Indian Legends and Other Poems | Page 8

to me?Beneath the hawthorn shade.
The dews had wept their silent tears,?The moon was up on high,?And every star was sphered with calm,?Like an archangel's eye;
And melancholy music swept?With cadence low and sweet,?Such as ascends when spirit-wings?Around a death-bed meet.
O was it not a mother's heart?That gave that warning sign;?The loving heart that used to thrill?To every grief of mine?
I oft have deemed, in sunny hours,?When life with love was fraught,?The nearness of the dead to us?A fantasy of thought.
But, standing on the barrier?I used to view with pain,?I feel the chains of severed love?Are linking close again.
Another hand must smooth and bless?My father's silver hair;?Another voice must read to him?At morn and evening prayer.
The flowers that I have trained will bloom,?But at another's side;?And he I love will seek perchance,?A gentler, fairer bride.
And soon another shade will haunt?The echo and the gloom,?With pining heart of restless love,?And omens of the tomb.
Then set the festal board aside,?And bear the harp away;?The coronach must sound instead?From solemn kirk-yard gray.
TO MY SISTER.
ON HER BIRTHDAY.
'T is said that each succeeding year?Another circlet weaves?Within each living, waving tree;?Yet not in buds or leaves,--?But far within the silent core,?The tiny shuttles ply,?At Nature's ever-working loom,?Unseen by human eye.
And thus, within my "heart of hearts,"?Doth this returning day,?Another golden zone complete,?Another circle lay;?And when unto the shadowy past?In retrospect I flee,?I numerate the fleeting years?By deepening love for thee.
Since last we met this sunny day?How bright the hours have flown!?Youth, Love, and Hope, with fadeless light,?Around our way have shone;?And if a shadow from the past?Has floated o'er the dream,?'T was softened, like a violet cloud?Reflected in a stream.
Yet if an hour of bitter grief,?Should e'er thy spirit claim,?May it the trying ordeal pass,?As gold the fiery flame;?And may the years that bind our hearts?In love that cannot die,?Still draw us hourly nearer God,?And nearer to the sky.
THE POET'S LESSON.
"He who would write heroic poems, must make his whole life a heroic poem."--MILTON.
There came a voice from the realm of thought,?And my spirit bowed to hear,--?A voice with majestic sadness fraught,?By the grace of God most clear.
A mighty tone from the solemn Past,?Outliving the Poet-lyre,?Borne down on the rush of Time's fitful blast.?Like the cloven tongues of fire.
Wouldst thou fashion the song, O! Poet-heart,?For a mission high and free??The drama of Life, in its every part,?Must a living poem be.
Wouldst thou speed the knight to the battle-field,?In a proven suit of mail??On the world's highway, with Faith's broad shield,?The peril go forth to hail.
For the noble soul, there is noble strife,?And the sons of earth attain,?Through the wild turmoil and storm of Life,?To discipline, through pain.
Think not that Poesy liveth alone,?In the flow of measured rhyme;?The noble deed with a mightier tone?Shall sound through latest time.
Then poems two, at each upward flight,?In glorious measure fill;?Be the Poem in words, one of beauty and might,?But the Life one, loftier still.
MADELINE.
A LEGEND OF THE MOHAWK.
Where the waters of the Mohawk?Through a quiet valley glide,?From the brown church to her dwelling?She that morning passed a bride.?In the mild light of October?Beautiful the forest stood,?As the temple on Mount Zion?When God filled its solitude.
Very quietly the red leaves,?On the languid zephyr's breath,?Fluttered to the mossy hillocks?Where their sisters slept in death:?And the white mist of the Autumn?Hung o'er mountain-top and dale,?Soft and filmy, as the foldings?Of the passing bridal veil.
From the field of Saratoga?At the last night's eventide,?Rode the groom,--a gallant soldier?Flushed with victory and pride,?Seeking, as a priceless guerdon?From the dark-eyed Madeline,?Leave to lead her to the altar?When the morrow's sun should shine.
All the children of the village,?Decked with garland's white and red,?All the young men and the maidens,?Had been forth to see her wed;?And the aged people, seated?In the doorways 'neath the vine,?Thought of their own youth and blessed her,?As she left the house divine.
Pale she was, but very lovely,?With a brow so calm and fair,?When she passed, the benediction?Seemed still falling on the air.?Strangers whispered they had never?Seen who could with her compare,?And the maidens looked with envy?On her wealth of raven hair.
In the glen beside the river?In the shadow of the wood,?With wide-open doors for welcome?Gamble-roofed the cottage stood;?Where the festal board was waiting,?For the bridal guests prepared,?Laden with a feast, the humblest?In the little village shared.
Every hour was winged with gladness?While the sun went down the west,?Till the chiming of the church-bell?Told to all the hour for rest:?Then the merry guests departed,?Some a camp's rude couch to bide,?Some to bright homes,--each invoking?Blessings on the gentle bride.
Tranquilly the morning sunbeam?Over field and hamlet stole,?Wove a glory round each red leaf,?Then effaced the Frost-king's scroll:?Eyes responded to its greeting?As a lake's still waters shine,?Young hearts bounded,--and a gay group?Sought the home of Madeline.
Bird-like voices 'neath the casement?Chanted in the hazy air,?A sweet orison for wakening,--?Half thanksgiving and half