How came this shell upon the mountain height?
Ah, who can say
Whether there dropped by some too careless hand,
Whether there cast when oceans swept the land,
Ere the Eternal had ordained the day?
Strange, was it not? Far from its native deep,
One song it sang:
Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide,
Sang of the storied sea, profound and wide, ·
Ever with echoes of old ocean rang.
And as the shell upon the mountain height
Sang of the sea,
So do I ever, leagues and leagues away,
So do I ever, wandering where I may,
Sing, O my home! sing, O my home, of thee!
TEARS of gold the heavens wept;
They fell and were by billows swept
Into the sea, 'mid coral caves,
Where roll the ever-restless waves.
And thus they lay, till they were found
By mermaids on the ocean's ground.
The sea-nymphs took the gems so rare,
And wound them in their sea-green hair.
And often now some summer's night
The ocean gleams with golden light
Caused by the mermaids sporting there
With tears of gold in flowing hair.
I'M hastening from the distant hills
With swift and noisy flowing;
Nursed by a thousand tiny rills,
I'm ever onward going.
The willows cannot stay my course,
With all their pliant wooing;
I sing and sing till I am hoarse,
My prattling way pursuing.
I kiss the pebbles as I pass,
And hear them say they love me,
I make obeisance to the grass
That kindly bends above me.
So onward through the meads and dells
I hasten, never knowing
The secret motive that impels,
Or whither I am going.
A little child comes often here
To watch my quaint commotion
As I go tumbling swift and clear
Down to the distant ocean;
And as he plays upon my brink,
So thoughtless like and merry
And full of noisy song, I think
The child is like me, very.
Through all the years of youthful play,
With ne'er a thought of sorrow,
We, prattling, speed upon our way,
Unmindful of the morrow;
Aye, through these sunny meads and dells
We gambol, never trowing
The solemn motive that impels,
Or whither we are going.
And men come here to say to me:
"Like you, with weird commotion,
O little singing brooklet, we
Are hastening to the ocean;
Down to a vast and misty deep,
With fleeting tears and laughter
We go, nor rest until we sleep
In that profound Hereafter.
What tides may bear our souls along,
What monsters rise appalling,
What distant shores may hear our song
And answer to our calling?
Ah, who can say! Through meads and dells
We wander, never knowing
The awful motive that impels,
Or whither we are going!"
UPON the brown and frozen sod
The wind's wet fingers shake the rain;
The bare shrubs shiver in the blast
Against the dripping window-pane.
Inside, strange shadows haunt the room,
The flickering firelights rise and fall,
And make I know not what strange shapes
Upon the pale gray parlor wail.
I feel, but do not see these things,
My soul stands under other skies; There is a wondrous radiance comes Between my eyelids and my eyes. I seem to pull down on my feet
God's gentian flowers, as on I pass Through a great prairie, still and sweet With growing vines and blowing grass.
- ah! whence can he have come? I feel a small hand touching mine; Our voices first are like the breath That sways the grass and scented vine. But clearer grow the childish words Of Egypt and of Hindostan ; And Archie's telling me again Where he will go when he 's a man.
The smell of pines is strangely blent
With sandal-wood, and broken spice,
And cores of calamus; the flowers
Grow into gems of wondrous price.
We sit down in the grass and dream;
His face grows strangely bright and fair;
I think it is the amber gleam
Of sunset in his pale gold hair.
But while I look I see a path
Across the prairie to the light;
And Archie, with his small, bare feet,
Has almost passed beyond my sight.
Upon my heart there falls a smile,
Upon my ears a soft adieu:
I see the glory in his face,
And know his dreams have all come true.
Some day I shall go hence and home, —
We shall go hence, I mean to say;
And as we pass the shoals of time,
My brother," I shall, pleading, say,
"There was upon the prairie wide
A spot so dear to thee and me,
I fain would see it ere we walk
The fields of Immortality."
FROM saffron to yellow, from purple to gray,
Slow fades on the mountain the beautiful day;
I sit where the roses are heavy with bloom,
And wait for the moonlight to whiten the gloom.
Far down the green valley I see through the night
The lamps of the village shine steady and bright;
But on my sweet silence there creeps not a tone
Of labor or sorrow, of pleading or moan.
Low sings the glad river along its dark way,
An echo by night of its chiming by day;
And tremulous branches lean down to the tide,
To dimple the waters that under them glide.
The night moths are flitting about in the gloom,
Their wings from the blossoms shake dainty perfume;
I know where the cups of the lilies are fair,
By the breath of their sweetness that floats on the air.
I sit in the shadow; but lo! in the west
The mountains in garments of glory are drest!
And slowly the sheen of their brightness drops down
To rest on the hills in a luminous crown.
The dew glitters clear where the shadows are green;
In ranks of white splendor the lilies are seen;
And the roses above me sway lightly to greet
Their shadowy sisters, afloat at my feet.
Low sings the glad river; its waters alight,
A pathway of silver, lead on through the night;
And fair as the glorified isles of the blest
Lies all the sweet valley, the valley of rest.
'T Is the golden gleam of an autumn day,
With the soft rain raining as if in play;
And a tender touch upon everything,
As if autumn remembered the days of spring.
In the listening woods there is not a breath
To shake their gold to the sward beneath;
And a glow as of sunshine on them lies,
Though the sun is hid in the shadowed skies.
The cock's clear crow from the farmyard comes, The muffled bell from the belfry booms,
And faint and dim, and from far away,
Come the voices of children in happy play.
O'er the mountains the white rain draws its veil,
And the black rooks, cawing, across them sail;
While nearer the swooping swallows skim
O'er the steel-gray river's fretted brim.
No sorrow upon the landscape weighs,
No grief for the vanished summer days;
But a sense of peaceful and calm repose
Like that which age in autumn knows.
The springtime longings are past and gone,
The passions of summer no longer are known,
The harvest is gathered, and autumn stands
Serenely thoughtful, with folded hands.
Over all is thrown a memorial hue,
A glory ideal the real ne'er knew;
For memory sifts from the past its pain,
And suffers its beauty alone to remain.
With half a smile and half a sigh
It ponders the past that has hurried by:
Sees it and feels it and loves it all,
Content it has vanished beyond recall.
O glorious autumn, thus serene,
Thus living and loving all that has been!
Thus calm and contented let me be
When the autumn of age shall come to me.
WHERE are the flowers? where the leaves?
Where the sweet zephyrs' gentle breath?
Where mellowed fruits and golden sheaves?
Dead, dead; all icy bound in death!
Is Love too dead? Hence, needless pain!
Love only sleeps to wake again.
Love dead? Ah, no, not so with Love!
Love only dies to live above.
THOU dark-robed man with solemn pace,
And mantle muffled round thy face,
Like the dim vision seen by Saul,
Upraised by spells from Death's dark hall;
|