An Alpine Valley.

Killarney, Ireland.

OH, happy valley at the mountain's feet,If half your happiness you could but know!Though over you a shadow always falls,And far above you rise those heights of snow,So far, your yearning love you may not speakWith rosy flush like some high sister peak,Yet you may clasp its feet in fond embrace,And gaze up in its face.And sometimes down its slopes a wind will comeAnd bring a sudden, noiseless sweep of snow,Like a soft greeting from those summits sentTo comfort you below.What more? Love may not ask too great a boon.Enough to be so near, though cast so low.Think that a sea had rolled between you twainIf careless fortune had decreed it so,And you could only lie and look acrossTo distant cloudy heights and know your loss,And see some favored valley, fair and sweet,Heap flowers at its feet.

Cham, Switzerland.

BY some strange alchemy that turns to goldThe light that drops from gray and leaden skies,Though heavy mists the outer world enfold,'Tis always sunshine where Napoleon lies.No more an exile by an alien sea,Forgetful of the banishment and bane;Now lies he there, in kingly dignity,His tomb a Mecca shrine beside the Seine.And there the pilgrim hears the story told,How Paris placed above her hero, dead,A window that should turn to yellow goldThe light that on his resting place is shed.So on him falls, though summers wane,The sunshine of that amber pane.By some strange miracle, maybe divine,The sunlight falls upon the buried pastAnd turns its water into sparkling wine,And gilds the coin its coffers have amassed.Could it have been those long-lost halcyon daysTrailed not a cloud across our April sky?Faltered we not along those untried ways?Grew we not weary as the days went by?Ah, yes! But unreturning feet forgetRough places trodden in the long ago,Rememb'ring only paths with flowers beset,While pressing onward, wearily and slow.For Memory's windows but retainThe sunshine of an amber pane.The little white, wind-blown anemoneBy one round dewdrop may be fully filled,And by some light-winged, passing honey-beeIts cup of crystal water may be spilled.So does the child heart hold its happiness:A drop will fill it to its rosy rim.It is not that these later days bring less,That joy so rarely rises to the brim;It is because the heart has deeper grown.A fuller knowledge must its thirst assuage.Perhaps we would not deem those pleasures flownAs bright as those which star the present age,Had not upon them long years lainThe sunshine of an amber pane.The dust of dim forgetfulness piles fastUpon the chains that thralled us yesterday.So will it be when this day, too, is past,And in its arms we've seen it bear awayThe cares that brooded in the tired brain;The work that weighted down the weary hand;The high hopes that we struggled to attain;The problems that we could not understand.Washed of its stain, bereft of any sting,Seen through the window of the Memory,Perchance, a gentler grace to it may clingThan we may now think possible to see.For skies will gleam, though gray with rain,Like sunshine through that amber pane.We may not stand on Patmos, and look throughThe star-hinged portals where the great pearls gleam.No brush that unveiled beauty ever drew,Save one, that caught its shadow in a dream.So lest we falter, faithless and afraid,The Merciful, remembering we are dust,Reveals not heaven for which our hearts have prayed,But by a token teaches us to trust;And day by day allows us to look throughThe window of the Memory, broad and vast,(Till jasper minarets rise into view)Upon the happy heaven of the past;And gives, till purer light we gain,The sunshine of that amber pane.

SOMETIMES my needle stops with half-drawn thread(Not often though, each moment's waste means bread,And missing stitches leave the little mouths unfed).I look down on the dingy court below:A tuft of grass is all it has to show,—A broken pump, where thirsty children go.Above, there shines a bit of sky, so smallThat it might be a passing blue-bird's wing.One tree leans up against the high brick wall,And there the sparrows twitter of the spring,Until they waken in my heart a cryOf hunger, that no bread can satisfy.Always before, when Maytime took her wayAcross the fields, I followed close. To-dayI can but dream of all her bright array.My work drops down. Across the sill I lean,And long with bitter longing, for unseenRain-freshened paths, where budding woods grow green.The water trickles from the pump belowUpon the stones. With eyes half shut, I hearIt falling in a pool where rushes grow,And feel a cooling presence drawing near.And now the sparrows chirp again. No, hark!—A singing as of some far meadow lark.It is the same old miracle appliedUnto myself, that on the mountain-sideThe few small loaves and fishes multiplied.Behold, how strange and sweet the mystery!The birds, the broken pump, the gnarled tree,Have brought the fullness of the spring to me.For in the leaves that rustle by the wallAll forests find a tongue. And so that grassCan, with its struggling tuft of green, recallWide, bloom-filled meadows where the cattle pass.How it can be, but dimly I divine.These crumbs, God given, make the whole loaf mine.

