Whether my life be sad or no,
The winters come, the winters go,
The sunshine plays with baby leaves,
Swallows build about the eaves,
The lovely wild flowers bend and blow;
Thus doth the winter end and go,
Whether my life be sad or no.
Yet Mother Nature gives to me
A fond and patient sympathy;
In my own heart I find the charm
To make her tender, near, and warm;
Through summer sunshine, winter snow,
She clasps me, sad or glad or no.
WHERE moss-made beds are brightest by the river, And curtained round with wondrous-woven vines,
I lie and watch the water-lilies quiver
In the soft shadow of the haunted pines, Lie, as in dreams, amidst the languid laughter Of waves at play upon the harbor bar, And hear the sound of wings that follow after The wind who knoweth where the bird-nests are.
So sweet the hour, I cannot well remember
If care has been, or wearying toil or pain,
Or life low leaning to a drear December,
Or vision tortured by a teary rain;
The eyes of sorrow have been kissed to sleeping
By lips where many a tender mystery hides,
Like music in the merry waters, keeping
My feet from climbing up the mountain sides.
Upon my book unread a bee sits sipping
Wild honey from the fragrant wild-rose mark,
And, listening, I can hear the dipping, dipping
Of light oars piloting a home-bound bark.
A new life flows through all the aisles of being;
I seem a pulsing portion of the haze
That floats and floats where saints sing softlier, seeing
The dawn of heaven's own Indian summer days.
And once again, oh, once again is lying
Upon my heart a dainty, dimpled cheek,
For whose young bloom my lips were ever crying
In the old time of which I cannot speak.
One little word the first that babies mangle-
I hear, and flush with mother-love and pride,
Feeling my fingers in a golden tangle
Of locks long longed for - and am satisfied.
HESTER A. BENEDICT.
I NOTE this morning how the sunshine falleth,
Just as it fell one morning long ago;
A white dove walks the window-ledge, soft cooing;
The waters murmur in their ebb and flow.
The aspen whispers to the autumn breezes,
I see the golden-rod on sloping hills;
I catch the odors of the brown leaves dying,
And hear the babble of the shrunken rills.
I listen to some notes of children's laughter,
Smiling to think how late I was a child-
A happy elf with cheeks of sun-kissed crimson,
And curls of tawny gold, wind-tossed and wild.
The very winds stir memories with their wailing,
The very clouds that dot the azure sky,
The heliotrope within my window blooming,
Even the swallows swiftly skimming by.
On a dead oak that lifts its leafless branches
A raven sits, and croaks with fretful tone,
Like some old prophet who with mystic lore foresees
The evil that he sees with sob and moan.
A sense of pain, half hidden, half definèd,
Stirs in my heart an unborn babe of sorrow
Whose birth, unwelcome and unasked, with wail
Shall usher in a darker, sadder morrow.
And I shall meet it as I met the day departed,
With pride unbending and an iron will,
That holds me steadfast in the path I chose, but hated,
Yet hating, love, and loving, loathe it still.
I see and hear; I know I am not dreaming;
And still somehow I cannot make it seem
But that I sleep, and hear and see things dimly,
As one does often in a troubled dream.
Ah, well! what matter, since so soon for all
Our struggles and our dreams will have an ending,
And our tired hearts and brains shall rest for aye
In that blest land to which our feet are tending?
GARNET B. FREEMAN.
SHE makes no moan above her faded flowers,
She will not vainly strive against her lot,
Patient she wears away the slow, sad hours,
As if the ray they had were quite forgot;
While stronger fingers snatch away the sword,
And lighter footsteps pass her on the ways,
Yielding submissive to the stern award
That said she must go softly all her days.
She knows the pulse is beating quickly yet,
She knows the dream is sweet and subtle still,
That, struggling from the cloud of past regret,
Ready for conflict, live Hope, Joy, and Will;
So soon, so soon to veil the eager eyes,
To dull the throbbing ear to blame or praise,
So soon to crush re-awakening sympathies,
And teach them she goes softly all her days.
She will not speak or move beneath the doom,
She knows she had her day and flung her cast,
The loser scarce the laurel may assume,
Nor evening think the noonday glow can last.
Only, oh youth and love, as in your pride,
Of joyous triumph your gay notes you raise, Throw one kind glance and word, where, at your side, She creeps, who must go softly all her days.
WHICHEVER way the wind doth blow,
Some heart is glad to have it so ;
Then, blow it east, or blow it west,
The wind that blows, that wind is best.
My little craft sails not alone;
A thousand fleets from every zone
Are out upon a thousand seas;
What blows for one a favoring breeze
Might dash another with the shock
Of doom upon some hidden rock.
And so I do not dare to pray
For winds to waft me on my way,
But leave it to a higher Will
To stay or speed me, trusting still
That all is well, and sure that He
Who launched my bark will sail with me
Through storm and calm, and will not fail.
Whatever breezes may prevail,
To land me, every peril past,
Within the sheltered haven at last.
Then, whatsoever wind doth blow,
My heart is glad to have it so ;
And, blow it east, or blow it west,
The wind that blows, that wind is best.
SOME love the glow of outward show,
Some love mere wealth and try to win it;
The house to me may lowly be,
If I but like the people in it.
What's all the gold that glitters cold,
When linked to hard or haughty feeling?
Whate'er we're told, the noble gold
Is truth of heart and manly dealing.
Then let them seek, whose minds are weak,
Mere fashion's smile and try to win it;
The house to me may lowly be,
If I but like the people in it.
A lowly roof may give us proof
That lowly flowers are often fairest ;
And trees whose bark is hard and dark
May yield us fruit and bloom the rarest. There's worth as sure 'neath garments poor As e'er adorned a loftier station;
And minds as just as those, we trust,
Whose claim is but of wealth's creation. Then let them seek, whose minds are weak, Mere fashion's smile, and try to win it; The house to me may lowly be,
If I but like the people in it.
He does well who does his best;
Is he weary? let him rest.
Brothers! I have done my best,
I am weary - let me rest.
After toiling oft in vain,
Baffled, yet to struggle fain,
After toiling long, to gain
Little good with mickle pain,
Let me rest. But lay me low
Where the hedge-side,roses blow,
Where the little daisies grow,
Where the winds a-maying go,
Where the footpath rustics plod,
Where the breeze-bowed poplars nod,
Where the old woods worship God,
Where his pencil paints the sod,
Where the wedded throstle sings,
Where the young bird tries his wings,
Where the wailing plover swings,
Near the runlet's rushing springs !
Where, at times, the tempests roar,
Shaking distant sea and shore,
Still will rave old Barnesdale o'er,
To be heard by me no more!
There, beneath the breezy west,
Tired and thankful, let me rest,
Like a child that sleepeth best
On its mother's gentle breast.
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