O,-fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,
When wood grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn heap, with hearts all in tune, Our chair a broad pumpkin,-our lantern the moon, Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam, In a pumpkin shell coach, with two rats for her team! Then thanks for thy present!-none sweeter or better E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter! Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine, Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine! And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express, Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less, That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow, And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky Golden-tinted and fair as thy own pumpkin pie!
Another hand is beckoning us, Another call is given;
And glows once more with angel steps The path which reaches heaven.
Our young and gentle friend, whose smile Made brighter summer hours, Amid the frosts of autumn time
Has left us with the flowers.
The light of her young life went down, As sinks behind the hill
The glory of a setting star,
Clear, suddenly, and still.
As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed Eternal as the sky;
And like the brook's low song, her voice,- A sound which could not die.
And half we deemed she needed not
The changing of her sphere,
To give to Heaven a Shining One, Who walked an angel here.
The blessing of her quiet life
Fell on us like the dew;
And good thoughts, where her footsteps pressed,
Like fairy blossoms grew.
Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds
Were in her very look;
We read her face, as one who reads A true and holy book.
We miss her in the place of prayer, And by the hearth fire's light; We pause beside her door to hear Once more her sweet "Good-night!" There seems a shadow on the day, Her smile no longer cheers; A dimness on the stars of night, Like eyes that look through tears. Alone unto our Father's will
One thought hath reconciled; That he whose love exceedeth ours Hath taken home his child.
Fold her, O Father! in thine arms, And let her henceforth be A messenger of love between
Our human hearts and thee.
Dear friends, who read the world aright, And in its common forms discern
A beauty and a harmony
The many never learn!
Kindred in soul of him who found
In simple flower and leaf and stone The impulse of the sweetest lays Our Saxon tongue has known,-
Accept this record of a life
As sweet and pure, as calm and good, As a long day of blandest June
In green field and in wood.
How welcome to our ears, long pained By strife of sect and party noise, The brook-like murmur of his song Of nature's simple joys!
The violet by its mossy stone,
The primrose by the river's brim, And chance-sown daffodil, have found Immortal life through him.
The sunrise on his breezy lake,
The rosy tints his sunset brought,
World-seen, are gladdening all the vales And mountain-peaks of thought.
Art builds on sand; the works of pride And human passion change and fall; But that which shares the life of God With him surviveth all.
I shall not soon forget that sight: The glow of autumn's westering day, A hazy warmth, a dreamy light, On Raphael's picture lay.
It was a simple print I saw,
The fair face of a musing boy; Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe Seemed blending with my joy.
There drooped thy more than mortal face, O mother, beautiful and mild! Enfolding in one dear embrace Thy Saviour and thy Child!
Slow passed that vision from my view, But not the lesson which it taught; The soft, calm shadows which it threw Still rested on my thought:
The truth, that painter, bard, and sage, E'en in earth's cold and changeful clime, Plant for their deathless heritage
The fruits and flowers of time.
We shape ourselves the joy or fear Of which the coming life is made, And fill our future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade.
The tissue of the Life to be
We weave with colors all our own, And in the field of Destiny We reap as we have sown.
THE VOICE OF THE READER.
O, sweet as the lapse of water at noon O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree, The sigh of the wind in the woods of June, Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea, Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems To float through the slumbering singer's dreams,
So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone,
Of her in whose features I sometimes look,
As I sit at eve by her side alone,
And we read by turns from the self-same book,
Some tale perhaps of the olden time, Some lover's romance or quaint old rhyme. Then when the story is one of woe,-
Some prisoner's plaint through his dungeon-bar, Her blue eye glistens with tears, and low Her voice sinks down like a moan afar; And I seem to hear that prisoner's wail, And his face looks on me worn and pale.
And when she reads some merrier song, Her voice is glad as an April bird's, And when the tale is of war and wrong,
A trumpet's summons is in her words, And the rush of the hosts I seem to hear, And see the tossing of plume and spear!
Stand still, my soul, in the silent dark I would question thee,
Alone in the shadow drear and stark With God and me!
What, my soul, was thy errand here? Was it mirth or ease,
Or heaping up dust from year to year? "Nay, none of these!"
Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight Whose eye looks still
And steadily on thee through the night: "To do his will!"
What hast thou wrought for Right and Trut] For God and man,
From the golden hours of bright-eyed youth To life's mid span?
Go to, go to !-for thy very self Thy deeds were done :
Thou for fame, the miser for pelf, Your end is one!
And where art thou going, soul of mine? Canst see the end?
And whither this troubled life of thine Evermore doth tend?
The Present, the Present is all thou hast For thy sure possessing;
Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast Till it gives its blessing.
All which is real now remaineth, And fadeth never:
The hand which upholds it now sustaineth The soul forever.
Leaning on Him, make with reverent meekness His own thy will,
And with strength from Him shall thy utter weekness Life's task fulfil.
Then of what is to be, and what is done, Why queriest thou ?
The past and the time to be are one,— And both are NOW!
Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod, And the red pennons of the cardinal flowers Hang motionless upon their upright staves. The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, Confesses it. The locust by the wall Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm. A single hay-cart down the dusty road Creaks slowly with its driver fast asleep On the load's top. Against the neighboring hil Huddled along the stone wall's shady side, The sheep show white, as if a snow-drift still Defied the dog-star. Through the open door A drowsy smell of flowers-gray heliotrope, And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette- Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends To the pervading symphony of peace.
No time is this for hands long overworn To task their strength: and (unto Him be praise Who giveth quietness!) the stress and strain
Of years that did the work of centuries
Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more
Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters
Make glad their nooning underneath the elms
With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,
I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn
The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er Old summer pictures of the quiet hills,
And human life, as quiet, at their feet.
And yet not idly all. A farmer's son,
Proud of field-lore and harvest-craft, and feeling
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