OFT have I walked these woodland SWEET winter roses, stainless as the paths, Without the blest foreknowing That underneath the withered leaves The fairest buds were growing. To-day the south-wind sweeps away The types of autumn's splendor, And shows the sweet arbutus flowers, Spring's children, pure and tender. snow, As was thy life, O tender heart and true! A cross of lilies that our tears bedew, A garland of the fairest flowers that grow, And filled with fragrance as the thought of thee, We lay, with loving hand, upon thy breast, Wrapt in the calm of Death's great mystery; O prophet-flowers! with lips of Ours still to feel the pain, the unlan bloom, Outvying in your beauty The pearly tints of ocean shells,Ye teach me faith and duty! "Walk life's dark ways," ye seem to say, "With love's divine foreknowing, That where man sees but withered leaves, God sees sweet flowers growing." guaged woe, The bitter sense of loss, the vague Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood. Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, HESTER. WHEN maidens such as Hester die, Their place ye may not well supply, Though ye among a thousand try, With vain endeavor. A month or more has she been dead, A springy motion in her gait, I know not by what name beside She did inherit. Her parents held the Quaker rule, Which doth the human feelings cool; But she was trained in nature's school, Nature had blessed her. A waking eye, a prying mind, A heart that stirs, is hard to bind; A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind, Ye could not Hester. My sprightly neighbor, gone before Seeking to find the old familiar To that unknown and silent shore! Shall we not meet as heretofore Some summer morning; When from thy cheerful eyes a ray THE HOUSEKEEPER. THE frugal snail, with forecast of repose, Carries his house with him where'er he goes; The poet, when his lyre hangs on the palm; The statesman, when the crowd proclaim his voice, And mould opinion on his gifted tongue: They count not life's first steps, and never think Upon the many miserable hours When hope deferred was sickness to the heart. They reckon not the battle and the march, The long privations of a wasted youth; They never see the banner till unfurled. What are to them the solitary nights Passed pale and anxiously by the Hard are life's early steps; and, but that youth Is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope, Men would behold its threshold, and despair. |