She hastened to her inner room, 'Three springs have come, three winters gone, 'Under the apple-boughs as I sit In May-time, when the robin's song Thrills the odorous winds along, The innermost heaven seems to ope; I think, though the old joys pass from sight, 'If the aloe waits an hundred years, And God's times are so long indeed For simple things, as flower and weed, That gather only the light and gloom, For what great treasures of joy and dole, Of life and death, perchance, must the soul, Ere it flower in heavenly peace, find room? 'I see that all things wait in trust, As feeling afar God's distant ends, And unto every creature he sends That measure of good that fills its scope; The marmot enters the stiffening mould, And the worm its dark sepulchral fold, To hide there with its beautiful hope.' Still Bertha waited on the cliff, And hope at her yearning heart would knock, Married a wreath of wandering foam. Was it well? you ask (nay, was it ill?)— Who sat last year by the old man's hearth;The sun had passed below the earth, And the first star locked its western gate, ANNE WHITNEY. HOPES AND WAVES. HOPES on hopes from the bosom sever, That the billows heave with a ceaseless motion And hopes that from day to day upstart From the German of RÜCKERT. My hopes retire, my wishes as before W. S. LANDor. 13 WRITING ON THE SANDS. I PAUSED at early morn to trace Nor cared to think how soon the race But now the broad'ning blue expanse Farther the curling waves advance, Their smiles of light, their wreathed dance Are nearer than before. So slight a thing may quell! With yonder words beneath the tide, I feel that all I've wrought beside And dare I deem that all this strife Of thoughts within my soul, These hopes with which my heart is rife, These longings for a glorious life, Will find a better goal? Oh, coward! when the trumpet's call Is sounding in thy heart, Pause not to basely reckon all The risks to triumph or to fall, But forth and act thy part! I know not if the bearded grain Mine autumn hours. Yet not in vain Oh Love, that askest but to be! Life, courage, strength, ye are to me, While all things change, and fade, and flee, In ocean, earth, and sky. W. H. HURLBUT. |