight (Mounted when he with selfless thought is braced) Where love, — like to the God-replenished might Of planet-warming suns, — works outward aye. And lives by making for new worlds the day, — ■ ELLEN. iQ XXIV. For a brief moment's pasture, even to this They lifted her, and she, through the mild power Of that creative cadence, the gone bliss Of filial duteousness refelt, in shower Of thoughts that glistened o'er the bald abyss Of her nude noisome life a rainbow's dower, As beautifully sudden and as brief, Aerial glow gilding a fen of grief, — XXV. From topmost life a flash, that showed the hell Wherein she agonized, more ghastly dead. Revealing too (what misery sought to quell) A heavenly good within the spirit bred, A flushing font, a sure upheaving well, Which now outsparkled from its fountain-head To freshen even her trampled virgin wreath, Making her move aside to weep for death. 20 ELLEN. XXVI. Horatio turned him quickly to the wall, And deeply scanned a shallow picture there j For he had seen the tear about to fall From swollen o'ertasked eyelids, and would spare Himself and her, — Soon at his side a tall Pale woman stood, of whose black eye a glare, Wild, restless, had one-half the lustre drunk ; The other back into the brain had sunk. XXVII. Each feature fine was shrunken by a scar Cut by the crushing of three several crowns, An arch'd head circling once and reigning far. The tokens of the choice of earth's renowns By woman earned, each centred by a star That with its light all other radiance drowns, — The holy royalties of feminine life. Clasping the brow of daughter, mother, wife. ELLEN. 21 XXVIII. In this fast-lapsing crowded desolation, — A noble visage marred, — beauty still throned, As mid the iconoclastic devastation Of passionate throng that will not be postponed, And wreaks itself in vaporous elation On statue-peopled temple, some still-zoned Melonian Venus stands, maimed, blackened, pelted, Erect, with all her fallen trophies belted. XXIX. The splendor of the ruin, at a glance Horatio seeing, in the brain there flamed A light so luminous, his countenance Glowed saintly deep, to manly reverence tamed. On her it fell, as on one in a trance Music unearthly. Then the past reclaimed Her mutinous heart, and flooding it with beauty, Repeopled all the desert fields of duty. 22 ELLEN. XXX. For a brief space she stood illuminated, The banished loves, called sudden home, replaying With eye, ear, lip and cheek and hair, elated With unsoiled breath to fill her core, and raying Through inmost avenues, to thought remated, — Great loves, that are the life of life, defraying The costliest costs of being, with home-caressing Healing man's wounds, and woman hourly blessing. XXXI. Whoe'er upon a lustrous face delighted. Hath seen the headlong lapse from joy to pain, When one with warmest happiest eye-beam sighted. Reels, sinks, and dies, by unwarned death-stroke slain, — Can see that radiance in a moment blighted. As the quick ruddy flood ebbed back again. And she knows that she has but felt and seen A vision brief of what she once had been. ELLEN. 23 XXXII. What she had been — and what she is ! O fall Unthinkable! Groan, nursing Nature, groan Through thy divinest deeps ; hoarse discords all. Howl curst confusion's howl j loud load of moan, Break the strong heart of woe ; black night, appall Hell's inmates with thy gloom ; for here is grown A deed that outbids chaos, while the power [lower. That wrought this death, — the social whole, — doth XXXIII. And menace more, deaf as the darkening cloud That clasps the earth with sleety fingers hard, Heedless as the sunned sea that, wild and loud, Outroars the wind his mate, and on the scarred Defenceless shore wrecks a whole navy proud. Smiling on victims like a springing pard. How long, O God ! how long shall this be fate ? O man ! this needs not, must not, be thy state. 24 ELLEN. XXXIV. O woman ! thou, thou art a heaven-hung nest, By soundless wings o'erbrooded, where is hatched Earth's paragon. Heaven's heir and 'waited guest. Earth worships thee, and warmly art thou watched By prescient angels, and, by all the best That know, exu.ted in as the unmatched Delight of whate'er lives and wills and loves, The central majesty to all that moves. XXXV. All essences that sparkle, in their glee Of life, upon the joy of Nature's face. And, quivering in the wind-waved cypress tree Or in the leopard's gait, glow into grace, Or, throbbing through the wood's wild melody, To music soar, find their selectest place In thee, selectest for a large fulfilment. And sweetest, subtlest for a fine distilment. ELLEN. XXXVI. 