Some, for the stormy play
And joy of strife;
And some, to fling away
A weary life;-
But thou, pale sleeper, thou,
With the slight frame,
And the rich locks, whose glow
Death cannot tame;
Only one thought, one power,
Thee could have led,
So, through the tempest's hour,
To lift thy head!
Only the true, the strong,
The love, whose trust
Woman's deep soul too long
Pours on the dust!
And dreams, in their developement, have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They make us what we were not-what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by.
O SPIRIT-LAND! thou land of dreams!
A world thou art of mysterious gleams,
Of startling voices, and sounds at strife,-
A world of the dead in the hues of life.
Like a wizard's magic glass thou art,
When the wavy shadows float by, and part:
Visions of aspects, now loved, now strange,
Glimmering and mingling in ceaseless change.
Thou art like a city of the past,
With its gorgeous halls in fragments cast,
Amidst whose ruins there glide and play
Familiar forms of the world's to-day.
Thou art like the depths where the seas have birth,
Rich with the wealth that is lost from earth,-
All the sere flowers of our days gone by,
And the buried gems in thy bosom lie.
Yes! thou art like those dim sea-caves,
A realm of treasures, a realm of graves!
And the shapes through thy mysteries that come
Are of beauty and terror, of power and woe.
Oh! if the soul immortal be,
Is not its love immortal too?
SEEST thou my home?- 't is where yon woods are waving,
In their dark richness, to the summer air;
Where yon blue stream, a thousand flower-banks laving,
Leads down the hills a vein of light,-'tis there!
'Midst those green wilds how many a fount lies gleaming,
Fringed with the violet, colour'd with the skies! My boyhood's haunt, through days of summer dream
Under young leaves that shook with melodies.
My home! the spirit of its love is breathing
In every wind that plays across my track;
From its white walls the very tendrils wreathing,
Seem with soft links to draw the wanderer back.
There am I loved-there pray'd for-there my mother
Sits by the hearth with meekly thoughtful eye; There my young sisters watch to greet their brother -Soon their glad footsteps down the path will fly.
There, in sweet strains of kindred music blending,
All the home-voices meet at day's decline;
One are those tones, as from one heart ascending,-
There laughs my home-sad stranger! where is thine?
Ask'st thou of mine?-In solemn peace 'tis lying,
Far o'er the deserts and the tombs away;
'Tis where I, too, am loved with love undying,
And fond hearts wait my step-But where are they?
Ask where the earth's departed have their dwelling!
Ask of the clouds, the stars, the trackless air!
I know it not, yet trust the whisper, telling
My lonely heart, that love unchanged is there.
And what is home, and where, but with the loving?
Happy thou art, that so canst gaze on thine!
My spirit feels but, in its weary roving,
That with the dead, where'er they be, is mine.
Go to thy home, rejoicing son and brother!
Bear in fresh gladness to the household scene!
For me, too, watch the sister and the mother,
I well believe-but dark seas roll between.
Wie herrlich die Sonne dort untergeht! da ich noch ein Bube warwar's mein Lieblingsgedanke, wie sie zu leben, wie sie zu sterben!
Like thee to die, thou sun!—My boyhood's dream
Was this; and now my spirit, with thy beam,
Ebbs from a field of victory!—yet the hour
Bears back upon me, with a torrent's power,
Nature's deep longings:-Oh! for some kind eye,
Wherein to meet love's fervent farewell gaze;
Some breast to pillow life's last agony,
Some voice, to speak of hope and brighter days,
Beyond the pass of shadows!-But I go,
I, that have been so loved, go hence alone;
And ye, now gathering round my own hearth's glow,
Sweet friends! it may be that a softer tone,
Even in this moment, with your laughing glee,
Mingles its cadence while you speak of me:
Of me, your soldier, 'midst the mountains lying,
On the red banner of his battles dying,
Far, far away!-and oh! your parting prayer-
Will not his name be fondly murmur'd there?
It will! A blessing on that holy hearth!
Though clouds are darkening to o'ercast its mirth.
Mother! I may not hear thy voice again;
Sisters! ye watch to greet my step in vain;
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