Indian Legends and Other Poems | Page 7

the dark and silent tomb,
Where they laid the dead to rest;
By
the empty cradle's gloom,
And the fireside once so blest;
In the lone and narrow cell,
Fettered by the clanking chain,
Where
the maniac's piercing yell
Thrilled the heart with dread and pain;--
Upward still she fixed her gaze,
Tearless and bewildered too,

Speaking of the fearful night
Madness o'er the spirit threw;
Upward, upward,--till in love
Death removed the veil of Time,


Raised the broken heart above,
To the far-off healing clime.
Mortal! o'er the field of Life
Pressing with uncertain tread;

Mourning, in the torrent strife,
Blessings lost and pleasures fled;--
A sublimer faith was taught
By the maniac's frenzied eye,
Than
Philosophy e'er caught
From intensest thought and high.
When the heart is crushed and broken
By the death-bell's sullen
chime,
By the faded friendship's token,
Or the wild remorse of
crime,
Turn to earth for succor never,
But beyond her light and shade,

Toward the blue skies look forever:
God, and God alone, can aid.
THE VOICE OF THE DEAD.
Oh! call us not silent,
The throng of the dead!
Though in visible
being
No longer we tread
The pathways of earth,
From the grave
and the sky,
From the halls of the Past
And the star-host on high,

We speak to the spirit
In language divine;
List, Mortal, our song,

Ere its burden be thine.
Our labor is finished,
Our race it is run;
The guerdon eternal
Is
lost or is won;
A beautiful gift
Is the life thou dost share;
Bewail
not its sorrow,
Despise not its care;
The rainbow of Hope
Spans
the ocean of Time;
High triumph and holy
Makes conflict sublime.
Work ever! Life's moments
Are fleeting and brief;
Behind is the
burden,
Before, the relief.
Work nobly! the deed
Liveth bright in
the Past,

When the spirit that planned
Is at rest from the blast;

Work nobly! the Infinite
Spreads to thy sight,
The higher thou
soarest
The stronger thy flight.
And when from thy vision
Loved faces shall wane,
And thy

heart-strings thrill wildly
With anguish and pain;
The voices that
now
Are as faint as the tone
Of the Zephyr, that stirs not
The rose
on its throne,
Shall burst on thy soul,--
An orchestra divine,
With
seraph and cherub
From Deity's shrine.
"A DREAM THAT WAS NOT ALL A DREAM."
Through the half-curtained window stole
An Autumn sunset's glow,

As languid on my couch I lay
With pulses weak and low.
And then methought a presence stood,
With shining feet and fair,

Amid the waves of golden light
That rippled through the air,
And laid upon my heaving breast,
With earnest glance and true,
A
babe, whose fair and gentle brow
No shade of sorrow knew.
A solemn joy was in my heart,--
Immortal life was given
To Earth,
upon her battle-field
To discipline for Heaven.
Soft music thrilled the quiet room,--
An unseen host were nigh,

Who left the infant pilgrim at
The threshold of our sky.
A new, strange love woke in my heart,
Defying all control,
As on
the soft air rose and fell
That birth-hymn for a soul!
And now again the Autumn skies,
As on that evening, shine,
When,
from a trance of agony,
I woke to joy divine.
That boundless love is in my heart,
That birth-hymn on the air;
I
clasp in mine, with grateful faith,
A tiny hand in prayer.
And bless the God who guides my way,
That, mid this world so wide,

I day by day am walking with
An angel by my side.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD.

Diodorus has recorded an impressive Egyptian ceremonial, the
judgment of the dead by the living. When the corpse, duly embalmed,
had been placed by the margin of the Acherusian Lake, and before
consigning it to the bark that was to bear it across the waters to its final
resting-place, it was permitted to the appointed judges to hear all
accusations against the past life of the deceased, and if proved, to
deprive the corpse of the rites of sepulture. From this singular law not
even kings were exempt.
With sable plume and nodding crest,
They bore him to his dreamless
rest,
A cold and abject thing;
Before the whisper of whose name
Strong
hearts had quailed in fear and shame,
While nations knelt to fling
The victor's laurel at his feet;
Now
gorgeous pall and winding-sheet,
Were all that royalty could bring

To mark the despot and the king:
In solemn state they swept the
glowing strand,
To meet the conclave of the judgment band.
And soon, with bright, exultant eye,
Where fierce revenge flashed
wild and high,
Accusers gathered fast;
From prison-keep and living grave
Came
forth the mutilated slave,
With faltering step aghast;
And sightless men with silver hair,
The
record of their dungeon air,
Who for long years had sought to die,

And wrestled with their agony
Till thought grew wild and intellect
grew dim,
The clanking fetters' mark on every limb.
With pallid cheek and eager prayer
And maniac laugh of dark despair
The widowed mother stood;
And, with white lips, an orphan throng

Rehearsed a fearful tale of wrong

And misery and blood.
And strong in virtue others came,

Unnumbered victims to proclaim
Of vengeance, perfidy, and dread,

Who slumbered with the silent dead.
The world might start, the
sable plumes might wave,
But for that haughty king there was no
grave.
O! ye who press life's crowded mart,
With hurrying step and
bounding heart,
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