Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR.

HE

E spoke of BURNS: men rude and rough Pressed round to hear the praise of one Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff, As homespun as their own.

And, when he read, they forward leaned,
Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears,

His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned
From humble smiles and tears.

Slowly there grew a tender awe,
Sunlike, o'er faces brown and hard,
As if in him who read they felt and saw
Some presence of the bard.

It was a sight for Sin and Wrong
And slavish Tyranny to see,

A sight to make our faith more pure

In high humanity.

I thought, "These men will carry Promptings their former life above, And something of a finer reverence

For beauty, truth, and love,

"GOD scatters love on every side,
Freely among his children all,

and strong

hence

And always hearts are lying open wide,

Wherein some grains may fall.

"There is no wind but soweth seeds

Of a more true and open life,

Which burst, unlooked-for, into high-souled deeds With wayside beauty rife.

"We find within these souls of ours

Same wild germs of a higher birth,
Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers
Whose fragrance fills the earth.

"Within the hearts of all men lie
These promises of wider bliss,
Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,
In sunny hours like this.

"All that hath been majestical
In life or death, since time began,
Is native in the simple heart of all,
The angel-heart of man.

"And thus, among the untaught poor,
Great deeds and feelings find a home,
That cast in shadow all the golden lore
Of classic Greece and Rome "

O mighty brother-soul of man, Where'er thou art, in low or high, Thy skyey arches with exulting span O'er-roof infinity!

All thoughts that mould the age begin Deep down within the primitive soul, And from the many slowly upward win To one who grasps the whole:

In his broad breast the feeling deep

That struggled on the many's tongue, Svells to a tide of Thought, whose surges leap O'er the weak thrones of Wrong.

All thought begins in feeling,-wide
In the great mass its base is hid,

And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,
A moveless pyramid.

Nor is he far astray who deems

That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams From the great heart of GOD.

GOD wills, man hopes: in common souls
Hope is but vague and undefined,

Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls,
A blessing to his kind.

Never did Poesy appear

So full of heaven to me, as when

I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men.

It may be glorious to write

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century ;

But better far it is to speak

One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men;

To write some earnest verse or line,

Which, seeking not the praise of art,

Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine In the untutored heart.

He who doth this, in verse or prose,
May be forgotten in his day,

But surely shall be crowned at last with those
Who live and speak for aye.

George Lunt.

THE LYRE AND SWORD.

THE

HE freeman's glittering sword be blest―
Forever blest the freeman's lyre—

That rings upon the tyrant's crest;
This stirs the heart like living fire:
Well can he wield the shining brand,
Who battles for his native land;

But when his fingers sweep the chords,
That summon heroes to the fray,
They gather at the feast of swords
Like mountain-eagles to their prey!

And mid the vales and swelling hills
That sweetly bloom in Freedom's land,
A living spirit breathes and fills

The freeman's heart and nerves his hand.
For the bright soil that gave him birth,
The home of all he loves on earth-

For this, when Freedom's trumpet calls,
He waves on high his sword of fire-
For this, amidst his country's halls,
Forever strikes the freeman's lyre

His burning heart he may not lend
To serve a doting despot's sway—
A suppliant knee he will not bend
Before these things of "brass and clay:"
When Wrong and Ruin call to war,
He knows the summons from afar;

On high his glittering sword he waves,
And myriads feel the freeman's fire,
While he, around their fathers' graves,
Strikes to old strains the freeman's lyre!

Amelia B. Welby.

THE OLD MAID.

HY sits she thus in solitude? Her heart

WHY

Seems melting in her eyes' delicious blue;
And as it heaves, her ripe lips lie apart,
As if to let its heavy throbbings through;
In her dark eye a depth of softness swells,

Deeper than that her careless girlhood wore;
And her cheek crimsons with the hue that tells
The rich, fair fruit is ripened to the core.

It is her thirtieth birthday! With a sigh

Her soul hath turned from youth's luxuriant bowers,

« VorigeDoorgaan »