They loved, but the story we can- 'Tis the wink of an eye; 't is the not unfold; draught of a breath They scorned, - but the heart of the From the blossom of health to the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come; They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud; Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? MARIE R. LACOSTE. SOMEBODY'S DARLING. INTO a ward of the whitewashed | Back from his beautiful, blue-veined brow, Brush all the wandering waves of gold, Cross his hands on his bosom now, Somebody's darling is still and cold. Kiss him once for somebody's sake, Murmur a prayer soft and low; One bright curl from its fair mates take, They were somebody's pride, you know: Somebody's hand has rested there,Was it a mother's soft and white? And have the lips of a sister fair Been baptized in those waves of light? OFT have I walked these woodland SWEET winter roses, stainless as the paths, Without the blest foreknowing That underneath the withered leaves The fairest buds were growing. To-day the south-wind sweeps away The types of autumn's splendor, And shows the sweet arbutus flowers, Spring's children, pure and tender. A cross of lilies that our tears bedew, A garland of the fairest flowers that grow, And filled with fragrance as the thought of thee, We lay, with loving hand, upon thy breast, Wrapt in the calm of Death's great mystery; with lips of Ours still to feel the pain, the unlanguaged woe, Outvying in your beauty The pearly tints of ocean shells,Ye teach me faith and duty! "Walk life's dark ways," ye seem to say, "With love's divine foreknowing, That where man sees but withered leaves, God sees sweet flowers growing." The bitter sense of loss, the vague Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood. Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,. HESTER. WHEN maidens such as Hester die, Their place ye may not well supply, Though ye among a thousand try, With vain endeavor. A month or more has she been dead, A springy motion in her gait, I know not by what name beside Her parents held the Quaker rule, Which doth the human feelings cool; But she was trained in nature's school, Nature had blessed her. A waking eye, a prying mind, Ye could not Hester. My sprightly neighbor, gone before Seeking to find the old familiar To that unknown and silent shore! faces. Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces! Shall we not meet as heretofore Some summer morning; When from thy cheerful eyes a ray Peeps out, -and if there comes a Himself he boards and lodges; both shower of rain, Retreats to his small invites domicile And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o' nights. again. Touch but a tip of him, a horn,-'tis well, He curls up in his sanctuary shell. He's his own landlord, his own tenant; stay Long as he will, he dreads no quarter-day. LÆTITIA ELIZABETH LANDON. SUCCESS ALONE SEEN. Hard are life's early steps; and, but that youth FEW know of life's beginnings-Is buoyant, confident, and strong in men behold The goal achieved; when his sword the warrior, Flashes red triumph in the noonday sun; The poet, when his lyre hangs on the palm; The statesman, when the crowd proclaim his voice, And mould opinion on his gifted tongue: They count not life's first steps, and never think Upon the many miserable hours When hope deferred was sickness to the heart. They reckon not the battle and the march, The long privations of a wasted youth; They never see the banner till unfurled. What are to them the solitary nights Passed pale and anxiously by the sickly lamp, Till the young poet wins the world at last To listen to the music long his own? The crowd attend the statesman's fiery mind That makes their destiny; but they do not trace Its struggle, or its long expectancy. hope, Men would behold its threshold, and despair. |