LETITIA E. LANDON. Perlaps he's come to worship her: Advancing stepless, quick, and still, Then terrifies with dreadful strides: He fights with all the forms of peace; He comes about her like a mist, With subtle, swift, unseen increase; Ere she can cry, or get her breath. All people speak of him with praise: It nearly makes her heart his own. Is taught its scope by his respects. Ah, whither shall a maiden flee, With hope perseverant, still renews! She makes it more, with bashful art, The gallant credit he accords To all the signs of good in her, Now she through him is so much more! At all his words and sighs perceived It must not be believed or thought THE LOVER. He meets, by heavenly chance express, Which others cannot understand. To match the promise in her eyes, And round her happy footsteps blow The authentic airs of Paradise. The least is well, yet nothing's light In all the lover does; for he Will do all things with dignity. Her virtue all virtue so endears, LETITIA E. LANDON. THE SHEPHERD-BOY. Of far other time, Or art thou complaining Of thy lowly lot, Dost ask what thou hast not? I tell ye, banks of Krumley, ALICE CAREY. "T is not your sunny days The flowers that love her crowd to bloom O dim and dewy Krumley, O bold, bold winds of Krumley, O flower and bird, O wave and wind, The illuminated air, The pleasure after prayer, Proclaim the unoriginated Power! The mystery that hides him here and there. Bears the sure witness he is everywhere. HER LAST POEM. EARTH with its dark and dreadful ills, Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills; My soul is full of whispered song, My pulses faint and fainter beat, The faith to me a courage gives. I know that my Redeemer lives, - The palace walls I almost see Sang in the wild insanity of glee; And seemed, in the same lays, Calling his mate and uttering songs of praise. The golden grasshopper did chirp and sing; As if she understood To the Creator lift a smiling face, So with a book of sermons, plain and true, Hid in my heart, where I might turn them through, I went home softly, through the falling dew, Still listening, rapt and calm, To Nature giving out her evening psalm. While, far along the west, mine eyes discerned, Where, lit by God, the fires of sunset burned, The tree-tops, unconsumed, to flame were turned; And I, in that great hush, Talked with His angels in each burning bush! NEARER HOME. ONE Sweetly welcome thought, Than I've ever been before; Where the many mansions be; Nearer the Great White Throne, Nearer the Jasper Sea; Nearer that bound of life, Where we lay our burdens down, — Nearer leaving the cross, Nearer gaining the crown. But lying dimly between, Winding down through the night, Lies the dark and uncertain stream That leads us at length to the light. SYDNEY DOBELL. Let me feel as I shall, when I stand Feel as I would, were my feet Even now slipping over the brink, — For it may be I am nearer home, Nearer now, than I think! PEACE. O LAND, of every land the best,— Take from your flag its fold of gloom, And let it float undimmed above, Till over all our vales shall bloom The sacred colors that we love. On mountain high, in valley low, A redder glory than the morn. Welcome, with shouts of joy and pride, And shed no tear, though think you must With sorrow of the martyred band; Not even for him whose hallowed dust Has made our prairies holy land. Though by the places where they fell, The places that are sacred ground, Death, like a sullen sentinel, Paces his everlasting round. Yet when they set their country free, And gave her traitors fitting doom, They left their last great enemy, Baffled, beside an empty tomb. 257 Not there, but risen, redeemed, they go Where all the paths are sweet with flowers; They fought to give us peace, and lo! They gained a better peace than ours. SYDNEY DOBELL. KEITH OF RAVELSTON. O HAPPY, happy maid, In the year of war and death She wears no sorrow! By her face so young and fair, By the happy wreath That rules her happy hair, She might be a bride to-morrow! She sits and sings within her moonlit bower, Her moonlit bower in rosy June, Moves from her moving lips in many a mournful tune! She sings no song of love's despair, No fond peculiar grief Has ever touched or bud or leaf Of her unblighted spring. She sings because she needs must sing; The murmur of the mourning ghost "O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line!" Ravelston, Ravelston, The merry path that leads Down the golden morning hill, And through the silver meads; Ravelston, Ravelston, The stile beneath the trec, |