"Home-keeping hearts are happiest."—Longfellow.

THERE will be distant journeyings enoughTo reach that Land beyond the ether's sea,To satisfy the veriest roaming heart,—Let me stay home with thee!There will be new companionships enoughIn that bright spirit-life. Why should we fleeSo soon to alien hearts and stranger scenes?I would stay home with thee.The heart grows homesick, thinking of the changeWhen these familiar things no more shall be;When e'en the thought of them, perchance, shall fade,—Let me stay home with thee.I would imprint upon my mind each scene,Each meadow path, and stream, and orchard-tree,Beloved since childhood, holy with our hopes,Sweet with the thoughts of thee.And each dear household place, let me learn allBy heart, where I am wont thy form to see.Who knows what things shall pass? If I may shareA hearth in heaven with thee?

GOD keep us from the sordid moodThat shrinks to self-infinitude,That sees no thing as good or grand,That answers not the hour's demand,And throws o'er Heaven's splendors furledThe shadow of our little world.

HERE in the dark I lie, and watch the starsThat through the soft gloom shine like tear-bright eyesBehind a mourner's veil. The darkness seemsAlmost a vapor, palpable and dense,In which my room's familiar outlines melt,And all seems one black pall that folds me round.Only a mirror glimmers through the dusk,And on the wall a dim, uncertain squareShows where a portrait hangs. Ah, even soBeloved faces fade into the pastAnd naught remains except a space of lightTo show us where they were.How still it seems!The busy clock, whose tell-tale talk was drownedBy Day's uproarious voices, calls aloud,Undaunted by the dark, the flight of time,And through the halls its tones ring drearily.The breeze on tiptoe seems to tread, as thoughIt were afraid to rouse the drowsy leaves.The long, dim street is quiet. Nothing breaksThe dream of Night, asleep on Nature's breast.Hark! Some one passes. On the pavement stonesEach stealthy step gives back a muffled sound,Till the last foot-fall seems in distance drowned.So Death might pass, bent on his mission dread,Adown the silent street, and none might knowWhat hour he passed or what he bore away.Ah, sadder thought! So Life goes, unawares,Noiseless and swift and resolutely on,While the dumb world lies folded in the gloom,Unconscious and uncaring in its sleep.And towards the west, the stars, all silentlyLike golden sands in God's great hour-glass, glideAnd fall into the nether crystal globe.

MORE than the compass to the mariner,Wast thou, Felipa, to his dauntless soul.Through adverse winds that threatened wreck, and nightsOf rayless gloom, thou pointed ever toThe North Star of his great ambition. HeWho once has lost an Eden, or has gainedA paradise by Eve's sweet influence,Alone can know how strong a spell lies inThe witchery of a woman's beckoning hand.And thou didst draw him, tide-like, higher still,Felipa, whispering the lessons learnedFrom thy courageous father, till the floodOf his ambition burst all barriersAnd swept him onward to his longed-for goal.Before the jewels of a Spanish queenBuilt fleets to waft him on his untried way,Thou gavest thy wealth of wifely sympathyTo build the lofty purpose of his soul.And now the centuries have cycled by,Till thou art all-forgotten by the throngThat lauds the great Pathfinder of the deep.It matters not in that infinitudeOf space, where thou dost guide thy spirit-barkTo undiscovered lands, supremely fair.If to this little planet thou couldst turnAnd voyage, wraithlike, to its cloud-hung rim,Thou wouldst not care for praise. And if, perchance,Some hand held out to thee a laurel bough,Thou wouldst not claim one leaf, but fondly turnTo lay thy tribute, also, at his feet.

'TWIXT creek and bayWe whisper to our white sails "stay!Oh, Life, a little while delay!'Twixt creek and bay."So loath to goFrom these calm shallows that we know,We fain would stay the year's swift flow,Nor onward goTo banks more wide,Where seaward drawings of the tideImpel to deeper depths untried,Where Life grows wide.'Twixt creek and bay—The morning deepens into day,And richer freight we bear, alway,When in the bay.

HOW can we know when youth is gone,—When age has surely come at last?There is no marked meridianThrough which we sail, and feel when past.A keener air our faces strike,A chiller current swifter run;They meet and glide like tide with tide,Our youth and age, when youth is done.