25 All integrants of being, the low and higher, The lords of work, the visionary powers, Leap with the lightnings of a holier fire In thee ; and, like young bees to honeyest flowers, Imaginations in unbought attire [showers. Crowd to thy brain, and, buoyed by sweetening Shed softly by the tenderest loves, presage Life's mightiness from their elected cage. XXXVII. The gladdened insights, intuitions named, [ings, — That flashing come, — so wise their swift discern- A freight from Heaven on sightless fibril flamed. Hushed duties, aspirations, holiest yearnings, Prime impulses most prodigally framed. All reap in thee their ripest inmost earnings. The Fates their longest ranges weave through thee, Sorrow and joy their deepest ecstasy. 26 ELLEN. XXXVIII. She is a woman, too, this haggard one. And those about her, some more sunken still, A monstrous group, each fearfully alone, All homeless, uncaressed, the cloven will Confounded, blinded, shattered on its throne Mid rifled loves, that naught of earth can kill. And whose sick pulses throb a pauseless dirge And all their music in one wailing merge. XXXIX. And like them, there outside, that blasted throng Ubiquitous, stript of their woman's dues, — A live distemperature that saps the strong Well blood of manhood, — ^jubilant abuse, Defiant ever-pelting storm of wrong, Untuneful willingness in the strung thews Of myriad harps, swept by a touch so foul The tuneful strings yield but a barren howl. ELLEN. 27 XL. No victor Knight beside his lady fair, Mid ghttering gaze of plumed chivalry, Not Bayard's self, w^hose deferential air A bloom of inv^^ardness was sure to be, With more of Christian lustre shone than there Horatio on that friendless company. He full performed the gentlemanly task. To see the woman still behind the mask. XLI. And those banned, lonesome lost ones, they were saved, A moment saved. A moment their soul-ache Stopt beating, when the woman new was laved By the resurging spirit, as in a lake Of soft absolving light, and thoughts that raved Around infected prison-walls, now take Repose, — stilled in that namely presence pure, — And tune themselves, again serene, secure. 28 ELLEN. XLII. E'en in the most unsexed of all, whom years Had more and more in fleshly bands enwrapt, Through smeary eyelids, long unwashed by tears, A light (chaos with primal day-beam capt) Strange glistened in the unhallowed lap of leers, A soft maternal light inaptly apt, Ray fi-om a blessing that had failed to bless, Sole flower in a hot weedy wilderness. XLIII. In younger days she lost an infant boy. And the dead babe had grown within her mind (Angel asleep mid sensual tumult's joy). Until by such mute secret nurture kind He came to manhood, so without alloy She seemed in this fine form her child to find ; And when Horatio touched with grief she saw She trembled, and her heart stood still for awe. ELLEN. XLIV. 29 Horatio's heart grew faint with tears. He slid Into another room, where one meek light Left unbetrayed, in stillness' ambush hid, A seated figure, till at sudden sight Of him, with scream quick counterchecked. It did Upleap, and then relapsed as swiftly, fright Outwalling, " Heaven ! it is not he : No ! No !" Like one in the tight agony of woe. XLV. Gushed hot her sobs, as though voracious grief Would break upon her heart a lenten fast. Her tears made issue, — bringing sad relief, — For his, so long inpent, and now at last Free poured, as loosened brooklet after brief Frost-prisonment when winter should be past. Her weeping paused, to hearken to his sighs; Then, soft as cloud that on a summit Hes, 30 ELLEN. XLVI. She laid her hand upon his sleeve, and said, In voice with wonder weak and tenderness, " Who are you ?" And Horatio raised his head To look on girlish model of distress, Of whose original splendor yet was dead Scarcely a beam, — a face made to caress And be caressed. '' To save you I am come." Like warbled welcome to supernal home, XLVII. Sang to her soul the words. Up she arose Ere he could rise ; and ere the breath was cold That he had uttered, 'round