Where couldst thou fix on mortal ground -Now peace the Woman's heart hath found, THE HOMES OF ENGLAND. THE stately Homes of England, The deer across their green-sward bound, And the swan glides past them with the sound The merry Homes of England! What gladsome looks of household love There woman's voice flows forth in song, The blessed Homes of England! Is laid the holy quietness That breathes from Sabbath hours! Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime Floats through their woods at morn; All other sounds, in that still time, Of breeze and leaf are born. 200 OUR DAILY PATHS. The Cottage Homes of England! They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks, The free, fair Homes of England! OUR DAILY PATHS. THERE'S Beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes Can trace it 'midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise; We may find it where a hedgerow showers its blossoms o'er our way, Or a cottage-window sparkles forth in the last red light of day. We may find it where a spring shines clear, beneath an aged tree, With the foxglove o'er the water's glass borne downward by the bee; Or where a swift and sunny gleam on the birchen-stems is thrown, And a soft wind playing parts the leaves, in copses green and lone. We may find it in the winter boughs, as they cross the cold blue sky, While soft on icy pool and stream their pencilled shadows lie, When we look upon their tracery, by the fairy frost-work bound, Whence the flitting redbreast shakes a shower of crystals to the ground. Yes! Beauty dwells in all our paths-but Sorrow too is there; How oft some cloud within us dims the bright still summer air! When we carry our sick hearts abroad amidst the joyous things That through the leafy places glanc'd on many-coloured wings. With shadows from the past we fill the happy woodland shades, And a mournful memory of the dead is with us in the glades; And our dream-like fancies lend the wind an echo's plain tive tone, Of voices, and of melodies, and of silvery laughter gone. But are we free to do e'en thus-to wander as we willBearing sad visions through the grove, and o'er the breezy hill? No! in our daily paths lie cares, that oft-times bind us fast, While from the narrow round we see the golden day fleet past. They hold us from the woodlark's haunts and the violet-dingles back, And from all the lovely sounds and gleams in the shining river's track; They bar us from our heritage of spring-time hope and mirth, And weigh our burdened spirits down with the cumbering dust of earth. 202 THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD. Yet should this be? -Too much, too soon, despondingly we yield! A better lesson we are taught by the lilies of the field! A sweeter by the birds of heaven-which tells us, in their flight, Of One that through the desert air forever guides them right! Shall not this knowledge calm our hearts, and bid vain conflicts cease -Aye, when they commune with themselves in holy hours of peace. And feel that by the lights and clouds through which our pathway lies, By the Beauty and the Grief alike, we are training for the skies! THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD. FORGET them not! tho' now their name Tho' by the hearth its utterance claim Tho' for their sakes this earth no more And shadows, never marked before, And tho' their image dim the sky, Nor, where there love and life went by, They have a breathing influence there, The stream, the ground. Then, tho' the wind an altered tone Oh! fly it not! no fruitless grief Still trace the path which knew thier tread, And call them back, the holy Dead, The holy Dead!-oh! blest we are, That we may name them so, And to their spirits look afar, Blest, that the things they loved on earth, As relics we may hold, Which wake sweet thoughts of parted worth, By springs untold! Blest, that a deep and chastening power Thus o'er our souls is given, If but to bird, or song, or flower, Yet all for Heaven! |