Week in, week out, from morn till night,

You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,

When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school

Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,

And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly

Like chaff from a threshing floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,

And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,

He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,

Singing in Paradise !
He needs must think of her once more,

How in the grave she lies ;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes

A tear out of his eyes.

GOD'S-ACRE.

23

Toiling, - rejoicing, - sorrowing,

Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,

Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,

For the lesson thou hast taaght!
Thus at the flaming forge of life

Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped

Each burning deed and thought !

GOD'S-ACRE.

I

LIKE that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls

The burial-ground God’s-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls,

And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts

Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown The seed, that they had garnered in their hearts,

Their bread of life, alas ! no more their own.

Into its furrows shall we all be cast,

In the sure faith, that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast

Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.

Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,

In the fair gardens of that second birth ; And each bright blossom, mingle its perfume

With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.

With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,

And spread the furrow for the seed we sow; This is the field and Acre of our God,

This is the place where human harvests grow!

TO THE RIVER CHARLES.

RI

IVER! that in silence windest

Through the meadows, bright and free, Till at length thy rest thou findest

In the bosom of the sea !

Four long years of mingled feeling,

Half in rest, and half in strife, I have seen thy waters stealing

Onward, like the stream of life.

Thou hast taught me, Silent River !

Many a lesson, deep and long ; Thou hast been a generous giver ;

I can give thee but a song.

Oft in sadness and in illness

I have watched thy current glide, Till the beauty of its stillness

Overflowed me, like a tide.

And in better hours and brighter,

When I saw thy waters gleam, I have felt my heart beat lighter,

And leap onward with thy stream.

Not for this alone I love thee,

Nor because thy waves of blue From celestial seas above thee

Take their own celestial hue.

THE GOBLET OF LIFE.

25

Where yon shadowy woodlands hide thee,

And thy waters disappear,
Friends I love have dwelt beside thee,

And have made thy margin dear.
More than this; - thy name reminds me

Of three friends, all true and tried ;
And that name, like magic, binds me

Closer, closer, to thy side.
Friends my soul with joy remembers !

How like quivering flames they start,
When I fan the living embers

On the hearth-stone of my heart ! 'T is for this, thou Silent River !

That my spirit leans to thee; Thou hast been a generous giver,

Take this idle song from me.

THE GOBLET OF LIFE.

FILLED is Life's goblet to the brim;

dim,

I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn

With solemn voice and slow.
No purple flowers, - no garlands green,
Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen,
Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,
Like gleams of sunshine, flash between

Thick leaves of mistletoe.

This goblet, wrought with curious art,
Is filled with waters, that upstart,
When the deep fountains of the heart,
By strong convulsions rent apart,

Are running all to waste.

And as it mantling passes round,
With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,
Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned
Are in its waters steeped and drowned,

And give a bitter taste.
Above the lowly plants it towers,
The fennel, with its yellow flowers,
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers,

Lost vision to restore.
It gave new strength, and fearless mood;
And gladiators, fierce and rude,
Mingled it in their daily food;
And he who battled and subdued,

A wreath of fennel wore.
Then in Life's goblet freely press,
The leaves that give it bitterness,
Nor prize the colored waters less,
For in thy darkness and distress

New light and strength they give !
And he who has not learned to know
How false its sparkling bubbles show,
How bitter are the drops of woe,
With which its brim may overflow,

He has not learned to live.

The prayer of Ajax was for light;
Through all that dark and desperate fight,
The blackness of that noonday night,
He asked but the return of sight,

To see his foeman's face.

Let our unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light, — for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair

One half the human race.