Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

The golden nurslings of the May

In splendor strew the spangled green,
And hues of tender beauty play,
Entangled where the willows lean.

Mark how the rippled currents flow;
What lustres on the meadows lie!
And hark! the songsters come and go,
And trill between the earth and sky.
Who told us that the years had fled,

Or borne afar our blissful youth?
Such joys are all about us spread,

We know the whisper was not truth.

The birds that break from grass and grove
Sing every carol that they sung
When first our veins were rich with love,
And May her mantle round us flung.

O fresh-lit dawn! immortal life!

O Earth's betrothal, sweet and true, With whose delights our souls are rife, And aye their vernal vows renew! Then, darling, walk with me this morn; Let your brown tresses drink its sheen; These violets, within them worn,

Of floral fays shall make you queen. What though there comes a time of pain

When autumn winds forbode decay?
The days of love are born again;
That fabled time is far away!

And never seemed the land so fair
As now, nor birds such notes to sing,
Since first within your shining hair
I wove the blossoms of the spring.

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

THE STORY OF A SUMMER DAY.

O PERFECT Light, which shaid away
The darkness from the light,
And set a ruler o'er the day,
Another o'er the night;

Thy glory, when the day forth flies,
More vively does appear,
Than at midday unto our eyes
The shining sun is clear.

The shadow of the earth anon

Removes and drawis by,
While in the east, when it is gone,
Appears a clearer sky.

Which soon perceive the little larks,
The lapwing and the snipe,
And time their songs, like Nature's clerks,
O'er meadow, muir, and stripe.

Our hemisphere is polished clean,

And lightened more and more; While everything is clearly seen, Which seemed dim before;

Except the glistering astres bright,

Which all the night were clear, Offusked with a greater light No longer do appear.

The golden globe incontinent
Sets up his shining head,
And o'er the earth and firmament
Displays his beams abread.

For joy the birds with boulden throats
Against his visage sheen
Take up their kindly music notes

In woods and gardens green.

The dew upon the tender crops,
Like pearles white and round,
Or like to melted silver drops,

Refreshes all the ground.

The misty reek, the clouds of rain From tops of mountains skails, Clear are the highest hills and plain, The vapors take the vales.

[blocks in formation]
[graphic][subsumed][merged small]
[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

or kiss of

woman?

ы

Lay him low, by him low,

In the clover on the Snow !
What cares he? he cannot know;

Lay

his low!

Ge. H. Boke

POEMS OF PEACE AND WAR.

ODE TO PEACE.

DAUGHTER of God! that sit'st on high
Amid the dances of the sky,
And guidest with thy gentle sway
The planets on their tuneful way;
Sweet Peace! shall ne'er again
The smile of thy most holy face,
From thine ethereal dwelling-place,
Rejoice the wretched, weary race

Of discord-breathing men?
Too long, O gladness-giving Queen!
Thy tarrying in heaven has been ;
Too long o'er this fair blooming world
The flag of blood has been unfurled,

Polluting God's pure day;

Whilst, as each maddening people reels, War onward drives his scythéd wheels, And at his horses' bloody heels

Shriek Murder and Dismay.

Oft have I wept to hear the cry
Of widow wailing bitterly;
To see the parent's silent tear

For children fallen beneath the spear;

And I have felt so sore

The sense of human guilt and woe,
That I, in Virtue's passioned glow,
Have cursed (my soul was wounded so)
The shape of man I bore!
Then come from thy serene abode,
Thou gladness-giving child of God!
And cease the world's ensanguined strife,
And reconcile my soul to life;

For much I long to see,
Ere I shall to the grave descend,
Thy hand its blessed branch extend,
And to the world's remotest end
Wave Love and Harmony!

WILLIAM TENNENT.

HYMN OF PEACE.

ANGEL of Peace, thou hast wandered too long! Spread thy white wings to the sunshine of love!

Come while our voices are blended in song, Fly to our ark like the storm-beaten dove, Fly to our ark on the wings of the dove,

Speed o'er the far-sounding billows of song, Crowned with thine olive-leaf garland of love; Angel of Peace, thou hast waited too long! Brothers, we meet on this altar of thine, Mingling the gifts we have gathered for thee, Sweet with the odors of myrtle and pine,

Breeze of the prairie and breath of the sea! Meadow and mountain, and forest and sea! Sweet is the fragrance of myrtle and pine, Sweeter the incense we offer to thee,

Brothers, once more round this altar of thine!

[blocks in formation]
« VorigeDoorgaan »