Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed, One sheet of living snow; The smoke above his father's door In gray soft eddyings hung; Yes, honor calls!—with strength like steel Let dusky Indians whine and kneel, An English lad must die. And thus, with eyes that would not shrink, Vain mightiest fleets of iron framed, Who died, as firm as Sparta's king, Because his soul was great. SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE. Light. FROM the quickened womb of the primal gloom Till I wove him a vest for his Ethiop breast And when the broad tent of the firmament Arose on its airy spars, I penciled the hue of its matchless blue, 15* I painted the flowers of the Eden bowers, And mine were the dyes in the sinless eyes Of Eden's virgin queen; And when the fiend's art on the trustful heart Had fastened its mortal spell, In the silvery sphere of the first-born tear To the trembling earth I fell. When the waves that burst o'er the world accurs'd Their work of wrath had sped, And the Ark's lone few, the tried and true, With the wond'rous gleams of my bridal beams, I bade their terrors cease, As I wrote, on the roll of the storm's dark scroll, Like a pall at rest on a senseless breast, Where shepherd swains on the Bethlehem plains When I flashed on their sight the heralds bright Of Heaven's redeeming plan, As they chanted the morn of a Saviour born- Equal favor I show to the lofty and low, On the just and unjust I descend; E'en the blind, whose vain spheres roll in darkness and tears, Feel my smile, the blest smile of a friend. Nay, the flower of the waste by my love is embraced, As the rose in the garden of Kings; At the chrysalis bier of the worm I appear, The desolate Morn, like a mourner forlorn, Till I bid the bright hours chase night from her bowers, And lead the young day to her arms; And when the gay Rover seeks Eve for his lover, I And sinks to her balmy repose, wrap their soft rest by the zephyr-fanned west, In curtains of amber and rose. From my sentinel steep, by the night-brooded deep, I gaze with unslumbering eye, When the cynosure star of the mariner Is blotted from out of the sky; And guided by me through the merciless sea, I waken the flowers in their dew-spangled bowers, And mountain and plain glow with beauty again, Oh, if such the glad worth of my presence to earth, What glories must rest on the home of the blest, Ever bright with the Deity's smile!. WILLIAM PITT PALMER. A Death-Bed. HER suffering ended with the day; Yet lived she at its close, And breathed the long, long night away In statue-like repose. But when the sun, in all his state, Illumed the eastern skies, She passed through glory's morning-gate, And walked in Paradise. JAMES ALDRICH. A Christmas Hymn. Ir was the calm and silent night! And now was queen of land and sea. Held undisturbed their ancient reign, Centuries ago. 'T was in the calm and silent night! His breast with thoughts of boundless sway; What recked the Roman what befell A paltry province far away, Within that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor; Fallen through a half-shut stable-door, Oh, strange indifference! low and high The earth was still, but knew not why; One that shall thrill the world forever! Centuries ago! It is the calm and solemn night! A thousand bells ring out, and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite The darkness, charmed and holy now! The night that erst no name had worn, To it a happy name is given; For in that stable lay, new-born, The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven, Centuries ago! ALFRED DOMMET. The Evy Green. O, A DAINTY plant is the ivy green, That creepeth o'er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. The walls must be crumbled, the stones decayed, To pleasure his dainty whim; And the mouldering dust that years have made Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the ivy green. Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, And a stanch old heart has he! |