At Sundown | Page 4

at last on life's strange play

The curtain falls, I only pray
That hope may lose itself in truth,
And
age in Heaven's immortal youth,
And all our loves and longing prove

The foretaste of diviner love.

The day is done. Its afterglow
Along the west is burning low.
My
visitors, like birds, have flown;
I hear their voices, fainter grown,

And dimly through the dusk I see
Their 'kerchiefs wave good-night to
me,--
Light hearts of girlhood, knowing nought
Of all the cheer
their coming brought;
And, in their going, unaware
Of
silent-following feet of prayer
Heaven make their budding promise
good
With flowers of gracious womanhood!
R. S. S., AT DEER ISLAND ON THE MERRIMAC.
Make, for he loved thee well, our Merrimac,
From wave and shore a
low and long lament
For him, whose last look sought thee, as he went

The unknown way from which no step comes back.
And ye, O
ancient pine-trees, at whose feet
He watched in life the sunset's
reddening glow,
Let the soft south wind through your needles blow

A fitting requiem tenderly and sweet!
No fonder lover of all lovely
things
Shall walk where once he walked, no smile more glad
Greet
friends than his who friends in all men had,
Whose pleasant memory,
to that Island clings,
Where a dear mourner in the home he left
Of
love's sweet solace cannot be bereft.
BURNING DRIFT-WOOD
Before my drift-wood fire I sit,
And see, with every waif I burn,

Old dreams and fancies coloring it,
And folly's unlaid ghosts return.
O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft
The enchanted sea on which
they sailed,
Are these poor fragments only left
Of vain desires and
hopes that failed?
Did I not watch from them the light
Of sunset on my towers in Spain,

And see, far off, uploom in sight
The Fortunate Isles I might not
gain?
Did sudden lift of fog reveal
Arcadia's vales of song and spring,


And did I pass, with grazing keel,
The rocks whereon the sirens sing?
Have I not drifted hard upon
The unmapped regions lost to man,

The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John,
The palace domes of Kubla
Khan?
Did land winds blow from jasmine flowers,
Where Youth the ageless
Fountain fills?
Did Love make sign from rose blown bowers,
And
gold from Eldorado's hills?
Alas! the gallant ships, that sailed
On blind Adventure's errand sent,

Howe'er they laid their courses, failed
To reach the haven of
Content.
And of my ventures, those alone
Which Love had freighted, safely
sped,
Seeking a good beyond my own,
By clear-eyed Duty piloted.
O mariners, hoping still to meet
The luck Arabian voyagers met,

And find in Bagdad's moonlit street,
Haroun al Raschid walking yet,
Take with you, on your Sea of Dreams,
The fair, fond fancies dear to
youth.
I turn from all that only seems,
And seek the sober grounds
of truth.
What matter that it is not May,
That birds have flown, and trees are
bare,
That darker grows the shortening day,
And colder blows the
wintry air!
The wrecks of passion and desire,
The castles I no more rebuild,

May fitly feed my drift-wood fire,
And warm the hands that age has
chilled.
Whatever perished with my ships,
I only know the best remains;
A
song of praise is on my lips
For losses which are now my gains.
Heap high my hearth! No worth is lost;
No wisdom with the folly

dies.
Burn on, poor shreds, your holocaust
Shall be my evening
sacrifice.
Far more than all I dared to dream,
Unsought before my door I see;

On wings of fire and steeds of steam
The world's great wonders come
to me,
And holier signs, unmarked before,
Of Love to seek and Power to
save,--
The righting of the wronged and poor,
The man evolving
from the slave;
And life, no longer chance or fate,
Safe in the gracious Fatherhood.

I fold o'er-wearied hands and wait,
In full assurance of the good.
And well the waiting time must be,
Though brief or long its granted
days,
If Faith and Hope and Charity
Sit by my evening hearth-fire's
blaze.
And with them, friends whom Heaven has spared,
Whose love my
heart has comforted,
And, sharing all my joys, has shared
My
tender memories of the dead,--
Dear souls who left us lonely here,
Bound on their last, long voyage,
to whom
We, day by day, are drawing near,
Where every bark has
sailing room!
I know the solemn monotone
Of waters calling unto me
I know
from whence the airs have blown
That whisper of the Eternal Sea.
As low my fires of drift-wood burn,
I hear that sea's deep sounds
increase,
And, fair in sunset light, discern
Its mirage-lifted Isles of
Peace.
O. W. HOLMES ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTH-DAY.
Climbing a path which leads back never more
We heard behind his

footsteps and his cheer;
Now, face to face, we greet him standing here

Upon the lonely summit of Fourscore
Welcome to us, o'er whom
the lengthened day
Is closing and the shadows colder grow,
His
genial presence, like an afterglow,
Following the one just vanishing
away.
Long be it ere the table shall be set
For the last breakfast of
the Autocrat,
And love repeat with smiles and tears thereat
His own
sweet songs that time shall not forget.
Waiting with us the call to
come up higher,
Life is not