THERE never yet was flower fair in vain,
Let classic poets rhyme it as they will;
The seasons toil that it may blow again,
And summer's heart doth feel its every ill;
Nor is a true soul ever born for naught:
Wherever any such hath lived and died,
There hath been something for true freedom I was the crescent; thou
Some bulwark levelled on the evil side:
Toil on, then, Greatness! thou art in the right,
However narrow souls may call thee wrong:
Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear sight,
And so thou wilt in all the world's erelong :
For worldlings cannot, struggle as they may,
From man's great soul one great thought hideaway.
I THOUGHT our love at full, but I did err;
The silver phantom of the perfect sphere,
Held in its bosom: in one glory now
Our lives united shine, and many a year
Not the sweet moon of bridal only - we
One lustre, ever at the full, shall be :
One pure and rounded light, one planet whole,
One life developed, one completed soul !
For I in thee, and thou in me,
Unite our cloven halves of destiny.
God knew his chosen time.
Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes; I could not He bade me slowly ripen to my prime,
That sorrow in our happy world must be
Love's deepest spokesman and interpreter?
But, as a mother feels her child first stir
Under her heart, so felt I instantly
Deep in my soul another bond to thee
Thrill with that life we saw depart from her;
O mother of our angel child ! twice dear!
Death knits as well as parts, and still, I wis,
Her tender radince shall infold us here,
Even as the light, borne up by inward bliss,
Threads the void glooms of space without a fear,
To print on farthest stars her pitying kiss.
"It was our wedding-day
A month ago," dear heart, I hear you say.
If months, or years, or ages since have passed,
I know not: I have ceased to question Time.
I only know that once there pealed a chime
Of joyous bells, and then I held you fast,
And all stood back, and none my right denied,
And forth we walked the world was free and wide
Before us. Since that day
I count my life: the Past is washed away.
It was no dream, that vow:
It was the voice that woke me from a dream,
A happy dream, I think; but I am waking now,
And drink the splendor of a sun supreme
That turns the mist of former tears to gold.
Within these arms I hold
The fleeting promise, chased so long in vain :
And from my boughs withheld the promised fruit,
Till storm and sun gave vigor to the root.
Secure, O Love! secure
Thy blessing is: I have thee day and night :
Thou art become my blood, my life, my light:
God's mercy thou, and therefore shalt endure.
THE DAY RETURNS, MY BOSOM BURNS.
THE day returns, my bosom burns,
The blissful day we twa did meet;
Though winter wild in tempest toiled,
Ne'er summer sun was half sae sweet.
Than a' the pride that loads the tide,
And crosses o'er the sultry line,-
Than kingly robes, and crowns and globes,
Heaven gave me more; it made thee mine.
While day and night can bring delight,
Or nature aught of pleasure give,
While joys above my mind can move,
For thee and thee alone I live;
When that grim foe of life below
Comes in between to make us part,
The iron hand that breaks our band,
It breaks my bliss, it breaks my heart.
THE POET'S BRIDAL-DAY SONG.
O, MY love 's like the steadfast sun,
Or streams that deepen as they run;
Nor hoary hairs, nor forty years,
Nor moments between sighs and tears, Nor nights of thought, nor days of pain,
Nor dreams of glory dreamed in vain,