them were the rows Of sleeping houses, and wide heaven uprolled. Their footsteps were not effort, but repose. Like sway of uncaged eagle when unfold His wings, and he all flutterless the brow Shades swift of mountain, such their motion now. ELLEN. ^I XLVIII. They walked as though with sightless pinion urged ; For joy doth counterweigh the body's weight, And the smit soul, if rearward it hath verged. Rebounds against the stumbles of its mate, Catching at heavenward cords when most submerged. This trustful girl was thrown upon the great Thick-panting whirlpool of the nether town. Wherein, unhelpt, she surely must go down. XLIX. But when she saw those tears and heard those sighs, And looked upon that face ; with woman's sure Swift insight, and resolve as quick as wise, — Yielding, like the tall juicy pine, most pure Her balm when wounded, — nimbly did she rise Above the slimy damps, unclean, obscure. Oozing from heated thoughts that thaw the will, And through the senses venomed flavors still. 32 ELLEN L. The stars looked near and friendly on the two, And they, — as people will when they have had The spirit bathed in hope or joy, — their view Turned thankful thither, and, though she was sad Amid her hope, their light shone heavenly new. Horatio moved as a strong savior glad. They reached her door, to have their mood redaunted j From a near open window thus was chaunted: '' Will you not come to me, mother, Will you not come to me ? I am alone, I am alone. Come to me, mother, come to me, I am alone, alone. Come to me, come to me, I am alone. ELLEN. oo " When will you come to me, sister, When will you come to me? 1 am alone, I am alone. Come to me, sister, come to me, I am alone, alone. Come to me, come to me, I am alone." LI. Upon these words the cadence rose and fell Within a single bar, now weak then weaker, Repeating them, revolving, like a spell Of weird monotony by some wild seeker. More than the words the tone a tale did tell, — A heart's deep dirge, self-sung and meek ; and meeker With every repetition, till it dwindled To faintest flame, no more to be enkindled ; 34 ELLEN. LII. As if one heeded, on a silent shore, After a season of dismasting storms, A corpse, white, beautiful, — from the sea's core Singly upthrown of all its swallowed swarms, — And saw it rocked, and gently more and more As the waves calmed, and they, now stilled of harms, Licked it all tenderly, the heaving sea Softly uplifting it repentantly. LIII. Tears, tears, — gems wrought in Nature's glowing mine When the heart beats its truest beat, — they set Their liquid lustres in enravished eyne. To beam their brightest when large lids are wet With life-drops pearled in bosom feminine. Death's silence ranged until 'twas faintly met By trembling sighs. Horatio soothed her sorrow, Saying, when leave he took, — " To-morrow, to- morrow." ELLEN. 2S LIV. O Sleep ! hushed nursling of the whispering night, Thou dost unknot the skeins of tangled day, And at thy bidding comes the delicate light Of stars to be thy watcher, while their ray Token sidereal is of mightiest might That guards thy dreamful nest ; thou dost allay The heartache, unbreathed torture, tameless strife, And whet'st the blunted tools of wearied life ; LV. Thou rich man's luxury and poor man's aid. Kind soother of the fretted brow of care, Celestial dew, on drooping labor laid As gently as the heaving of an infant's air, Brisk fancy's feeder, mould wherein are made Imagination's marshalled grandeurs fair, Choice lap of jealous brooding secrecy. Where root the seeds of all that is to be ; 36 ELLEN. LVI. Sweet Sleep, thou universal comforter, That dost intrench us in oblivion, Thy daily balm thou didst withhold from her. The youthful, desolate, deserted one ; For when thou sought'st thy blessing to confer, Where 'twas implored with enfamined tone. And on thy bed wouldst lie as in the past. At the wan tremor there thou stood'st aghast. LVII. By a pale figure sleep's brain-bed was haunted. That in frail accent said, " Alone, alone " ; And with a look that would not be avaunted Kept whispering this appeal with ardent moan. And gazed beseechingly, as though it wanted Condolence from a warm companion : Then it grew dim and faded, like a mist By an ascending sun serenely kist. ELLEN. oy LVIII. It soon returned, and more ethereal, Aye feebly syllabling the one sad word, A clear transparency aerial. Yet plain to sight, with tone like silver cord Touched tenderly by breath empyrial. Fainter and fainter grew its mild abord, Until at last it slowly disappeared. Leaving the charmed ear and eye afeard. LIX. But sallow fear was tinct with fellow-feeling. And the awe at this new life-experience, — That was to her mazed soul sublime revealing Of sights beyond the current ken of sense, And of the pact divine supreme unsealing, — Threw a halo round her dread, as round the dense Portentous darkness of a cloud at even Effulgence glows, flamed from the further heaven. 