A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from the Best Poets

With brow so pale, who yester-morn breathed forth

Through joyous smiles her superflux of bliss
Into the hearts of others. By her side

Her hoary sire, with speechless sorrow, gazed
Upon the stricken idol, — all dismayed
Beneath his God's rebuke. And she who nursed
That fair young creature at her gentle breast,
And oft those sunny locks had decked with
buds

Of rose and jasmine, shuddering wiped the dews
Which death distils.

The sufferer just had given Her long farewell, and for the last, last time Touched with cold lips his cheek who led so

late

Her footsteps to the altar, and received
In the deep transport of an ardent heart

Her vow of love. And she had striven to press
That golden circlet with her bloodless hand
Back on his finger, which he kneeling gave
At the bright bridal morn. So there she lay
In calm endurance, like the smitten lamb
Wounded in flowery pastures, from whose breast
The dreaded bitterness of death had passed.
- But a faint wail disturbed the silent scene,
And in its nurse's arms a new-born babe
Was borne in utter helplessness along,
Before that dying eye.

Its gathered film
Kindled one moment with a sudden glow
Of tearless agony, - and fearful pangs,
Racking the rigid features, told how strong
A mother's love doth root itself. One cry
Of bitter anguish, blent with fervent prayer,
Went up to Heaven, and, as its cadence sank,
Her spirit entered there.

DAY dawned; within a curtained room,
Filled to faintness with perfume,
A lady lay at point of doom.

Day closed; a child had seen the light.
But, for the lady fair and bright,
She rested in undreaming night.
Spring rose; the lady's grave was green;
And near it, oftentimes, was seen
A gentle boy with thoughtful mien.
Years fled; he wore a manly face,
And struggled in the world's rough race,
And won at last a lofty place.
And then he died! behold before ye
Humanity's poor sum and story;
Life Death- - and all that is of Glory.

BARRY CORNWALL.

O, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?

[The following poem was a particular favorite with Mr. Lincoln Mr. F. B. Carpenter, the artist, writes that while engaged in painting his picture at the White House, he was alone one evening with the President in his room, when he said: "There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years, which was first shown to me when a young man by a friend, and which I afterwards sav and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I would," he continued, "give a great deal to know who wrote it, but have never been able to ascertain."]

O, WHY should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, Man passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the
high,

Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant's affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in

whose eye,

Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by;

| Who make in their dwelling a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain ;
And the smiles and the tears, the song and the
dirge,

Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

T is the wink of an eye, 't is the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,-

And the memory of those who loved her and praised,O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?

Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne ;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn ;
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap ;
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the
steep;

The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flowers or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen,
We drink the same stream and view the same sun,
Aud run the same course our fathers have run.

ELEONORA.

WILLIAM KNOX.

ELEGY ON THE COUNTESS OF ABINGDON.

No single virtue we could most commend,
Whether the wife, the mother, or the friend;
For she was all, in that supreme degree,
That as no one prevailed, so all was she.
The several parts lay hidden in the piece;
The occasion but exerted that, or this.

A wife as tender, and as true withal,
As the first woman was before her fall:
Made for the man, of whom she was a part ;
Made to attract his eyes, and keep his heart.
A second Eve, but by no crime accursed;
As beauteous, not as brittle, as the first.
Had she been first, still Paradise had been,
And death had found no entrance by her sin.
So she not only had preserved from ill

Her sex and ours, but lived their pattern still.
Love and obedience to her lord she bore;
Not awed to duty by superior sway,
She much obeyed him, but she loved him more :
But taught by his indulgence to obey.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would Thus we love God, as author of our good.

think;

Yet unemployed no minute slipped away;
Moments were precious in so short a stay.
The haste of Heaven to have her was so great
That some were single acts, though each complete ;
But every act stood ready to repeat.

Her fellow-saints with busy care will look
For her blest name in fate's eternal book ;
And, pleased to be outdone, with joy will see
Numberless virtues, endless charity:
But more will wonder at so short an age,
To find a blank beyond the thirtieth page :
And with a pious fear begin to doubt

They died, ay they died: and we things that The piece imperfect, and the rest torn out.

are now,

Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,

But 't was her Saviour's time; and could there be
A copy near the original, 't was she.

As precious gums are not for lasting fire,
They but perfume the temple, and expire;
So was she soon exhaled, and vanished hence,
A short sweet odor, of a vast expense.

She vanished, we can scarcely say she died;
For but a now did heaven and earth divide:
She passed serenely with a single breath ;
This moment perfect health, the next was death:
One sigh did her eternal bliss assure;

So little penance needs, when souls are almost pure.
As gentle dreams our waking thoughts pursue;
Or, one dream passed, we slide into a new ;
So close they follow, such wild order keep,
We think ourselves awake, and are asleep:
So softly death succeeded life in her

She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
No pains she suffered, nor expired with noise;
Her soul was whispered out with God's still voice;
As an old friend is beckoned to a feast,
And treated like a long-familiar guest.
He took her as he found, but found her so,
As one in hourly readiness to go:
E'en on that day, in all her trim prepared ;
As early notice she from heaven had heard,
And some descending courier from above
Had given her timely warning to remove;
Or counselled her to dress the nuptial room,
For on that night the bridegroom was to come.
He kept his hour, and found her where she lay
Clothed all in white, the livery of the day.

JOHN DRYDEN.

FAREWELL TO THEE, ARABY'S
DAUGHTER.

FROM "THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS."

FAREWELL,-farewell to thee, Araby's daughter! (Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea ;) No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water

More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee.

