So, they are dead! Love! when they passed From thee to me, our fingers met; O withered darlings of the May!
I feel those fairy fingers yet.
And for the bliss ye brought me then, Your faded forms are precious things; No flowers so fair, no buds so sweet Shall bloom through all my future springs.
And so, pale ones! with hands as soft As if I closed a baby's eyes, I'll lay you in some favorite book Made sacred by a poet's sighs.
Your lips shall press the sweetest song, The sweetest, saddest song I know, As ye had perished, in your pride, Of some lone bard's melodious woe.
Oh, Love! hath love no holier shrine!
Oh, heart! could love but lend the power, I'd lay thy crimson pages bare, And every leaf should fold its flower.
1866--Addressed to the Old Year
Art thou not glad to close Thy wearied eyes, O saddest child of Time, Eyes which have looked on every mortal crime, And swept the piteous round of mortal woes?
In dark Plutonian caves, Beneath the lowest deep, go, hide thy head; Or earth thee where the blood that thou hast shed May trickle on thee from thy countless graves!
Take with thee all thy gloom And guilt, and all our griefs, save what the breast, Without a wrong to some dear shadowy guest, May not surrender even to the tomb.
No tear shall weep thy fall, When, as the midnight bell doth toll thy fate, Another lifts the sceptre of thy state, And sits a monarch in thine ancient hall.
HIM all the hours attend, With a new hope like morning in their eyes; Him the fair earth and him these radiant skies Hail as their sovereign, welcome as their friend.
Him, too, the nations wait; "O lead us from the shadow of the Past,"
In a long wail like this December blast, They cry, and, crying, grow less desolate.
How he will shape his sway They ask not--for old doubts and fears will cling-- And yet they trust that, somehow, he will bring A sweeter sunshine than thy mildest day.
Beneath his gentle hand They hope to see no meadow, vale, or hill Stained with a deeper red than roses spill, When some too boisterous zephyr sweeps the land.
A time of peaceful prayer, Of law, love, labor, honest loss and gain-- These are the visions of the coming reign Now floating to them on this wintry air.
Stanzas: A Mother Gazes Upon Her Daughter,
Arrayed for an Approaching Bridal.
Written in Illustration of a Tableau Vivant
Is she not lovely! Oh! when, long ago, My own dead mother gazed upon my face, As I stood blushing near in bridal snow, I had not half her beauty and her grace.
Yet that fond mother praised, the world caressed, And ONE adored me--how shall HE who soon Shall wear my gentle flower upon his breast, Prize to its utmost worth the priceless boon?
Shall he not gird her, guard her, make her rich, (Not as the world is rich, in outward show,) With all the love and watchful kindness which A wise and tender manhood may bestow?
Oh! I shall part from her with many tears, My earthly treasure, pure and undefiled!
And not without a weight of anxious fears For the new future of my darling child.
And yet--for well I know that virgin heart-- No wifely duty will she leave undone; Nor will her love neglect that woman's art Which courts and keeps a love already won.
In no light girlish levity she goes Unto the altar where they wait her now, But with a thoughtful, prayerful heart that knows The solemn purport of a marriage vow.
And she will keep, with all her soul's deep truth, The lightest pledge which binds her love and life; And she will be--no less in age than youth My noble child will be--a noble wife.
And he, her lover! husband! what of him?
Yes, he will shield, I think, my bud from blight!
Yet griefs will come--enough! my eyes are dim With tears I must not shed--at least, to-night.
Bless thee, my daughter!--Oh! she is so fair!-- Heaven bend above thee with its starriest skies!
And make thee truly all thou dost appear Unto a lover's and thy mother's eyes!
Hymn Sung at an Anniversary of the Asylum of Orphans at Charleston
We scarce, O God! could lisp thy name, When those who loved us passed away, And left us but thy love to claim, With but an infant's strength to pray.
Thou gav'st that Refuge and that Shrine, At which we learn to know thy ways; Father! the fatherless are thine!
Thou wilt not spurn the orphan's praise.
Yet hear a single cry of pain!
Lord! whilst we dream in quiet beds, The summer sun and winter rain Beat still on many homeless heads.
And o'er this weary earth, we know, Young outcasts roam the waste and wave; And little hands are clasped in woe Above some tender mother's grave.
Ye winds! keep every storm aloof, And kiss away the tears they weep!
Ye skies, that make their only roof, Look gently on their houseless sleep!
And thou, O Friend and Father! find A home to shield their helpless youth!
Dear hearts to love--sweet ties to bind-- And guide and guard them in the truth!
To a Captive Owl