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Oft in their meek blue light enshrined,
A blessing seems to be,

And sometimes there my wayward mind
A still reproach can see:

And sometimes Pity-soft and deep,

And quivering through a tear;
Even as if Love in Heaven could weep,
For Grief left drooping here.

And oh my spirit needs that balm,
Needs it 'midst fitful mirth;
"And in the night-hour's haunted calm,
And by the lonely hearth.

Look on me thus, when hollow praise
Hath made the weary pine

For one true tone of other days,

One glance of love like thine!

Look on me thus, when sudden glee
Bears my quick heart along,
On wings that struggle to be free,
As bursts of skylark song.

In vain, in vain!-too soon are felt
The wounds they can not flee;
Better in childlike tears to melt,
Pouring my soul on thee!

Sweet face, that o'er my childhood shone,
Whence is thy power of change,

Thus ever shadowing back my own,
The rapid and the strange?

Wakes in my soul a feeling too prfoound,
Too strong for aught that loves and dies, to bear-
Oh! bid the conflict cease!

I hear thy whisper-and the warm tears gush
Into mine eyes, the quick pulse thrills my heart:
Thou bid'st the peace, the reverential hush,
The still submission, from my thoughts depart;
Dear one! this must not be.

The past looks on me from thy mournful eye,
The beauty of our free and vernal days;
Our communings with sea, and hill, and sky
Oh! take that bright world from my spirit's gaze!
Thou art all earth to me!

Shut out the sunshine from my dying room, The jasmine's breath, the murmur of the bee; Let not the joy of bird-notes pierce the gloom! They speak of love, of summer, and of thee, Too much-and death is here!

Doth our own spring make happy music now,
From the old beech-roots flashing into day?
Are the pure lilies imaged in its flow?
Alas! vain thoughts! that fondly thus can stray
From the dread hour so near!

If I could but draw courage from the light
Of thy clear eye, that ever shone to bless!
-Not now ! 'twill not be now!-my aching sight
Drinks from that fount a flood of tenderness,
Bearing all strength away!

Whence are they charmed—those earnest eyes? Leave me!-thou com'st between my heart and

-I know the mystery well!

In mine own trembling bosom lies

The spirit of the spell!

Of Memory, Conscience, Love, 'tis born

Oh! change no longer, thou!

For ever be the blessing worn

Heaven!

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But thou, my friend, my brother!

Thou 'rt speeding to the shore Where the dirgelike tone of parting words Shall smite the soul no more! And thou wilt see our holy dead; The lost on earth and main; Into the sheaf of kindred hearts, Thou wilt be bound again!

Tell, then, our friend of boyhood,

That yet his name is heard

On the blue mountains, whence his youth
Passed like a swift bright bird.
The light of his exulting brow,
The vision of his glee,

Are on me still-Oh! still I trust
That smile again to see.

And tell our fair young sister,

The rose cut down in spring, That yet my gushing soul is filled

With lays she loved to sing.

Her soft, deep eyes look through my dreams,
Tender and sadly sweet;-

Tell her my heart within me burns
Once more that gaze to meet !

And tell our white-haired father,
That in the paths he trode,
The child he loved, the last on earth,
Yet walks and worships God.
Say, that his last fond blessing yet

Rests on my soul like dew,
And by its hallowing might I trust
Once more his face to view.

And tell our gentle mother,

That on her grave I pour The sorrows of my spirit forth,

As on her breast of yore. Happy thou art that soon, how soon, Our good and bright will see!Oh! brother, brother! may I dwell, Ere long, with them and thee!

'Midst those green wilds how many a fount lies gleaming

Fringed with the violet, coloured with the skies! My boyhood's haunt, through days of summer dreaming,

Under young leaves that shook with melodies.

My home! the spirit of its love is breathing
In every wind that plays across my track;
From its white walls the very tendrils wreathing
Seem with soft links to draw the wanderer back.

There am I loved-there prayed for-there my

mother

Sits by the hearth with meekly thoughtful eye; There my young sisters watch to greet their brother

-Soon their glad footsteps down the path will fly.

There, in sweet strains of kindred music blending, All the home-voices meet at day's decline;

One are those tones, as from one heart ascending,There laughs my home-sad stranger! where is thine?

Ask'st thou of mine ?-In solemn peace 'tis lying, Far o'er the deserts and the tombs away;

T is where I, too, am loved with love undying, And fond hearts wait my step-But where are they?

