HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. HEREAFTER. LOVE, when all these years are silent, vanished quite and laid to rest, Still that love of ours will linger, that great love enrich the earth, - On the violet's purple bosom, I the sheen but you the blossom, Stream on sunset winds, and be the haze with which some hill is wet? Oh, beloved, if ascending, — when we have endowed the world Only this our yearning answers, whereso'er that way defile, Above that low horizon lean, Where Craneneck o'er the woody gloom Lifts her steep mile of apple-bloom: Where Salisbury Sands, in yellow length With the great breaker measures strength; Where Artichoke in shadow slides, Yours is the river-road; and yours PALMISTRY. A LITTLE hand, a fair soft hand No sculptor ever carved from stone A hand as idle and as white Another hand, a tired old hand, For folded, as the winged fly Sleeps in the chrysalis, Within this little palm I see That lovelier hand than this! FANTASIA. WE'RE all alone, we're all alone! The moon and stars are dead and gone: The night's at deep, the wind asleep, And thou and I are all alone! What care have we though life there A FOUR-O'CLOCK. Ан, happy day, refuse to go! Ah, happy day, refuse to go! Ah, happy day, refuse to go! thrush, - call the And have the wilds and waters hush To hear his passion-broken tune, Ah, happy day of happy June! A SNOWDROP. ONLY a tender little thing, So velvet soft and white it is; But March himself is not so strong, With all the great gales that are his. In vain his whistling storms he calls, In vain the cohorts of his power Ride down the sky on mighty blasts He cannot crush the little flower. Its white spear parts the sod, the snows Than that white spear less snowy are, The rains roll off its crest like spray, It lifts again its spotless star. Blow, blow, dark March! To meet you here, Thrust upward from the central gloom, The stellar force of the old earth Pulses to life in this slight bloom. MY OWN SONG. OH, glad am I that I was born! Carries the soul from height to height! To me, as to the child that sings, The bird that claps his rain-washed wings, [dower, The breeze that curls the sun-tipped Comes some new joy with each new hour. Joy in the beauty of the earth, In which I live and breathe and move! I shall explore that vasty deep For joy attunes all beating things, Oh, glad am I that I was born! MEASURE FOR MEASURE. WHAT love do I bring you? The earth, Full of love, were far lighter; The great hollow sky, full of love, Something slighter. Earth full and heaven full were less Than the full measure given; Nay, say a heart full, - the heart Holds earth and heaven! CHARLES SPRAGUE. ODE ON ART. WHEN, from the sacred garden driven, Man fled before his Maker's wrath, An angel left her place in heaven, And crossed the wanderer's sunless path, "Twas Art! sweet Art! new radiance broke Where her light foot flew o'er the ground, And thus, with seraph voice she spoke "The Curse a blessing shall be found." With thoughts that swell his glowing soul, He bids the ore illume the page, And, proudly scorning Time's control, Commerces with an unborn age. In fields of air he writes his name, And treads the chambers of the sky; He reads the stars, and grasps the flame That quivers round the Throne on high, In war renowned, in peace sublime, He moves in greatness and in grace; She led him through the trackless His power, subduing space and time, wild, Links realm to realm and race to |