Poems of the Heart and Home | Page 3

gives back Its answer to the sky;-- "How beautiful!" the waves repeat, And every cloudlet smiles, And writes its answer on the green Of countless summer isles.
'Tis past--this first, last, only look!-- And now, away, away, To bear alone in Memory's book The sunshine of to-day; Yet oft, 'neath other skies than these, With other scenes in view, O isles of beauty, sunny seas, I shall remember you!

LOOK UP
Christian, lookup? thy feet may slide; This is a slippery way! Yet One is walking by thy side Whose arm should be thy stay, Thou canst not see that blessed form, Nor view that loving smile With eager eyes thus earthward bent-- Christian, look up a while!
Christian, look up!--what seest thou here To court thy anxious eyes? Earth is beneath thee, lone and drear, Above, thy native skies! Beneath, the wreck of faded bloom, The shadow, and the clod, The broken reed, the open tomb,-- Above thee, is THY GOD!
Look up! thy head too long has been Bowed darkly toward the earth, Thou son of a most Royal Sire, Creature of kingly birth! What! dragging like a very slave Earth's heavy galling chain,-- And struggling onward to the grave In weariness and pain?
What wouldst thou with this world?--thy home, Thy country is not here, 'Mid faded flowers, and perished bloom, And shadows dense and drear!-- Thy home is where the tree of Life Waves high its fruitage blest, 'Mid bowers with fadeless beauties rife,-- Look up, and claim thy rest!

FROST-FLOWERS.
Over my window in pencillings white, Stealthily traced in the silence of night-- Traced with a pencil as viewless as air, By an artist unseen, when the star-beams were fair, Came wonderful pictures, so life-like and true That I'm filled with amaze as the marvel I view.
Like, and yet unlike the things I have seen,-- Feathery ferns in the forest-depths green, Delicate mosses that hide from the light, Snow-drops, and lilies, and hyacinths white, Fringes, and feathers, and half-opened flowers, Closely-twined branches of dim, cedar bowers-- Strange, that one hand should so deftly combine Such numberless charms in so quaint a design!
O wondrous creations of silence and night! I watch as ye fade in the clear morning light,-- As ye melt into tear-drops and trickle away From the keen, searching eyes of inquisitive Day. While I gaze ye are gone, and I see you depart With a wistful regret lying deep in my heart,-- A longing for something that will not decay, Or melt like these frost-flowers in tear-drops away,-- A passionate yearning of heart for that shore Where beauty unfading shall last evermore; Nor, e'en as we gaze, from our vision be lost Like the beautiful things that are pencilled in frost!

THE BEECH-NUT GATHERER.
All over the earth like a mantle, Golden, and green, and grey, Crimson, and scarlet, and yellow, The Autumn foliage lay;-- The sun of the Indian Summer Laughed at the bare old trees As they shook their leafless branches In the soft October breeze.
Gorgeous was every hill-side, And gorgeous every nook, And the dry, old log was gorgeous, Spanning the little brook; Its holiday robes, the forest Had suddenly cast to earth, And, as yet, seemed scarce to miss, them, In its plenitude of mirth.
I walked where the leaves the softest, The brightest, and goldenest lay, And I thought of a forest hill-side, And an Indian Summer day,-- Of an eager, little child-face O'er the fallen leaves that bent, As she gathered her cup of beech nuts, With innocent content.
I thought of the small, brown fingers Gleaning them one by one, With the partridge drumming near her In the forest bare and dun, And the jet-black squirrel, winking His saucy, jealous eye At those tiny, pilfering fingers, From his sly nook up on high
Ah, barefooted little maiden With thy bonnetless, sun-burnt brow, Thou glean'st no more on the hill-side-- Where art thou gleaning now? I knew by the lifted glances Of thy dark, imperious eye, That the tall trees bending o'er thee Would not shelter thee by and by.
The cottage by the brookside, With its mossy roof is gone;-- The cattle have left the uplands, The young lambs left the lawn;-- Gone are thy blue-eyed sister, And thy brother's laughing brow; And the beech-nuts He ungathered On the lonely hill-side now.
What have the returning seasons Brought to thy heart since then, In thy long and weary wand'rings In the paths of busy men?-- Has the Angel of grief, or of gladness, Set his seal upon thy brow? Maiden, joyous or tearful, Where art thou gleaning now?

MEMORY-BELLS.
Up from the spirit-depths ringing, Softly your melody swells, Sweet as a seraphim's singing, Tender-toned memory-bells! The laughter of childhood, The song of the wildwood, The tinkle of streams through the echoing dell, The voice of a mother, The shout of a brother. Up