The young village maid, when with flowers she dresses

Her dark-flowing hair for some festival day, Will think of thy fate till, neglecting her tresses, She mournfully turns from the mirror away. Nor shall Iran, beloved of her hero! forget thee, Though tyrants watch over her tears as they start,

Close, close by the side of that hero she 'll set thee, Embalmed in the innermost shrine of her heart. Farewell!be it ours to embellish thy pillow With everything beauteous that grows in the deep;

Each flower of the rock and each gem of the billow Shall sweeten thy bed and illumine thy sleep. Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber

That ever the sorrowing sea-bird has wept ; With many a shell, in whose hollow-wreathed chamber,

We, Peris of ocean, by moonlight have slept.

We'll dive where the gardens of coral lie darkling, And plant all the rosiest stems at thy head; We'll seek where the sands of the Caspian are sparkling,

And gather their gold to strew over thy bed. Farewell!-farewell!-until pity's sweet foun

tain

Is lost in the hearts of the fair and the brave, They'll weep for the Chieftain who died on that mountain,

They'll weep for the Maiden who sleeps in the

wave.

THOMAS MOORE.

FAIR HELEN OF KIRKCONNELL.

["A lady of the name of Helen Irving or Bell (for this is disputed by the two clans), daughter of the laird of Kirkconnell, in Dumfries

O, fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,
How light was thy heart till love's witcheryshire, and celebrated for her beauty, was beloved by two gentle-

came,

men in the neighborhood. The name of the favored suitor was

Like the wind of the south o'er a summer lute Adam Fleming of Kirkpatrick; that of the other has escaped tra

blowing,

And hushed all its music and withered its frame!

dition, although it has been alleged that he was a Bell of ¦ Blacket House. The addresses of the latter were, however, favored by the friends of the lady, and the lovers were therefore obliged to ¡ meet in secret, and by night, in the churchyard of Kirkconnell, a romantic spot surrounded by the river Kirtle. During one of these But long, upon Araby's green sunny highlands, private interviews, the jealous and despised lover suddenly ap Shall maids and their lovers remember the doompeared on the opposite bank of the stream, and levelled his

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I carabine at the breast of his rival. Helen threw herself before her

lover, received in her bosom the bullet, and died in his arms. desperate and mortal combat ensued between Fleming and the

murderer, in which the latter was cut to pieces. Other accounts say that Fleming pursued his enemy to Spain, and slew him in the streets of Madrid."-SIR WALTER SCOTT.]

I WISH I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries;
O that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirkconnell lee !

Curst be the heart that thought the thought, | A poacher's widow sat sighing

And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropt,

And died to succor me!

O, think ye na my heart was sair,

When my love dropt down and spake nae mair! There did she swoon wi' meikle care,

On fair Kirkconnell lee.

As I went down the water-side,
None but my foe to be my guide,
None but my foe to be my guide,
On fair Kirkconnell lee, -

I lighted down, my sword did draw,
I hacked him in pieces sma,
I hacked him in pieces sma,

For her sake that died for me.

O Helen fair, beyond compare !
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall bind my heart forevermair
Until the day I dee!

O that I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries;
Out of my bed she bids me rise,

Says, "Haste, and come to me !"

O Helen fair! O Helen chaste!
If I were with thee I were blest,
Where thou lies low, and takes thy rest,
On fair Kirkconnell lee.

I wish my grave were growing green;
A winding-sheet drawn ower my een,
And I in Helen's arms lying
On fair Kirkconnell lee.

I wish I were where Helen lies! Night and day on me she cries, And I am weary of the skies,

For her sake that died for me!

ANONYMOUS.

A ROUGH RHYME ON A ROUGH MATTER.

THE ENGLISH GAME LAWS.

THE merry brown hares came leaping
Over the crest of the hill,
Where the clover and corn lay sleeping,
Under the moonlight still.

Leaping late and early,

Till under their bite and their tread, The swedes, and the wheat, and the barley Lay cankered, and trampled, and dead.

On the side of the white chalk bank, Where, under the gloomy fir-woods,`

One spot in the lea throve rank.

She watched a long tuft of clover,
Where rabbit or hare never ran,
For its black sour haulm covered over
The blood of a murdered man.

She thought of the dark plantation,

And the hares, and her husband's blood, And the voice of her indignation

Rose up to the throne of God.

"I am long past wailing and whining,I have wept too much in my life. I've had twenty years of pining

As an English laborer's wife.

"A laborer in Christian England,

Where they cant of a Saviour's name, And yet waste men's lives, like the vermin's, For a few more brace of game.

"There's blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire, There's blood on your pointer's feet; There's blood on the game you sell, squire,

And there's blood on the game you eat.

"You have sold the laboring man, squire,
Both body and soul to shame,
To pay for your seat in the House, squire,
And to pay for the feed of your game.

"You made him a poacher yourself, squire,
When you'd give neither work nor meat,
And your barley-fed hares robbed the garden
At our starving children's feet.

"When, packed in one reeking chamber,

Man, maid, mother, and little ones lay; While the rain pattered in on the rotten bride-bed, And the walls let in the day.

"When we lay in the burning fever,

On the mud of the cold clay floor,

Till you parted us all for three months, squire, At the cursed workhouse door.

"We quarrelled like brutes, and who wonders? What self-respect could we keep,

Worse housed than your hacks and your pointers Worse fed than your hogs and your sheep?

"Our daughters, with base-born babies,
Have wandered away in their shame ;
If your misses had slept, squire, where they did,
Your misses might do the same.

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