Take back your doubtful wisdom, and renew Whose simple instinct guessed the heavens at once. RICHARD REALF. THE TOYS My little son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes With hard words and unkiss'd, His mother, who was patient, being dead. But found him slumbering deep, With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach, And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells, And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said: "Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou 'It leave Thy wrath, and say, 'I will be sorry for their childishness."" COVENTRY PATMORE. THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD THE muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on Life's parade shall meet On Fame's eternal camping ground No rumor of the foe's advance No troubled thought at midnight haunts Their shivered swords are red with rust, And plenteous funeral tears have washed And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Are free from anguish now. The neighing troop, the flashing blade, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, Like the fierce northern hurricane That sweeps his great plateau, Knew well the watchword of that day Was "Victory or death." Long has the doubtful conflict raged Not long, our stout old chieftain knew, Such odds his strength could bide. 'T was in that hour his stern command And well he deemed the sons would pour Full many a norther's breath had swept O'er Angostura's plain And long the pitying sky has wept Alone awakes each sullen height That frowned o'er that dread fray. Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, Where stranger steps and tongues resound Your own proud land's heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave; She claims from war his richest spoil- So, 'neath their parent turf they rest, Borne to a Spartan mother's breast, The sunshine of their native sky Smiles sadly on them here, And kindred eyes and hearts watch by The heroes' sepulchre. Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead, Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone, When many a vanished age hath flown, Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, THEODORE O'HARA. SANDS OF DEE "O MARY, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, The western wind was wild and dank with foam, The creeping tide came up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see; The blinding mist came down and hid the land: "O, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,— A tress of golden hair, Of drowned maiden's hair,— Above the nets at sea? Was never salmon yet that shone so fair, They rowed her in across the rolling foam,— The cruel, crawling foam, The cruel, hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea; But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home, Across the sands of Dee. CHARLES KINGSLEY, HANNAH BINDING SHOES POOR lone Hannah, Sitting at the window binding shoes. Faded, wrinkled, Sitting stitching in a mournful muse. Not a neighbor "Is there from the fishers any news ?" Night and morning Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. Ben, the sunburnt fisher, gayly wooes; For a willing heart and hand he sues. Hannah leaves her window and her shoes. May is passing; Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon cooes. For the mild southwester mischief brews. Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews; Not a sail returning will she lose, heard of Ben ?" Old with watching, Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. Twenty winters Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views ; Twenty seasons Never one has brought her any news. Still her dim eyes silently Chase the white sails o'er the sea ;. Hopeless, faithful, Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. LUCY LARCOM. THREE ROSES THREE roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down Drooped in a florist's window in a town. The first a lover bought. It lay at rest, Like flower on flower that night on beauty's breast. |