Glenara.

H! heard ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale,
Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail?
'Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear;

And her sire and the people are called to her bier.

Glenara came first, with the mourners and shroud;
Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud:
Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around;
They marched all in silence, they looked on the ground.

In silence they reached, over mountain and moor,
To a heath where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar;
"Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn;
Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the stern.

"And tell me, I charge you, ye clan of my spouse!
Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?"
So spake the rude chieftain. No answer is made,
But each mantle unfolding a dagger displayed.

"I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her shroud,"
Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud;
"And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem.
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream."

Oh! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween,
When the shroud was unclosed, and no lady was seen!
When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn,—
'Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorne:

THEIR ANGELS.

"I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief,
I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief;
On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem.
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!"

Their Angels.

Y heart is lonely as heart can be,

And the cry of Rachel goes up from me,
For the tender faces unforgot

Of the little children that are not;

Altho' I know

They are all in the land where I shall go.

I want them close in the dear old way;
But life goes forward and will not stay,
And He who made it has made it right:
Yet I miss my darlings out of my sight.
Altho' I know

They are all in the land where I shall go.

Only one has died. Here is one small mound
Violet-heaped, in the sweet grave-ground;
Twenty years they have bloomed and spread
Over the little baby head;

And oh, I know

She is safe in the land where I shall go.

Not dead; only grown and gone away,
The hair of my darling is turning gray
That was golden once in the days so dear,

139

Over for many and many a year.

Yet I know-I know—

She's a child in the land where I shall go.

My bright brave boy is a grave-eyed man
Facing the world as a worker can;

But I think of him now as I had him then,
And I lay his cheek to my heart again,

And so, I know

I shall have him there where we both shall go.

Out from the Father, and into life:

Back to His breast from the ended strife,

And the finished labor. I hear the word

From the lips of Him who was Child and Lord, And I know that so

It shall be in the land where we all shall go.

Given back-with the gain. The secret this
Of the blessed kingdom of children is!
My mother's arms are waiting for me;
I shall lay my head on my Father's knee;
For so, I know

I'm a child myself where I shall go.

The world is troublous and hard and cold,
And men and women grow grey and old:
But behind the world is an inner place
Where yet their angels behold God's face,
And lo! we know

That only the children can see Him so!

My Neighbor's Confession.

(After she had been fortunate.)

ES, this is what my neighbor said that night,

In the still shadow of her stately house

(Fortune came to her when her head was white), What time dark leaves were weird in withering boughs, And each late rose sighed with its latest breath, "This sweet world is too sweet to end in death."

But this is what my neighbor said to me:

I grieved my youth away for that or this. I had upon my hand the ring you see,

With pretty babies in my arms to kiss, And one man said I had the sweetest eyes, He was quite sure, this side of Paradise.

But then our crowded cottage was so small,

And spacious grounds would blossom full in sight;
Then one would fret me with an India shawl,
And one flash by me in a diamond's light;
And one would show me yards of precious lace,
And one look coldly from her painted face.

I did not know that I had everything

Till I remembered it. Ah me! ah me! I, who had ears to hear the wild birds sing, And eyes to see the violets. It must be

A bitter fate that jewels the gray hair,

Which once was golden and had flowers to wear.

In the old house, in my old room, for years,
The haunted cradle of my little ones gone
Would hardly let me look at it for tears.

Oh, my lost nurslings! I stay on and on, Only to miss you from the empty light

Of my lone fire-with my own grave in sight.

In the old house, too, in its own old place,

Handsome and young, and looking toward the gate, Through which it flushed to meet me, is a face For which, ah me! I nevermore shall wait

For which, ah me! I wait forever, I

Who, for the hope of it, can surely die.

Young men write gracious letters here to me,
That ought to fill this mother heart of mine.
The youth in this one crowds all Italy!

This glimmers with the far Pacific's shine.
The first poor little hand that warmed my breast
Wrote this, the date is old; you know the rest.

Oh, if I only could have back my boys,

With their lost gloves and books for me to find, Their scattered playthings and their pleasant noise! I sit here in the splendor, growing blind, With hollow hands that backward reach and ache For the sweet trouble which the children make.