'Strike your flag' the rebel cries, 'It is better to sink than to yield !' With the cheers of our men. Then, like a kraken huge and black, For her dying gasp. Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, Every waft of the air Was a whisper of prayer, Or a dirge for the dead. Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas! Thy flag, that is rent in twain, Shall be one again And without a seam! H. W. Longfellow. CXXIX. KINDRED HEARTS. H, ask not, hope not, thou too much Of sympathy below: Few are the hearts whence one same touch Bids the sweet fountains flow ; Few and by still conflicting powers : Forbidden here to meet. Such ties would make this life of ours Too fair for aught so fleet. It may be, that thy brother's eye A rapture o'er thy soul can bring, The tune, that speaks of other times,— The melody of distant chimes, The sound of waves by night, Yet scorn thou not for this, the true If there be one, that o'er the dead And watched through sickness by thy bed, But for those bonds all perfect made, Like sister flowers of one sweet shade, With the same breeze that bend, For that full bliss of thought allied, Never to mortals given,— Oh, lay thy lovely dreams aside, Or lift them into heaven. F. Hemans. CXXX. WORK WITHOUT HOPE. LL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair-. Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. And hope without an object cannot live. S. T. Coleridge. CXXXI. THE PRODIGAL. O heroism and holiness How hard it is for man to soar, Ah, wasteful woman, she who may How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine, Had made brutes men and men divine. C. Patmore. CXXXII. EVENING IN PARADISE. FROM PARADISE LOST,' BOOK IV. OW came still Evening on, and Twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale : She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw. CXXXIII. J. Milton. OME murmur, when their sky is clear And wholly bright to view, If one small speck of dark appear In their great heaven of blue ; And some with thankful love are filled, One ray of God's good mercy, gild The darkness of their night. In palaces are hearts that ask, And all good things denied: Some rich provision made. R. C. Trench. CXXXIV. THE EVENING BRINGS US HOME. PON the hills the wind is sharp and cold, Among the mists we stumbled, and the rocks The sharp thorns prick us, and our tender feet We have been wounded by the hunter's darts. The darkness gathers. Thro' the gloom no star |