Ask where the earth's departed have their dwell ing!

Ask of the clouds, the stars, the trackless air!
I know it not, yet trust the whisper, telling
My lonely heart, that love unchanged is there.

And what is home, and where, but with the lov. ing?

Happy thou art, that so canst gaze on thine!
My spirit feels but, in its weary roving,
That with the dead, where'er they be, is mine.

Go to thy home, rejoicing son and brother!
Bear in fresh gladness to the household scene!
For me, too, watch the sister and the mother,
I well believe-but dark seas roll between.

THE TWO HOMES.

Oh! if the soul immortal be,

Is not its love immortal too?

SEEST thou my home!-'tis where yon woods are waving,

In their dark richness, to the summer air; Where yon blue stream, a thousand flower-banks laving,

THE SOLDIER'S DEATH-BED.

Wie herrlich die Sonne dort untergeht! da ich noch ein Bube war-war's mein Lieblingsgedanke, wie sie zu leben, wie sie zu sterben!

Die Rauber.

Like thee to die, thou sun!-My boyhood's dreamn
Was this; and now my spirit, with thy beam,
Ebbs from a field of victory!-yet the hour

Leads down the hills a vein of light,-'tis there! Bears back upon me, with a terrent's power,

Nature's deep longings:-Oh! for some kind eye,
Wherein to meet love's fervent farewell gaze;
Some breast to pillow life's last agony,
Some voice, to speak of hope and brighter days,
Beyond the pass of shadows!-But I go,
I, that have been so loved, go hence alone;
And ye, now gathering round my own hearth's
glow,

Sweet friends! it may be that a softer tone,
Even in this moment, with your laughing glee,
Mingles its cadence while you speak of me:
Of me, your soldier, 'midst the mountains lying,
On the red banner of his battles dying,
Far, far away!--and oh! your parting prayer-
Will not his name be fondly murmured there?
It will!-A blessing on that holy hearth!
Though clouds are darkening to o'ercast its mirth.
Mother! I may not hear thy voice again;
Sisters! ye watch to greet my step in vain;
Young brother, fare thee well!-on each dear head
Blessing and love a thousandfold be shed,
My soul's last earthly breathings!-May your
home

Smile for you ever!-May no winter come,
No world between your hearts! May ev'n your

tears

For my sake, full of long-remembered years,
Quicken the true affections that entwine
Your lives in one bright bond!-I may not sleep
Amidst our fathers, where those tears might shine
Over my slumbers; yet your love will keep
My memory living in the ancestral halls,
Where shame hath never trod:-the dark night
falls,

And I depart.-The brave are gone to rest,
'The brothers of my combats, on the breast
Of the red field they reaped :—their work is done-
Thou, too, art set!-farewell, farewell, thou sun!
The last lone watcher of the bloody sod,
Offers a trusting spirit up to God.

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THE LAND OF DREAMS.

And dreams, in their development, have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They make us what we were not-what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by.

Byron.

O SPIRIT-LAND! thou land of dreams! A world thou art of mysterious gleams, Of startling voices, and sounds at strife,A world of the dead in the hues of life.

Like a wizard's magic glass thou art,
When the wavy shadows float by, and part:
Visions of aspects, now loved, now strange,
Glimmering and mingling in ceaseless change.

Thou art like a city of the past,

With its gorgeous halls into fragments cast,
Amidst whose ruins there glide and play
Familiar forms of the world's to-day.

Thou art like the depths where the seas have birth,
Rich with the wealth that is lost from earth,-
All the sere flowers of our days gone by,
And the buried gems in thy bosom lie.

Yes! thou art like those dim sea-caves,

A realm of treasures, a realm of graves!

And the shapes through thy mysteries that come

and go,

Are of beauty and terror, of power and wo.

But for me, O thou picture-land of sleep!
Thou art all one world of affections deep,-
And wrung from my heart is each flushing dye,
That sweeps o'er thy chambers of imagery.

And thy bowers are fair-even as Eden fair
All the beloved of my soul are there!
The forms my spirit most pines to see,
The eyes, whose love hath been life to me:

They are there, and each blessed voice I hear,
Kindly, and joyous, and silvery clear;
But under-tones are in each, that say,-
"It is but a dream; it will melt away!"

I walk with sweet friends in the sunset's glow; I listen to music of long ago;

But one thought, like an omen, breathes faint

through the lay,

"It is but a dream; it will melt away!"

