Why should he leave me thus?—He once was kind: And I believed 'twould last!-How mad!-How blind! Rest thee, babe !-Rest on !-'Tis hunger's cry! The wave will roll with sparkling, foamy play To-morrow on the shining, sun-bright shore: But to the homes so happy yesterday Will come no tidings of their loved ones more. We sometimes feel a storm that hovers near, Hush! 'tis the dice-box! Yes? he's there! he's there! And turn to pray-"Thy vengeance be not here." For this for this he leaves me to despair! Leaves love! leaves truth! his wife! his child! For what? The wanton's smile-the villain-and the sot! Yet I'll not curse him. No! 'tis all in vain! 'Tis long to wait, but sure he'll come again! And I could starve and bless him but for you, My child!-His child! Oh, fiend!-The clock strikes two. Hark! How the sign-board creaks! The blasts howl by. Moan! moan! A dirge swells through the cloudy sky! Ha! 'tis his knock!-he comes!-he comes once more ! 'Tis but the lattice flaps! Thy hope is o'er. Can he desert me thus! He knows I stay Nestle more closely, dear one, to my heart! Husband! I die!-Father! it is not he! Oh, God! protect my child!-The clock strikes three. ONLY A YEAR. NE year ago a ringing voice, And clustering curls of sunny hair, Only a year no voice, no smile, No clustering curls of golden hair, One year ago-what loves, what schemes Far into life! What joyous hopes, what high resolves, The silent picture on the wall, Of all that beauty, life and joy, One year-one year, one little year, And so much gone! And yet the even flow of life Moves calmly on. The grave grows green, the flowers bloom fair No sorrowing tint of leaf or spray No pause or lush of merry birds Tell us how coldly sleeps below The form we love. Where hast thou been this year, beloved? What visions fair, what glorious life, The veil the veil! so thin, so strong Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone, And waiting for the coming hour RETROSPECTION EARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the under world; Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the vergeSo sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret— O death in life, the days that are no more. ALFRED TENNYSON. She still was young, and she had been fair ; They were sailing over the salt sea-foam, She could not weep, and she could not pray, She called me once to her sleeping-place, I saw the fields of the golden grain, I heard the reaper's harvest strain; There stood on the hills the green pine-tree, But I stopped, methought, by mine own sweet home. The Bible lay open upon his knee, But he closed the book to welcome me. And give it my father, and tell him my prayer, Upon the deck a coffin lay; Next day They raised it up, and like a dirge The heavy gale swept over the surge; THE DREAMER. From "Poems by a Seamstress.' OT in the laughing bowers, Where by green swinging elms a pleasant shade At summer's noon is made, And where swift-footed hours Steal the rich breath of enamored flowers, Not on a couch of ease, With all the appliances of joy at hand- But where the incessant din While the long summer day is pouring in, And yet I dream— Dream what, were men more just, I might have been ; And yet I dream— I, the despised of fortnne, lift mine eyes, Nor swell the tide of human misery! And yet I dream Dream of a sleep where dreams no more shall come, LOSSES. PON the white sea-sand There sat a pilgrim band, What a jolting and creaking and splashing and din! The whip, how it cracks; and the wheels, how they spin! How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled! Telling the losses that their lives had known; The pauper at length makes a noise in the world! While evening waned away From breezy cliff and bay, And the strong tides went out with weary moan. One spake, with quivering lip, With all his household to the deep gone down ; For a fair face, long ago Lost in the darker depths of a great town. There were who mourned their youth For its brave hopes and memories ever green; Turned an eye that would not rest, For far-off hills whereon its joy had been. Some talked of vanished gold, Some of proud honors told, "Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!" Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!" You bumpkins! who stare at your brother conveyed, Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid! And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low You've a chance to the grave like a "gemman" to go! "Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!" But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad, To think that a heart in humanity, clad Some spake of friends that were their trust no more; Should make, like the brute, such a desolate end, And one of a green grave Beside a foreign wave, That made him sit so lonely on the shore. But when their tales were done, There spake among them one, A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free: "Sad losses have ye met, But mine is heavier yet; For a believing heart hath gone from me." "Alas!" these pilgrims said, "For the living and the dead For fortune's cruelty, for love's sure cross, But, however it came to thee, Thine, stranger, is life's last and heaviest loss."' And depart from the light without leaving a friend! "Bear soft his bones over the stones! Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet owns !" THOMAS NOEL. FRANCES BROWN. THE PAUPER'S DRIVE. 'HERE'S a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly Here on the plains and mountains, far to the open round trot To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot; The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs; And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings : "Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!" O, where are the mourners? Alas! there are none; He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!" west: Look at those snow-capped summits-waves of an endless sea; Look at yon billowed prairie, boundless as grand and free. Ah! we have found our quarry! yonder within the bush! Empty your carbines at them, then follow me with a rush! Down with the desperadoes! Ours is the cause of right! Though they should slash like demons, still we must gain the fight! Pretty hot work, McGregor, but we have gained the day. What? Have we lost their leader? Can he have sneaked away? There he goes in the chaparral! He'll reach it now in a bound! Give me that rifle, Parker! I'll bring him down to the ground. There, I knew I could drop him; that little piece of lead Sped straight on to its duty. The last of the gang is dead. He was a handsome fellow, plucky and fearless, too; Pity such men are devils, preying on those more true. What have found in his pockets? Papers? Let's take a look. "Ceorge Walgrave" stamped on the cover? Why, that is my brother's book; The deeds and the papers also, and letters received from me; He must have met these demons. Been murdered and robbed, you see. And I have been his avenger! It is years since last we met. We loved each other dearly, and Walgraves never forget. If my voice is broken, excuse me. fines my breath Somehow it con Let me look on the face of that demon who dogged poor George to his death! Good God! It is he; my brother! killed by my own strong hand! He is no bandit leader! This is no robber band! What a mad, murderous blunder! Friends, who thought they were foes. Seven men dead on the prairie, and seven homes flooded with woes. And to think that I should have done it! When ere many suns should set, I hoped to embrace my brother-and this is the way we've met! He with his dead eyes gazing up to the distant sky, And I his murderer, standing, living and unharmed, by! Well, his fate is the best one! Mine, to behold his corse Haunting my life forever; doomed to a vain remorse. How shall I bear its shadows? How could this strange thing be? O my brother and playmate! Would I had died for thee! Pardon my weak emotion. Bury them here my friends; Here, where the green plumed willow over the prairie bends. One more tragedy finished in the romance of strife, Passing like sombre shadows over this frontier life. J. EDGAR JONES. Some one spoke as I reached the gate, (He was Charlie's grown-up brother), "Wait!" he said in a whisper, "wait! We must break it to his mother!" |