roots; And earthy odors of the moss and fern; What clear Septembers fade out in a spark! What rare Octobers drop with every coal! Within these costly ashes, dumb and dark, Are hid spring's budding hope, and summer's soul. Pictures far lovelier smoulder in the fire, Visions of friends who walked among these trees, Whose presence, like the free air, could inspire A winged life and boundless sympathies. Eyes with a glow like that in the brown beech, When sunset through its autumn beauty shines; Or the blue gentian's look of silent speech, To heaven appealing as earth's light declines; Voices and steps forever fled away From the familiar glens, the haunted hills, Most pitiful and strange it is to stay Without you in a world your lost love fills. Do you forget us, — under Eden trees, And tints and perfumes of the woodland sod? Dear for your sake the fireside where we sit Watching these sad, bright pictures come and go That waning years are with your memory lit, Is the one lonely comfort that we know. And breath of violets sweet about their Is it all memory? Lo, these forest-boughs Burst on the hearth into fresh leaf and bloom; We watched it glide from the silver sands, | A scar, brought from some well-won field, Where thou wouldst only faint and yield. And all our sunshine grew strangely dark. We know she is safe on the farther side, Where all the ransomed and angels be; Over the river, the mystic river, My childhood's idol is waiting for me. For none return from those quiet shores, Who cross with the boatman cold and pale; We hear the dip of the golden oars, They cross the stream, and are gone for aye; We may not sunder the veil apart, That hides from our vision the gates of day. We only know that their barks no more May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea; Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore, They watch, and beckon, and wait for me. And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold, Is flushing river, and hill, and shore, I shall one day stand by the water cold, And list for the sound of the boatman's oar: I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail; I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand; I shall pass from sight, with the boatman pale, To the better shore of the spirit land; I shall know the loved who have gone before, And joyfully sweet will the meeting be, When over the river, the peaceful river, The Angel of Death shall carry me. ADELAIDE A. PROCTER. JUDGE NOT. JUDGE not; the workings of his brain And of his heart thou canst not see; What looks to thy dim eyes a stain, In God's pure light may only be |