THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. "Sail on!" it says, "sail on, ye stately ships! 57 THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. TE sat within the farm-house old, WE Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, We sat and talked until the night, Our voices only broke the gloom. We spake of many a vanished scene, Of what we once had thought and said, And all that fills the hearts of friends, The first slight swerving of the heart, And leave it still unsaid in part, The very tones in which we spake Had something strange, I could but mark; Oft died the words upon our lips, And, as their splendor flashed and failed, The windows, rattling in their frames, Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain, — The long-lost ventures of the heart, That send no answers back again. O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned ! They were indeed too much akin, The drift-wood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within. RESIGNATION. 59 T RESIGNATION. HERE is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair! The air is full of farewells to the dying, The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Let us be patient! These severe afflictions But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise. We see but dimly through the mists and vapors ; Amid these earthly damps, What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps. There is no Death! What seems so is transition. This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, She is not dead, the child of our affection, - Where she no longer needs our poor protection, In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, Day after day we think what she is doing In those bright realms of air; Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, Behold her grown more fair. THE BUILDERS. Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, Not as a child shall we again behold her; For when with raptures wild In our embraces we again enfold her, But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, And beautiful with all the soul's expansion And though at times impetuous with emotion The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, We will be patient, and assuage the feeling By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have way. A THE BUILDERS. LL are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. Nothing useless is, or low; Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest. 61 |