THERE is a dungeon in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on? Nothing: look again! Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight, Two insulated phantoms of the brain : It is not so; I see them full and plain, An old man and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar: but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare? Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, Where on the heart and from the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — What may the fruit be yet? I know not - Cain was Eve's. But here youth offers to old age the food, The milk of his own gift: it is her sire To whom she renders back the debt of blood Born with her birth. No! he shall not expire While in those warm and lovely veins the fire Of health and holy feeling can provide Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher Than Egypt's river ;- from that gentle side Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine : Go where I will, to me thou art the same, A loved regret which I would not resign. There yet are two things in my destiny, A world to roam through, and a home with thee. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. And for the future, this world's future may Having survived so many things that were; BERTHA IN THE LANE. PUT the broidery-frame away, For my sewing is all done! The last thread is used to-day, And I need not join it on. Though the clock stands at the noon, I am weary! I have sewn, Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown. Sister, help me to the bed, And stand near me, dearest-sweet! Love I thee with love complete. Lean thy face down! drop it in These two hands, that I may hold "Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, Stroking back the curls of gold. "T is a fair, fair face, in sooth, Larger eyes and redder mouth Than mine were in my first youth! Till the pleasure, grown too strong, I sat down beneath the beech But the sound grew into word As the speakers drew more near Yes, and he too! let him stand In thy thoughts, untouched by blame. Could he help it, if my hand He had claimed with hasty claim ! And that hour- beneath the beach - And he said, in his deep speech, Each word swam in on my brain With a dim, dilating pain, Till it burst with that last strain. I fell flooded with a dark, そ In the silence of a swoon; And I walked as if apart As if I held it in my hand a "Poor thing" negligence. And I answered coldly too, Dripping from me to the floor; Then I always was too grave, We are so unlike each other, Thou and I, that none could guess We were children of one mother, But for mutual tenderness. Thou art rose-lined from the cold, And meant, verily, to hold Life's pure pleasures manifold. I am pale as crocus grows Close beside a rose-tree's root! Whosoe'er would reach the rose, Treads the crocus underfoot; When I wear the shroud I made, Let the folds lie straight and neat, And the rosemary be spread, That if any friend should come, (To see thee, sweet!) all the room May be lifted out of gloom. And, dear Bertha, let me keep On my hand this little ring, Which at nights, when others sleep, I can still see glittering. Let me wear it out of sight, In the grave, — where it will light COME to me, O my Mother! come to me, As a peculiar darling? Lo, the flies O Lord, Thou doest well. I am content. His hands of blood. Let him array himself And even as once I held him in my womb The snow is round thy dwelling, the white snow, Till all things were fulfilled, and he came forth, A leper with no power but his disease. O river in the valley of my home, DAVID GRAY. THE ABSENT SOLDIER SON. 66 FROM THE ROMAN." LORD, I am weeping. As Thou wilt, O Lord, young, That on the fleck and moult of brutish beasts Had been too happy, sleep in cloth of gold Whereof each thread is to this beating heart So, O Lord, let me hold him in my grave THE FAREWELL SIDNEY DOBELL. OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE. GONE, gone, sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Gone, gone, - sold and gone, Gone, gone, sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Gone, gone, sold and gone, |