I sit by the hearth of my early days;
All the home-faces are met by the blaze,—
And the eyes of the mother shine soft, yet say,
"It is but a dream; it will melt away!"

And away, like a flower's passing breath, 'tis gone.
And I wake more sadly, more deeply lone!
Oh! a haunted heart is a weight to bear,-
Bright faces, kind voices! where are ye, where?

Shadow not forth, O thou land of dreams,
The past, as it fled by my own blue streams!
Make not my spirit within me burn

For the scenes and the hours that may ne'er return!

Call out from the future thy visions bright,
From the world o'er the grave, take thy solemn
light,

And oh! with the loved, whom no more I see,
Show me my home, as it yet may be!

As it yet may be, in some purer sphere,
No cloud, no parting, no sleepless fear;
So my soul may bear on through the long, long
day,

Till I go where the beautiful melts not away!

WOMAN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE.

Where hath not woman stood, Strong in affection's might? a reed, upborne By an o'ermastering current!

GENTLE and lovely form,

What didst thou here,
When the fierce battle-storm
Bore down the spear?

Banner and shivered crest,
Beside thee strown,
Tell that amidst the best,
Thy work was done!

Yet strangely, sadly fair,

O'er the wild scene,
Gleams, through its golden hair,
That brow serene.

Low lies the stately head,-
Earth-bound the free;
How gave those haughty dead
• A place to thee?

Slumberer! thine early bier

Friends should have crowned,
Many a flower and tear
Shedding around.

Soft voices clear and young,
Mingling their swell,
Should o'er thy dust have surg
Earth's last farewell.

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And the swift charger sweep,

In full career, Trampling thy place of sleep,Why camest thou here?

Why?-ask the true heart why

Woman hath been

Ever, where brave men die,
Unshrinking seen?

Unto this harvest ground

Proud reapers came,—

Some, for that stirring sound

A warrior's name;

Some, for the stormy play

And joy of strife;— And some, to fling away A weary life:

But thou, pale sleeper, thou,

With the slight frame,

And the rich locks, whose glow
Death can not tame;

Only one thought, one power,
Thee could have led,

So, through the tempest's hour,
To lift thy head!

Only the true, the strong,
The love, whose trust
Woman's deep soul too long
Pours on the dust!

THE DESERTED HOUSE. GLOOM is upon thy lonely hearth, O silent house! once filled with mirth; Sorrow is in the breezy sound, Of thy tall poplars whispering round.

The shadow of departed hours Hangs dim upon thine early flowers; Even in thy sunshine seems to brood Something more deep than solitude.

Fair art thou, fair to a stranger's gaze, Mine own sweet home of other days! My children's birth place! yet for me, It is too much to look on thee.

Too much! for all about thee spread,
I feel the memory of the dead,
And almost linger for the feet
That never more my step shall meet.

The looks, the smiles, all vanished now,
Follow me where thy roses blow;
The echoes of kind household words
Are with me 'midst thy singing birds.

Till my heart dies, it dies away
In yearnings for what might not stay;
For love which ne'er deceived my trust,
For all which went with "dust to dust!"

What now is left me, but to raise
From thee, lorn spot! my spirit's gaze
To lift, through tears, my straining eye
Up to my Father's house on high?

Oh! many are the mansions there,*
But not in one hath grief a share!
No haunting shade from things gone by,
May there o'ersweep the unchanging sky.

And they are there, whose long-ved mien
In earthly home no more is seen;
Whose places, where they smiling sate,
Are left unto us desolate.

We miss them when the board is spread; We miss them when the prayer is said ; Upon our dreams their dying eyes

In still and mournful fondness rise.

But they are where these longings vain
Trouble no more the heart and brain;
The sadness of this aching love
Dims not our Father's house above.

Ye are at rest, and I in tears,t
Ye dwellers of immortal spheres!
Under the poplar boughs I stand,
And mourn the broken household band.

But, by your life of lowly faith,
And by your joyful hope in death,
Guide me, till on some brighter shore,
The severed wreath is bound once more!"

Holy ye were, and good, and true!
No change can cloud my thoughts of you;
Guide me, like you, to live and die,
And reach my Father's house on high!

In my Father's house there are many mansions.
John, chap. xtv.

↑ From an ancient Hebrew dirge:

"Mourn for the mourner, and not for the dead, For he is at rest, and we in. tears!"

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