CANST tell me, thou inconstant heart,What like unto thou art?A gypsy wandering up and downThrough April's green and Autumn's brown,Until the year is spent;And then, when hills are white with snow,And brooks, ice-bound, have ceased to flow,No place to pitch his tent.

UPON Life's lonely highway, robber bandsOf grim-faced years seize with relentless handsEach traveler, and wrest from out his graspThe treasures that he fain would closer clasp.None can escape. Each year demands its toll,Till robbed of youth, we grope toward the goal,Halting and blind, of all but life bereft,And death claims that—the only boon that's left.

ON through the cloisters of eternityThe years, like monks, in slow procession pass,Telling their rosary beads, the golden days,With penance prayers of dark and dismal nights.Hooded and cowled, with silence on they pass,Nor will they pause until their vesper ringsA solemn curfew at the sunset hour,When all the fires of life are buried low,And all the worlds drop down upon their knees,To say a last mass ere the death of Time.

HE was a king one time,And they wrapped the ermine around him,And the bells rang out when they crowned him,Rang with a joyful chime.And he sat on a throne!The wealth that a world could offerWas heaped in the New Year's coffer,For the world was his own.He was a spendthrift though,And the coins of his lavish givingWere the golden moments of living,—Coins that he squandered so.He is a beggar now.In the night and the storm he lingers,No gold in his prodigal fingers,—King with the uncrowned brow.Nothing to call his own!His fortune scattered behind him;Death empty-handed shall find him,—A New Year takes his throne.

CHILDHOOD flits by with flowers in both its hands,—We know not why it leaves, nor when it goes;But suddenly we miss some subtle grace,As perfume passes from a fading rose;We scarce divine, yet somehow faintly feelIn the soft air a far-blown breath of snows.Straying afar, unheeded and aloneUpon life's highway 'mid the busy throng,Swept in its eager, restless race alongTo the great future, unexplored, unknown,The little child is lost. And when with hasteThe wanderer's footsteps through the streets are traced,They find a man with features pale and stern,But the lost child will nevermore return.

DO you know why Time flies by so slowWhen we are sad and old?Why he turns and waits as if loath to goOn his journey cold?Because from our coffers of hope and youth,Where we kept life's gold,He has stolen our treasures all, in sooth,From their sacred hold.He who came with a gift in handWas a robber bold.He whose greeting was smooth and blandWas a wolf in the fold.And this is the reason that he goes by,When we're worn and old,So slowly, because he can scarcely flyWith his weight of gold.

'TISthe time when holly berriesGrow red as the Yule-log's glow,And hearth and hall are decked by allWith the green of the mistletoe.Time when the joy of givingIs felt at each fireside,And wings seek rest in the old home nest,For the time is Christmas-tide.Though only a carol singerWith nothing of gold in store,And little to bring as an offering,I stand outside your door.Open! This blessed morningPeace be to thee and thine!Here to you all I gaily callA greeting from me and mine.Haply it may awakenSome joy that so long ago,On the frosty dawn of a Christmas gone,You found in your stocking toe.Though but an old, old carol,It bears love's myrrh and gold,And the frankincense of a joy intenseThat the angel hosts foretold.

Listen! The heralds proclaim Him!Follow! A star leads the way!Oh, joy, in the City of DavidThe Christ-child reigns to-day!

I greet you this blessed morning.Peace be to thee and thine!To the dear ones here be Christmas cheer,And the love of me and mine.

THE world swings slowly back and forth,From dawn to dusk, from dusk to dawn,And we forget the hand that rocks,But, cradle-like, the world swings on.A little while to stir and fret,Or sob with trembling lipBecause the sunbeams we would graspThrough helpless fingers slip.A little while to moan, and startFrom fevered dreams, and weep,For still the cradle sways and swingsUntil we fall asleep.The broad earth's pillow is so softTo weary heads, and who can tellBut through that sleep sound lullabiesOf the white angel, Israfel?

HOW must they sing, those angel choirs,Who breathe Heaven's pure, sweet air!They need but waft it from their lipsTo make it music rare.Here on these chill, damp plains below,Where stifling vapors rise,We draw the heavy air of earth,And breathe it out in sighs.

UP the steep heights whereon God's citadelIs set, the prayers of mortals to that bourne,For ages toiling, in the adamant,Across the sky a glittering path have worn.

