Debris | Page 7

held more sacred and more sweet.
She waited as the woman only may
Whose eyes are blinded oft with
unshed tears;
Lines on her forehead grew, and threads of gray;
The
weary days crept into weary years.
"Oh stars, go down! Oh sun, be shrouded now!
My love comes not;
he does not live," she said;
And brushed the curls he'd kissed back
from her brow,
And pout on mourning for her dead.
And still as oft the day came round that he
Had left his warm
good-bye upon her lips,
As oft she sought the head-land by sea,

And longing watched the far-off white-sailed ships.
To-day, the low sand-beach was over-strewn;
Torn sail, and broken
spar and human form,
'Gulfed by the waves, and crushed, and then
out-thrown--
A ship went down in yester-night's wild storm.
She walked among the debris, and the dead,
As some sweet
mercy-sister on her round,
Scanning each up-turned face with
nameless dread,
For aught of life; her tireless searching found
A babe--a waif with tawny tangled locks,
And great blue eyes with
wonder brimming o'er;
Of all the human freight wrecked on the rocks,

The only living thing that washed ashore.
A pearl-gemmed golden case upon its breast
She oped, then stared,
her eyes a-sudden wild,
A name, a pictured face told all the rest;

His name--his face--his child!

UNCLE SAM'S SOLILOQUY.

I'm a century old and more to-day--
A ripe old age for a modern
man,--
Yet they who rocked my cradle, they say,
Predicted a
thousand years my span;
They christened me at the fount of prayer,

And gave me a star-gemmed robe to wear.
My first free breath was battle-smoke
A prayerful nurses did not
abhor
The sounds that first my ear awoke--
The clash and din and
shout of war.
They pressed in my hand a crown of might
And
pointed my way to the eagle's flight.
Cannon and sword were my playthings to bless,
(Dangerous toys for
a babe to try,)
The stirring reveille my more caress,
The wild tattoo
was my lullaby;
And well, methinks, as they years have run,
Have I
wrought the work my sires begun.
An infant prodigy I, and ere
Expired a tenth of my granted day,
I
wrested from lion-grasp the spear--
A nation's power I held in sway;

I broke the gives from freedom's graves,
And steam and lightning I
bound my slaves.
I flung my starred robe on the breeze,
From burning tropic to arctic
cold.
On distant isles, in distant seas,
A foot-hold gained with
sword and gold.
Atlantic's slope and Pacific's strand
I bound
together with an iron band.
But of late I've premature grown old;
There's something wrong with
the clothes I wear;
There is something wrong with the helm I hold,

Else I hold it wrong,--there's wrong somewhere.
Disease too has
thrown me his poisoned dart;
His workman are "striking" right at my
heart.
My head is so strangely vision thrilled
With plans to evade the
demon's stay,
But all the plots that my brain have filled
Only have
served to augment his sway,
And on my feet, at the sunset's door,
Is
spreading a troublesome grievous sore.

I'm growing ill I can plainly see,
And many prescribe my pain to ease,

But somehow each medicine proves to be
"A remedy worse than
the disease."
Though strong as ever, should once my strength
Give
way, I must fall a fearful length.
My doctors say they know the cause,
And they've gone to work with
eager zest,
Probed and expounded with weighty straws,
And
leeches attached to my troubled breast;
I fee them well, as attests my
purse
But day after day I'm growing worse.
Though they have not yet touched the cause they knew,
And are
wrangling over its direful flood,
They promise to build me better than
new,
And stop the drain on my famished blood;
But lest they're
careful while building the dam
They'll scoop out a grave for "Uncle
Sam."
NAY, DO NOT ASK.
Nay, do not ask me, Sweet, if I have loved before,
Or if, mayhap, in
other years to be,
A younger, fairer face than thine I know,
I'll love
her more than thee.
What should it matter if I've loved before,
So that I love thee now,
and love thee best?
What matters it that I should love again
If, first,
the daisy-buds blow o'er thy breast?
Love has the waywardness of strange caprice,
One can not chain it to
a recreant heart,
Nor, when around the soul its tendrils twine,
Can
will the clinging, silken bonds to part.
It is enough, I hold thee prisoned in my arms,
And drink the dewy
fragrance of thy breath;
And earth, and heaven, and hades, are forgot,

And love holds carnival, and laughs at death.
Then do not ask me, Sweet, if I have loved before,
Or if some day my

heart might turn from thee;
In this brief hour, thou hast my soul of
love,
And thou are Is_, and _Was_, and _May be--all to me.
A PICTURE.
A little maid, with sweet brown eyes,
Upraised to mine in sad
surprise;
I held two tiny hands in mine,
I kissed the little maid
farewell.
Her cheeks to deeper crimson flushed,
The sweet, shy
glances downward fell;
From rosy lips came--ah! so low--
"I love