Because I grasp at things that are And men of every land and speech, If but they have Thee in their not mine, And might undo me, sight, Give, from thy treasure-house of Are bound to Thee, and each to each, goods divine, Through thee, by countless threads of light. GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE. THE RIVER IN THE MAMMOTH CAVE. O DARK, mysterious stream, I sit by thee In awe profound, as myriad wander ers Have sat before. I see thy waters move From out the ghostly glimmerings of my lamp Into the dark beyond, as noiselessly As if thou wert a sombre river drawn Upon a spectral canvas, or the stream Of dim Oblivion flowing through the lone And shadowy vale of death. There is no wave To whisper on thy shore, or breathe a wail, Wounding its tender bosom on thy sharp their sound Repeating it in wonder- a wild maze | Toward Earth's eternal centre; but Of spirit-tones, a wilderness of sounds, Earth-born but all unearthly. void. No breeze e'er strays across thy solemn tide; No bird e'er breaks thy surface with his wing; No star, or sky, or bow, is ever glassed Within thy depths; no flower or blade e'er breathes Its fragrance from thy bleak banks on the air. True, here are flowers, or semblances of flowers, Carved by the magic fingers of the drops That fall upon thy rocky battle ments Fair roses, tulips, pinks, and violetsAll white as cerements of the coffined dead; Is not for ear of man. All we can know Is that thy tide rolls out, a spectre stream, From yon stupendous, frowning wall of rock, And, Beneath another mass of rock as dark moving on a little way, sinks down And frowning, even as life-our little life Born of one fathomless eternity, Steals on a moment and then disappears In an eternity as fathomless. LAURA C. REDDEN (HOWARD GLYNDON). FAIR AND FIFTEEN. SHE is the east just ready for the sun Upon a cloudless morning. Oh, her cheek As I moaned "Mother!" yesterday, I shall not find some gracious way, Of comforting my little May! If, when you kiss my silent lips, They will not pass from death's eclipse To smile in peace I then shall know, If my poor children's grief will fail The wolf at bay while children sleep, And thrill with mother happiness; Have they not soon the power to bless? I think the sting of death must be HIRAM RICH. STILL TENANTED. OLD house, how desolate thy life! Nay, life and death alike have fled; Nor thrift, nor any song within, Nor daily thought for daily bread. The dew is nightly on thy hearth, Yet something sweeter to thee clings, And some who enter think they hear The murmur of departing wings. No doubt within the chambers there, Not by the wall nor through the Uncounted tenants come, to whom COME, come, come, my love, come and hurry, and come, my dear; For love of you has burned me through — has oped a gap for Death, I fear; Though angels' swords should bar your way, turn you not back, but persevere; Though heaven should send down fiery hail, rain lightnings, do not fear; Let your small, exquisite, white feet fly over cliffs and mountains sheer, Bridge rivers, scatter armèd foes, shine on the hill-tops near. Like citizens to greet their queen, then shall my hopes, desires, troop out, To speed, to urge, to lift you on, 'mid storms of joy and floods of tears, The javelin-scourges of your eye, the lightnings from your glorious face, Then, hand in hand, we'll laugh at Death, his brainless skull, his nerveless arm; How can he wreak our overthrow, or plot, to do us harm? For what so weak a thing as Death when you are near, when you are near? Oh, come, come, come, my love, before his hand is here! mirth-provoking thou canst find: matter Like some glad brook she seems to I laugh, and own that thou, with be, That ripples o'er its pebbly bed, And prattles to each flower or tree, Which stoops to kiss it, overhead. Beneath the heavens' white and blue The sunny meadows dancing through small endeavor, Hast won my mind. Be silent if thou wilt-thine eyes ex pressing Thy thoughts and feelings, lift them up to mine: Then quickly thou shalt hear me, love, confessing My heart is thine. |