WITHIN the pauses of the anthem falls a hush,And the deep organ's solemn voice goes on aloneIn a low undertone,As rain comes sometimes with a sudden sweeping rush,And then is still, save that it slowly drips and fallsFrom leaves at intervals.So memory sings aloneBetween the busy hours when comes a lull,And naught is audibleBut its low undertone.So darkness drops between the days, an interludeWhen night's low sighing stirs the sleepy solitude.So, when the little cycle of this life is rounded,Before the spirit enters into life unbounded,It waits to hear, with bated breath,The solemn interlude of death.

OH, dreary day, that had so late a dawn!Oh, dreary day, so long, though early gone!Fold thy gray mantle round thy form and goTo find the lost sun, while Night comes on,Across the plain, with silent step and slow.I weary of thy dark, unsmiling mood,I weary of thy dull disquietude,And thy complaining voice that tells of pain,Not with the tempest's trumpet, but subduedIn broken sentences of falling rain.Now, soft as household spirit, comes the NightAnd draws the curtains, fanning still more brightThe cheerful fire, while for her gentle sakeThe tapers burst in bloom with yellow light,Like evening primroses just kissed awake.

THE Spring steals through the city streets,Silent and shrinking, half afraid,As if there came, from woods and fields,Some timid, bashful, country maid.The lofty houses coldly frown,And coldly stares the stony street;But here and there from out a cleftThere springs a flower to kiss her feet.And here and there a crocus smilesA friendly greeting, or a sprayOf blooming lilacs, fresh and sweet,Leans down and nods across her way.Till, reassured, she smiles and sings,And on she passes, glad and fleet,And little children at their playLook up to catch her glances sweet.Is it her robe's soft flutteringThat gently fans the passer by?He only feels the freshened air,Nor knows the gracious presence nigh.But some sweet influence he feels,That charms care's gloomy shade away,And pours into his wakened heartThe golden gladness of the May.So, like an angel visitant,She glides among the haunts of men,And faint hearts bound, and sad eyes smile,Because the Spring has come again.

SHE came with garments scant and poor and thin,And white feet gleaming bare;With pallid smiles where April tears had been,And snowflakes on her hair.Oh, never—Winter thought—such gentle lookIn all the land was seen!From his gray locks the diadem he tookAnd crowned her as his queen.And now, in silken robes and gems arrayed,Fair Spring reigns in his stead.Upon his throne she sits, the beggar maid—"Cophetua" is dead.

WHEN I go through the meadows brown,Where stand the tall weeds, sere and dead,Think you I find no beauty there,Since Summer through the fields has fled?The edges of the frozen stream,Whose quiet waters late were crossedBy shadows of the bending fern,Are fair with fringes of the frost.Wherever cowslips crowded thick,Or banks of buttercups would be,A host of airy forms in white,Like ghosts of flowers returned, I see.It may be clustered flakes of snow,Or frozen dew still glistening there,But still it seems as if there cameA rare, strange odor through the air.

ACROSS the stubble fields the lazy breezes pass,From Autumn orchards sloping southward in the sun,Where dropping from the low-hung branches, one by one,The apples hide in tangles of the wind-blown grass.A warm, sweet scent of mellow fruit fills all the air,And faintly over hills and hollows comes the cryOf some shrill bluejay, and his mate's far-off reply.Like Ruth, the winds will go a-gleaning, by and by,And garner in the leaves till all the woods are bare.But now my boyhood's love has come again to me,October—in her royal red and gold arrayed!She comes with glowing cheeks, my dusky Indian maid,And all the world seems bright because so bright is she.Unto her lips the wild grapes hold their spicy wine.Persimmons, sweet and golden with an early frost,Drop at her feet; and where the narrow creek has crossedThe woods, and in the ferns and flag its way has lost,Blood-red the corals of the dog-wood berries shine.And thus she comes, my Love I loved when I was young!We wander for a little while across the hills,And, as of old, her sunny presence warms and fillsMy heart. But like a lute with one string left unstrung,When I would sing again the song of other years,Something is lost. The harmony is incomplete.And though the same old melody I still repeat,One alto note of joy is gone that made it sweet,And something trembles in the Autumn haze like tears.

A TINY bird flits through the twilight brown,When sunset dreams make all the garden fair,Whose soft notes fall into the quiet airLike olive leaves on waters smooth dropped down.Emblems of rest, when floods of care do cease,Into my heart, as well, they fall and float,An olive leaf each faint and dreamy note—I recognize their sign, and feel at peace.

