Along the Shore | Page 4

blue heaven. Hovering along,?By mine your shadow led,?"Away!" I shriek, "nor dare to work my new-sprung mercies wrong!"
Still, you are near:?Who can your care withstand??When deep eternity shall look most clear,?Sending bright waves to kiss the trembling land,?My joy shall disappear,--?A flaming torch thrown to the golden sea by your pale hand.
PRIDE: FATE.
Lullaby on the wing?Of my song, O my own!?Soft airs of evening?Join my song's murmuring tone.
Lullaby, O my love!?Close your eyes, lake-like clear;?Lullaby, while above?Wake the stars, with heaven near.
Lullaby, sweet, so still?In arms of death; I alone?Sing lullaby, like a rill,?To your form, cold as a stone.
Lullaby, O my heart!?Sleep in peace, all alone;?Night has come, and your part?For loving is wholly done!
FRANCIE.
I loved a child as we should love?Each other everywhere;?I cared more for his happiness?Than I dreaded my own despair.
An angel asked me to give him?My whole life's dearest cost;?And in adding mine to his treasures?I knew they could never be lost.
To his heart I gave the gold,?Though little my own had known;?To his eyes what tenderness?From youth in mine had grown!
I gave him all my buoyant?Hope for my future years;?I gave him whatever melody?My voice had steeped in tears.
Upon the shore of darkness?His drifted body lies.?He is dead, and I stand beside him,?With his beauty in my eyes.
I am like those withered petals?We see on a winter day,?That gladly gave their color?In the happy summer away.
I am glad I lavished my worthiest?To fashion his greater worth;?Since he will live in heaven,?I shall lie content in the earth.
LOST REALITY.
O soul of life, 't is thee we long to hear,?Thine eyes we seek for, and thy touch we dream;?Lost from our days, thou art a spirit near,--?Life needs thine eloquence, and ways supreme.?More real than we who but a semblance wear,?We see thee not, because thou wilt not seem!
CLOSING CHORDS.
I.
Death's Eloquence.
When I shall go?Into the narrow home that leaves?No room for wringing of the hands and hair,?And feel the pressing of the walls which bear?The heavy sod upon my heart that grieves,?(As the weird earth rolls on),?Then I shall know?What is the power of destiny. But still,?Still while my life, however sad, be mine,?I war with memory, striving to divine?Phantom to-morrows, to outrun the past;?For yet the tears of final, absolute ill?And ruinous knowledge of my fate I shun.?Even as the frail, instinctive weed?Tries, through unending shade, to reach at last?A shining, mellowing, rapture-giving sun;?So in the deed of breathing joy's warm breath,?Fain to succeed,?I, too, in colorless longings, hope till death.
II.
Peace.
An angel spoke with me, and lo, he hoarded?My falling tears to cheer a flower's face!?For, so it seems, in all the heavenly space?A wasted grief was never yet recorded.?Victorious calm those holy tones afforded?Unto my soul, whose outcry, in disgrace,?Changed to low music, leading to the place?Where, though well armed, with futile end awarded,?My past lay dead. "Wars are of earth!" he cried;?"Endurance only breathes immortal air.?Courage eternal, by a world defied,?Still wears the front of patience, smooth and fair."?Are wars so futile, and is courage peace??Take, then, my soul, thus gently thy release!
GRACE.
Ill-wrought life we look at as we die!?Mistaken, selfish, meagre, and unmeet;?So graven on the hearts that cruelly?We have deprived of many an hour sweet:?O ill-wrought life we look at as we die!
O day of God we look at as we die!?Grace, like a river flowing toward our feet;?Wide pardon blowing with the breezes by;?Love telling us bright tales of the Complete;--?While listening, hoping, thanking, lo, we die!
ENDLESS RESOURCE.
New days are dear, and cannot be unloved,?Though in deep grief we mourn, and cling to death;?Who has not known, in living on, a breath?Of infinite joy that has life's rapture proved?
If I have thought that in this rainbow world
The best we see was but a preface given?Of infinite greater tints in heaven,?And life or no, heaven yet would be unfurl'd,--
I did belie the soul-wide joys of earth,
And feelings deep as lights that dwell in seas.?Can heaven itself outlove such depths as these??Live on! Life holds more than we dream of worth!
THE BABY.
Pray, have you heard the news??Sturdy in lungs and thews,?There's a fine baby!?Ring bells of crystal lip,?Wave boughs with blossoming tip;?Think what he may be!
Love cannot love enough,?Winter is never rough?All round such sweetness;?One of a million more?Sent to the glad heart's door?In their completeness!
Such news is never old,?Though in each ear't is told,?As a first birthday.?Welcome, thou ray of light!?In golden prayers bedight,?Sail down thy mirth-way!
A Waltz.
Delicate gayety,?Strains of a violin;?Graceful steps begin--?Roses at her waist!?Clouds of sparkling light,?Whispers of lovers alone?As the couples drift one by one?In the golden sheen of the ball.?Alone in the happy crowd?Each pair glides past each pair;?Delicate strains of an air;?Rainbow gayety:?Pride of the moment throbs,?Smiles, on the youthful cheek,?Fearing no ill-wind's freak,?Warm in the heart of the waltz;--?Moving like melody,?Flowing in light and