Along the Shore | Page 2

Shape so ghost-like by the sun,
With smiles that chill as dusks
descend!
The glancing wizard, stern and pale,
Admits the presence
of the End.
Health has forsaken, death is near,
The hand moves slower, eyes
grow dim;
The End approaches, and the man
Dreams of no spell for
quelling Him.
LIFE'S PRIESTESS.
All to herself a woman never sings
A happy song. Oh no! but it is so

As when the thrush has closed down his wings
Within the wood,
and hears his hidden woe
From his own bill fill aisles of leaves, and
go
About the wood and come to him again.
LOVE NOW.
The sanctity that is about the dead
To make us love them more than
late, when here,
Is not it well to find the living dear
With sanctity
like this, ere they have fled?
The tender thoughts we nurture for a loss
Of mother, friend, or child,
oh! it were wise
To spend this glory on the earnest eyes,
The
longing heart, that feel life's present cross.
Give also mercy to the living here
Whose keen-strung souls will
quiver at your touch;
The utmost reverence is not too much
For
eyes that weep, although the lips may sneer.
ONE AND ONE.
The thanking heart can only silence keep;
The breaking heart can

only die alone:
Our happy love above abysses deep
Of unguessed
power hovers, and is gone!
Come, take my hand, O friend I take for life!
You cannot reach my
soul through touch or gaze;
Be our full lips with infinite meanings
rife:
The longed-for words, which of us ever says?
THE VIOLIN.
Touch gently, friend, and slow, the violin, So sweet and low, That my
dreaming senses may be beckoned so
Into a rest as deep as the long
past "years ago!"
So softly, then, begin;
And ever gently touch the violin,
Until an impulse grows of a sudden,
like wind
On the brow of the earth,
And the voice of your violin
shows its wide-swung girth
With a crash of the strings and a medley
of rage and mirth; And my rested senses spring
Like juice from a
broken rind,
And the joys that your melodies bring
I know worth a
life-time to win,
As you waken to love and this hour your violin!
GERTRUDE.
[In Memory: 1877.]
What shall I say, my friend, my own heart healing,
When for my love
you cannot answer me?
This earth would quake, alas! might I but see

You smile, death's rigorous law repealing!
Pale lips, your mystery
so well concealing,
May not the eloquent, varied minstrelsy
Of my
inspired ardor potent be
To touch your chords to music's uttered
feeling?
Friend, here you cherished flowers: send me now
One
ghostly bloom to prove that you are blessed.
No? If denial such as
brands my brow
Be in your heavenly regions, too, confessed,
Oh
may it prove the truth that your still eyes
Foresee the end of all
futurities!
UNITY IN SPACE.

Take me away into a storm of snow
So white and soft, I feel no
deathly chill,
But listen to the murmuring overflow
Of clouds that
fall in many a frosty rill!
Take me away into the sunset's glow,
That holds a summer in a
glorious bloom;
Or take me to the shadowed woods that grow
On
the sky's mountains, in the evening gloom!
Give me an entrance to the limpid lake
When moonbeams shine
across its purity!
A life there is, within the life we take
So
commonly, for which 't were well to die.
THE SHELL AND THE WORLD.
The world was like a shell to me,--
Its voice with distant song was
low;
But now its mysteries I know:
I hear the turmoil of the sea.
The whirling, soft, and tender sound
That meant I knew not what of
lore,--
I dream its mystery now no more:
Its reckless meaning I
have found.
O shell! I held thee to my ears
When I was young, and smiled with
pride
To stand aglow at marvel's side!
O world, thy voice is wild
with tears!
THE CLOCK-TOWER BELL.
Say not, sad bell, another hour hath come,
Bare for the record of a
world of crime;
Toll, rather, friend, the end of hideous Time,

Wherein we bloom, live, die, yet have no home!
Bell, laurels would we o'er thy pulsing twine,
And sing thee songs of
triumph with glad tears,
If to the warring of our haggard years
Thy
clang should herald peace along the line!
OURS TO ENDURE.

We speak of the world that passes away,--
The world of men who
lived years ago,
And could not feel that their hearts' quick glow

Would fade to such ashen lore to-day.
We hear of death that is not our woe,
And see the shadow of funerals
creeping
Over the sweet fresh roads by the reaping;
But do we
weep till our loved ones go?
When one is lost who is greater than we,
And loved us so well that
death should reprieve
Of all hearts this one to us; when we must leave

His grave,--the past will break like the sea!
BROKEN WAVES.
The sun is lying on the garden-wall,
The full red rose is sweetening
all the air,
The day is happier than a dream most fair;
The evening