DARKNESS and silence, such as only fallAt midnight, wrap the sleeping hamlets all;No life in all the dim world seems to be.Then suddenly,Across the hills, far off and faint, I hearSound through the dark, as through a dream, the call(How strange it seems!) of some bold chanticleer.(Half in my sleep I hear that clarion ring,With distant calls, like echoes, answering;And, as at war's alarum, soldiers leapFrom guarded sleepAnd seize their arms, and hasten from their tents,So, at this sound, my drowsy senses spring,Alert to man the mind's dark battlements.)To tell night's mid-hour tolls no startled bell;Only thy voice is heard, brave sentinel,Who, like the ancient watchman on the towers,Calls forth the hours,And to the wistful questioners, who seeNo gleam through pain's long vigil, dost foretell"The morning cometh," oft and cheerily.How canst thou know when, weary with his race,The Day turns back, his pathway to retrace?Canst thou the maiden Dawn's light footsteps hear,Approaching near?Or dost thou stand in converse with the skies,And know what time she leaves her hiding-placeBy joyful flashes of their starry eyes?Thou art a prophet, like to those of old,Who in the darkness sat, but firm and boldLooked with undaunted eyes towards the dimHorizon's rim,And thrilled with faith of waiting ages born,That soon from out the Night's strong prisonhold,Should burst the golden glory of the Morn.

JUST outside of the noisy town,Half through thicket and wood revealed,Hemmed about by a wall of stone,Wide it lieth, the Potter's Field.Brambles wander across the grass,Vines creep over the broken wall,Bindweeds blossom, and here and thereStands a waif of the forest tall.There no columns of gleaming whiteMark the dust that is sacred still;Swings the gate on its rusty hinge—All may enter and roam at will.Who should hinder the ruthless hand,Who protect from a vagrant's tread?Guard the urns of the rich and great—No one cares for the pauper dead!Outlawed felon and sinless childAll find room in the Potter's Field.There lies a Judas who sold his Lord,Here a Mary, His pity healed.Who could know of the shame and sinSafely under the sod concealed?Weary burdens of want and grief,Laid away in the Potter's Field.Who could guess?—for as swift and lightO'er it the feet of the seasons go;Summer hides it with grace of flowers,Winter spreads it with folds of snow.Rains weep over the lonely mound,Sunlight lingers, and swift shades pass;Tender hands of the gentle windSmooth the knots of the tangled grass.What though hallowed by Death alone,Rest unbroken the sod doth yield;Peace is here, for His constant watchGod doth set o'er the Potter's Field.

WELL he knew that his clothes were poor:He was common, he humbly thought;Child as he was, he could understandWhy he was slighted and never sought.Yet could he help it,—his mother gone,—Help the weight of his father's shame?Hardest sentence of childish law:Blaming innocence not to blame.It was hard when the children playedAll together, to be left out,—Stand aside, with a stinging senseThat 'twas he that they laughed about.Thoughtless children, they felt no wrong,—Pushed him out of the ring at play.No one heard how his voice was choked,No one cared when he stole away.No one saw how he crept at lastThrough the gate and the grasses deep,Past the wall to a lonely graveWhere his mother was laid asleep.Could she feel in her narrow bed,Wee, cold hands, as they groped about—Feel the tears that were dropped becauseEven her grave had left him out?

I HAVE no part with all the great, proud world:It cares not how I live, nor when I die;But every lily smiling in the field,And every tiny sparrow darting by,Claims kinship with me, mortal though they be,—The One who cares for them doth care for me.

WOODBINE.

THE wild bee clings to itMost fond and long.The wild bird sings to itIts sweetest song.The wild breeze brings to itA life more strong.So all things lend to theeSome charm, some grace.The world's a friend to thee,In love's embrace.All hearts do bend to thee,In thy queen's place.

IF I should look for the time o' dayOn the rose's dial red,I would think it was just the sunrise hour,From the flush of its petals spread.And if I would tell by the lily-bell,I would think it was calm, white noon;And the violet's blue would tell by its hueOf the evening coming soon.But when I would know by my lady's face,I am all perplexed the while;For it's always starlight by her eyes,And sunlight by her smile.

THERE may be hearts that lie so deep'Neath griefs and cares that weigh like drifted snow,That love seems chilled in endless sleep,And budding hopes may never dare to grow.Yet under all, some memoryTrails its arbutus flowers of tender thought,—All buried in the snow maybe,Still with the sweetest fragrance fraught.

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