38 ELLEN. LX. So, by degrees her pulse ran quieter, A quiver of the heartstrings' play was stilled, As of a shoaly stream th' outflowing stir When by great ocean's tideful swell 'tis filled. She to herself was hallowed : messenger From God seemed to unbind her; and, unskilled As young thoughts are in widest themes, her being Ranged in the distances of new far-seeing, LXI. Long hours had waned since the sure sun did steep The expectant air in his strong helpfulness. Ere she could yield her to the embrace of sleep And give him sway o'er all her loveliness. At last the wetted eyes were closed, and deep And even heaved her breast in quietness. On the soft cheek recumbent, as she slept Unfollowed lay the tear-drops she had wept. ELLEN. oQ LXII. Sne lay involved In beauty and in grace As in a limpid film of sparkling mist. A night-storm stamps its tumult on the face Of orient day, so she could not resist The turmoil of the past, which would displace The calm upon her lips. Like Venus kist By sooty Vulcan, her lulled features bore At times the torment of an inward sore. LXIII. This gentle creature perill'd there, so full Of love and guileless life, signed with God's marks Of favor, intellectual, beautiful. Whose destiny should be the lifesome lark's To mount singing towards Heaven, — which to annul Shows compact course of the base howls and barks Of bestial man, envious of elevations. Thrust on by wanton Hell to desecrations, — 40 ELLEN. LXiV. Oh, 'tis a sight to summon angel-swarms [earth Down from their purged home, through threatened And rallied Heaven sounding their high alarms Against the ravage of a moral dearth. There lies God's masterpiece, clutched at by harms That maim creation's might and Nature's worth. Men, rouse ye from cold stupor, and be men, That your dear daughters deck no harlot's den. LXV. The tender girl lay there asleep, enfolden In all the magic curves that beauty weaves. Myriad-eved light, as he had ne'er beholden Creature more fair, blazed on her, — as on sheaves In ripening June, — his fiery rapture golden ; And poet gazing, whose thrilled bosom heaves With inspirations from long-wooed ideal, Still deeper draught had drawn from fleshly real. ELLEN. 4j LXVI. More from the dazzlement of inward sight Than that of beams glancing with gHstening glee, Her eyes oped sudden, to behold a bright Majestic woman : — '' You are come for me " — Uttered with faith from a mysterious light. " I am," the lady said benignantly. Her face relucent with those sleeping charms :' Then the sweet girl she folded in her arms. — LXVII. On turf soft sloping to an inland bay, That brought sure messages from far-off ocean, — Or through a whisper of the tidal play. Or moody mutterings of tempestuous motion, — A spot where sunny Spring loves to display His fresh habiliments and annual portion Of green delight, a modest dwelling stood, Unboastful low, and humbly built of wood. 42 ELLEN. LXVIII. The door looked westward, and in the after hours Of the ampler days thence was inhaled the glow Of flushed immensities, when regnant powers Conspire to joy recipient eyes with show Of golden splendency, — one of the showers The spirit on earth is quickened with, the low Necessities of sense to compensate, And foretaste feel of its enfranchised state. LXIX. A place where commune might be lonely held At best advantage with wise Nature's soul. And hearkened to the deep discourse that welled Unceasing from her bosom \ for, the roll Of her munificence unparalleled Well-nigh it was, and so profuse her dole Of broader bounties to the chosen spot. It raised the bliss of contemplation's lot. ELLEN. 