Time may "thin the flowing hair;"
Rob the eye of half its light;
And the breath of low-born Care
Hope may canker, Beauty blight ;-
Fate may frown and friends grow chill,
So the heart be vernal still!
Centred thus 'mid Alpine snows,
Storms above, and glaciers 'round,
One green spot no winter knows;
But, like fairy-haunted ground,
Holds within its charméd ring
All the freshest hues of spring!
"Whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried."
THEY leave their native land, a mournful parting,
Fortune to follow o'er the distant main;
No loud lament is theirs, though tears are starting
To dim the eyes that may not look again.
For life hath had for them but changeful weather;
Afar they seek serener skies to find;
They go, and, blessed lot, they go together,
And leave no fond and breaking heart behind:
A PORTRAIT FROM REAL LIFE.
To count the lagging hours, too slowly dying,
The martyr's penance, but without his vow;
To hear the question, with no voice replying,
"Where can they be, what are they doing now?"
Peace may be found upon a stormy billow,
And soft repose upon a rocking sea;
Disquietude knows many a downy pillow;
Where the heart rests, 'tis there its home will be.
Brief gleams of gladness Grief herself may borrow;
Joy is not linked to one peculiar spot;
Thy climax this they know who know thee, Sorrow,
The single heart and the divided lot!
Who sends the suffering, knows the situation,
Notes the heart's sigh, and listens to its prayers;
"In this (the world) ye shall have tribulation;"
Their hearts are one,-oh, let one grave be theirs!
A PORTRAIT FROM REAL LIFE.
"What now to her is all the world's esteems;
She is awake, and cares not for its dreams;
But moves, while yet on earth, as one above
Its hopes and fears-its loathing and its love."
'TIS said she once was beautiful; and still,
For 'tis not Time that can have wrought the ill,
Soft rays of loveliness around her form
Beam, as the rainbow that succeeds the storm
Brightens a noble ruin. In her face,
Though somewhat touched by sorrow, you may trace
How fair she was in life's untroubled spring,
Ere joy grew sere, or earthly hope took wing.
O'er her pure forehead, pale as moonlit snow,
Her ebon locks are parted,—and her brow
Breaks forth like morning from the shades of night,
Serene, though clouds hang over it: the bright
And searching glance of her Ithuriel eye
Might even the sternest hypocrite defy
To meet it unappalled;-'twould almost seem
As though, epitomized in one deep beam,
Her full collected soul upon the heart,
Whate'er its mask, she strove at once to dart.
Patient in suffering, she has learned the art
To bleed in silence and conceal the smart;
And oft, though quick of feeling, has been deemed
Almost as cold and loveless as she seemed,
Because to fools she never would reveal
Wounds they would probe without the power to heal.
No; whatsoe'er the visions that disturb
The fountain of her thoughts, she knows to curb
Each outward sign of sorrow, and suppress,
Even to a sigh, all tokens of distress.
Yet some, perhaps with keener vision than
The crowd, that pass her by unnoted, can,
Through well-dissembled smiles, at times discern
A settled anguish, that would seem to burn
The very brain that quickens it; and when
This mood of pain is on her, then, oh! then
A more than wonted paleness of the cheek,
And, it may be, a flitting hectic streak,
A tremulous motion of the lip or eye,
Are all that anxious friendship can descry.
Unkindness and neglect she knows to bear
Without complaint, almost without a tear,
Save such as hearts internally will weep,
And they ne'er rise the burning lids to steep:
But to those petty wrongs that half defy
Human forbearance, she can make reply
With a proud lip and a contemptuous eye.
There is a speaking sadness in her air,
A shade of languor o'er her features fair,
Born of no common grief; as though Despair
Had wrestled with her spirit, been o'erthrown,
And these the trophies of the strife alone.
A resignation of the will, a calm.
Derived from true religion (that sweet balm
For wounded breasts), is seated on her brow;
And ever to the tempest bends she now,
Even as a drooping lily that the wind
Sways as it lists. The sweet affections bind
Her sympathies to earth; her peaceful soul
Has long aspired to that immortal goal,
Where pain and anguish cease to be our lot,
And worldly cares and frailties are forgot.
OH, whither does the spirit flee
That makes existence seem
A day-dream of reality,
Reality a dream?
We enter on the race of life,
Like prodigals we live,
To learn how much the world exacts
For all it hath to give.
The fine gold soon becometh dim,
We prove its base alloy;
And hearts enamoured once of bliss
Ask peace instead of joy.
Spectres dilate on every hand,
That seemed but tiny elves;
We learn distrust of all, when most
We should suspect ourselves.
But why lament the common lot
That all must share so soon;
Since shadows lengthen with the day,
That scarce exist at noon.
"Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty,
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity."
I'LL not believe I am not loved,
Although his words are few;
The deepest streams have ever proved
As cold and silent too.
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