FLORENCE SMITH. [From Rainbow-Songs.] THE PURPLE OF THE POET. PURPLE, the passionate color! The sea lies gleaming before me, Throbbing and yearning forever, With longing unsatisfied, sweet Flushed with the pain and the rapture, Warm at the sun-god's feet In the glow and gloom of the evening The glory is reached- and o'erpast; Joy's rose-bloom has ripened to purple "Twill fade, but the stars shine at last! SOMEBODY OLDER. How pleasant it is that always There's somebody older than you Some one to pet and caress you, Some one to scold you too! Some one to call you a baby, To laugh at you when you're wise; Some one to care when you're sorry, To kiss the tears from your eyes. When life has begun to be weary, The path cannot be so lonely, For some one has trod it before; The golden gates are the nearer, That some one stands at the door! - I can think of nothing sadder Than to feel, when days are few, There's nobody left to lean on, Nobody older than you! The younger ones may be tender To the feeble steps and slow; But they can't talk the old times over Alas! how should they know! UNREQUITING. CANNOT love thee, but I hold thee dearThou must not stay I cannot bid thee go! I am so lonely, and the end draws near Ah, love me still, but do not tell me so! Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly Before the uprisen sun- God's lidless eye[holy Throw from your chalices a sweet and Incense on high! Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty The floor of Nature's temple tessellate, What numerous emblems of instructive duty Your forms create! 'Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that swingeth And tolls its perfume on the passing air, Makes sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer. Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column Attest the feebleness of mortal hand, But to that fane, most catholic and solemn, Which God hath planned; To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply Its choir, the winds and waves; its organ, thunder, There Its dome the sky. as in solitude and shade I wander Through the green aisles, or, stretched upon the sod, Awed by the silence, reverently pon der By oath to tell the secret of thy trade Then say what secret melody was hidden In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played; Perhaps thou wert a priest - if so, my struggles Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles. Perhaps that very hand, now pinioned flat, Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass; AND thou hast walked about, (how Or dropped a half-penny in Homer's Or held, by Solomon's own invitation, A torch at the great Temple's dedication. I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed, Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled; For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed, Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled; Antiquity appears to have begun Long after thy primeval race was run. Thou could'st develop - if that withered tongue Might tell us what those sightless A heart has throbbed beneath that dead! Imperishable type of evanescence! Posthumous man, who quit' st thy narrow bed, And standest undecayed within our presence! Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning, When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning. Why should this worthless tegument endure, If its undying guest be lost forever? Oh! let us keep the soul embalmed and pure In living virtue must sever, that when both Although corruption may our frame consume, The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom! |