And thou hast been beloved!-it is no dream,
No false mirage for thee, the fervent love.
The rainbow still unreached, the ideal gleam,
That ever seems before, beyond, above,
Far off to shine.
But thou, from all the daughters of the earth
Singled and marked, hast known its home and place;
And the high memory of its holy worth,
To this our life a glory and a grace
For thee hath given.
And art thou not still fondly, truly loved?
Thou art -the love his spirit bore away
Was not for death!-a treasure but removed,
A bright bird parted for a clearer day,—
Thine still in heaven!
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."
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 woe.
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
"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 my 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 spearf
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 sung
Earth's last farewell.
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,
Oh, 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 birthplace! 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,1
But not in one hath grief a share!
No haunting shade from things gone by
May there o'ersweep the unchanging sky.
"In my Father's house there are many mansions."-John xiv.
And they are there, whose long-loved 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,1
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!
THE STRANGER'S HEART.
THE stranger's heart! oh, wound it not!
A yearning anguish is its lot;
In the green shadow of thy tree
The stranger finds no rest with thee.
Thou thinkst the vine's low rustling leaves
Glad music round thy household eaves;
To him that sound hath sorrow's tone-
The stranger's heart is with his own.
Thou thinkst thy children's laughing play
A lovely sight at fall of day;—
Then are the stranger's thoughts oppressed-
His mother's voice comes o'er his breast.
Thou thinkst it sweet when friend with friend Beneath one roof in prayer may blend;
! 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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