43 LXX. Beyond the narrow bay the landscape drew The eye through reaches undulant to hills ; Then to the right brought sudden close the view With treeless rocks high raised on granite sills, Whence morning's breath, sea-scented, sometimes blew [rills Thin masking mists j when the air was still, near Trilled softly to an unpossessed ear ; And when was far away the sun, and clear LXXI. The night, swift stars came down from their high bed To lie upon the bay's inviting breast. A grove of pine-trees redolent so wed Their limbs they were a home and motherly nest For birds that from the ravening snow-rage fled ; And of the north-winds made a near arrest Ere they could strike the lowly house. Old trees Lay around that music drew from summer's breeze. 44 ELLEN. LXXII. Beneath the quiet roof a household dwelt, In home's sweet troth intwined with triple, ties : Grandparents with grandchildren were a belt That smooth embraced in common smiles or sighs What father and dear mother keenly felt. And now, warm sorrow surging in all eyes, On them, the centres, heaviest hung the gloom Of all, that followed each from room to room. LXXIII. 'Twas not the patient sorrow, ashy-hued, Sunk by a death, that sighs internally, And with religious tonic balm imbued. Uplifts the humbled spirit to be free ; But feverish lowness, pale incertitude. The restlessness of toiled anxietv, That gnawed each member of the stricken group. And made their very life-strings writhe and droop, ELLEN. 4^ LXXIV. As though there had been struck a stunning stroke And yet a heavier were about to fall. [awoke The mother's hours were strained with sighs. She From spectral sleep to taste a bitterer gall Each day : grief cradled every word she spoke. A daughter, blandly bright, unwonted tall For fifteen summers, hung about her neck, As she with tears her mother's tears would check. LXXV. The son, but two years older, all alone Would sadly range afar, as though the task Were laid to seek one who was lost and gone. A prattler, six years grown, would weep and ask, " Is sister coming home ?" with puzzled tone. And then in childhood's silver sunshine bask, Feeling with baffled sense the tearful gloom, Unsounded yet the deeps of such a doom. 46 ELL EX. LXXVI. Silent the father sat, — his wonted mood Of voiceful cheerfulness by dark surmise O'ershadowed, — stung by a spiteful buzzing brood Of fancies ruthless, such as tortuous rise. Black swarming, to infect each drop of blood That thrids a wounded heart, his painful eyes Busied with vacancy, or inward bent. As witnesses to some sore grapplement. LXXVII. At times a shudder seized his manly frame, And he would stride across the room, to shake The horror from his fear, which then in flame Of scalding words would burst, that made ail quake With grief:— '^O Ellen! Ellen !—0 thy name It burns me — O my child — my heart will break." His mother then would circle him, in vain Striving to assuage the torment of his brain. ELLEN. 47 LXXVIII. One evening, at the height of such a scene, Was brought a letter. All, between despair And hope, stood still. Swiftly th' envelope's screen With trembling hand the mother rent, to bare The hoped dreaded contents ; then with mother's mien Outcried— "She's safe— she's saved." Upon a chair The father sank, to sob his joy, the others Outweeping theirs around the weeping mother's. LXXIX. The grandsire, more controlled than all the rest, Outgave the riches of the written stores. " Two weeks your child hath lain upon my breast.^ And there for aye should lie, were she not yours. So true, so fair, so pure, I should be blest To keep her ever in my core of cores.'' 'Twas dated from the city near, that is, The great American Metropolis. ^^i ELLEN. LXXX. While they were listening yet, the door was oped : All hearts leapt towards it, and the father rose Paternally, to meet, not what he hoped, But a majestic woman, the repose Of whose large face with glow of love was coped. All quick re-read the letter, and their woes' Relief, in that sweet noble countenance. As warm she met their grateful glistening glance. LXXXI. The father, moving towards her, suing said, In voice o'erladen with affection's store, " My child, my child — where is my child ?" afraid Almost to trust his hope. Through the half-closed door Rushed Ellen, falling on his knees. He laid His heart to hers — and all were on the floor 'Round her, a pile of weeping happiness. Heaven raised the lady's hands the group to bless.