TIME AND ETERNITY.
Time! Ocean of boundless unrest!
Upheaving with tumult of life; While, as foam on the billowy crest,
Floats he who is first in the strife. First in the van of courage and right,
Or foremost in daring to wrong; Time bendeth low to the monarch of might,
Embalms him in story and song.
Yet lives there be which the giddy hours
Tinge lightly, as onward they wing; Rough winds may scatter Hope's fairest flowers,
The dreamer awaketh to sing. And sweet seraph tones, borne from on high,
Enliven the faltering strain; Till a golden rift streaks the dark sky,
And sunlight illumines again.
Eternity! prospect sublime!
Blessed Faith holdeth forth unto view, Where the fleeting illusions of time
Yield place to the lasting and true, Where the song never dies in a wail,
Nor sun ever sinks into gloom; Nor bright life in its splendor doth fail
'Fore darkness of death and the tomb.
When the glare and the glitter shall wane
In glow of the chrysolite sea, For leal hearts that now struggle in vain
Shall the crown of the victor be. And sorrow-dimmed lives shall relight
With warmth from an heavenly ray; And flowerets nipped by an early blight
Shall re-bloom through an endless day.
[THE TREE.]
WRITTEN FOR ARBOR DAY.
Thou! noblest of all nature's growth!
Where'er thy foliage falls, Thy beauty, wed to matchless worth
The willing heart enthralls.
Erst-while the Jewish exiles hung
Their harps thy boughs along And poured their wearied spirits forth
In strains of plaintive song.
So yet, 'neath shimmer of thy leaves
Roll back the waves of time, And exiled souls, in dreams return
To far, serener clime.
Before the German peasant's eyes
Thuringian forests bloom; Whilst ilex of the sunny South
Lights up Italia's gloom. The English hail their country's oak,
Through which great victories came; Since naval power, in danger's hour
Sustained old England's fame.
The ebon cross of Erin's Isle
Bedecks her loyal daughters, In every land, on every strand
Laved by the glittering waters.
Ah! sweetly 'mong the rowan-trees
Ayond the seething brine, The Scotsman hears loved melodies,
From voices o' langsyne.
A landmark thou in vale of years!
White stone in history! Loud publisher of private wrongs,
Or nation's victory.
'Neath agèd oak of Elderslie
Five centuries tell the tale How, at the name of Scotland's Chief
Her enemies turned pale.
An English yew-tree speaks her fate
Who, by a despot's breath In brilliant beauty graced a throne,
Then sank in shameful death.
Trees note the spot where Bonaparte
Surrendered at Sedan Ambition's sceptre, framed of guilt
In blood of brother man.
Whilst ever, through the cycling years,
Judea's olive tree Proclaims the sin-fought conflict gained
On dark Gethsemane.
By soul, that in the greening leaf,
The Great Designer sees, Sweet whispers from the Living Life
Are heard among the trees.
And every changing summer hue
Which decks the forest band Low bends in homage grateful hearts
To Him whose faultless hand
Doth sap the seed, and sun the stem,
And rear the structure high; Till emerald censers incense waft
Through fair, cerulean sky.
Whose artist-touch illumes the doole
Of woodland's waning green, With flashing streaks of red and gold,
Sunlit of glorious sheen.
So Faith may gaze, with restful eye,
Across this desert wold; To find the darksome shades of earth
Relieved by Heaven's bright gold.
So Hope may realize that day,
Beside the crystal river, Where, sheltered by the Tree of Life,
Pure joys flow on forever.