THE SLAVE SINGING AT MIDNIGHT. LOUD he sang the Psalm of David! Sang of Israel's victory, Sang of Zion, bright and free. In that hour, when night is calmest, Songs of triumph, and ascriptions, And the voice of his devotion THE QUADROON GIRL. Under the shore his boat was tied, Odours of orange-flowers, and spice, The Planter, under his roof of thatch, He said, "My ship at anchor rides I only wait the evening tides, Before them, with her face upraised, In timid attitude, Like one half curious, half amazed, A Quadroon maiden stood. Her eyes were large, and full of light, No garment she wore save a kirtle bright, And on her lips there played a smile As lights in some cathedral aisle The features of a saint. "The soil is barren,-the farm is old;" The thoughtful Planter said; Then looked upon the Slaver's gold, And then upon the maid. His heart within him was at strife With such accursed gains; For he knew whose passions gave her life, Whose blood ran in her veins. But the voice of nature was too weak; He took the glittering gold! Then pale as death grew the maiden's cheek, Her hands as icy cold. The Slaver led her from the door, He led her by the hand, To be his slave and paramour In a strange and distant land! THE WARNING. BEWARE! The Israelite of old, who tore The lion in his path,-when, poor and blind, He saw the blessed light of heaven no more, Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind In prison, and at last led forth to be A pander to Philistine revelry, Upon the pillars of the temple laid His desperate hands, and in its overthrow Destroyed himself, and with him those who made A cruel mockery of his sightless woe; The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all, There is a poor, blind Samson in this land, Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel, Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, And shake the pillars of this commonweal, Till the vast Temple of our liberties A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies. WHEN descends on the Atlantic Laden with sea-weed from the rocks: From Bermuda's reefs; from edges In some far-off, bright Azore; Surges of San Salvador; From the tumbling surf, that buries The Orkneyan skerries, Answering the hoarse Hebrides; On the desolate, rainy seas; Ever drifting, drifting, drifting Currents of the restless main ; All have found repose again. So when storms of wild emotion Of the poet's soul, ere long In its vastness, Floats some fragment of a song: From the far-off isles enchanted, With the golden fruit of Truth; Gleams Elysian In the tropic clime of Youth; From the strong Will, and the Endeavour That for ever Wrestle with the tides of Fate; From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered, Floating waste and desolate ; Ever drifting, drifting, drifting Currents of the restless heart; Household words, no more depart. THE DAY IS DONE. THE day is done, and the darkness I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Through the corridors of Time. Who, through long days of labour, Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away. AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY. The night is descending; Through clouds like ashes, On village windows That glimmer red. The snow recommences: Mark no longer The road o'er the plain; A funeral train. To the dismal knell; TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK. WELCOME, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside, While the sullen gales of autumn Shake the windows. The ungrateful world Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, |