TO ONE IN A DARKENED HOUSE. As, from a shining window cast, O vanished firelight!-dark, without, If I could hide your gloom with light, Or breathe you back the warmth of old... And feel your inner cold! AWAKE IN DARKNESS. MOTHER, if I could cry from out the night Would call you, call you, sharp and plaintively!... Oh vain, vain, vain! Your face I could not see; Your voice no more would bring my darkness light. To this shut room, though I should wail and weep, You would not come to speak one brooding word, And let its comfort warm me into sleep, And leave me dreaming of its comfort heard: Though all the night to morn at last should creep, My cry would fail, your answer be deferred. SONNET-IN 1862. STERN be the Pilot in the dreadful hour And awful tenderness of voted power. From our hot records then thy name shall stand And only paid in never-ending praise- Made by God's providence the Anointed One. THE UNBENDED BOW. IN some old realm, we read, when war had come, Oh sacred Land! not many years ago (The symbol breathes its meaning evermore), Thy holy summons, came the bended bowThy fiery bearers moved from door to door. Then sprang thy brave from threshold and from hearth; O tender wife, in all thy weakness stern With the great purpose which thy husband drew; O mother dreaming of thy son's return, Strong with the arm whose strength thy country knew ; O maiden, proud to hold a hero's name Close in thy prayerful silence, blameless: lo, Transfigured in the light of love and fame, They come, the bearers of the unbended bow! "The strife is hushed, O Land!"-this voice is plain— "The bow of Peace is borne from door to door : May thy dread power be never tried again; But let thine arrows shine for evermore." AUTHOR UNKNOWN. [The following is a specimen of Negro Hymn-writing. It was in actual use, with musical accompaniment, among the slaves of the Southern States]. LITTLE CHILDREN, THEN WON'T YOU BE GLAD? (ARKANSAS.) LITTLE children, then won't you be glad, That you have been to heaven, an' you're gwine to go again, For to try on the long white robe? King Jesus he was so strong, my Lord, Don't you hear what de chariot say? De fore-wheels run by de grace ob God, An' de hind-wheels dey run by faith. Don't you 'member what you promise de Lord? A lovely sky, a cloudless sun A march in the ranks hard-pressed, and the road unknown A sight in camp in the daybreak grey and dim A silver javelin which the hills A sound of tumult troubles all the air A weary, wandering soul am I A whisper woke the air Aboard, at a ship's helm . Above the petty passions of the crowd Absence from thee is something worse than death All grim and soiled and brown with tan Am I not all alone?-The world is still An hour agone, and prostrate Nature lay As plains the homesick ocean-shell As sunbeams stream through liberal space As when the haze of some wan moonlight makes At midnight, in his guarded tent At midnight, in the month of June At the last, tenderly Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath PAGE 160 133 174 398 285 34 242 197 316 317 394 183/ 378 233 306 425 501 385 41 450 232 73 385 31 2:4 298 28 309 216 357 362 90 59 207 Come, I will make the continent indissoluble Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete Content, in purple lustre clad Courage yet! my brother or my sister Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring PAGE 247 312 194 283 98 186 352 Dearest, a look is but a ray Death never came so nigh to me before Dying, still slowly dying Each Orpheüs must to the depths descend Each saddened face is gone, and tearful eye Fair isle that from the fairest of all flowers Farewell, dear child, my heart's too much content Flood-tide below me! I watch you face to face. For this present, hard For those who worship thee there Four points divide the skies From all the rest I single out you, having a message for y Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling 366 193 399 493 489 206 3 42 273 193 69 196 8 308 372 318 97 235 337 160 231 180 How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend |