LOVE’S WHISPERS.
I hear soft breathings in the gentle breeze,
Though whence or how they spring I cannot tell.
They whisper on the hill and in the dell,
Along the streamlets and among the trees;
Like the sweet humming of a thousand bees
In harmony, as if some magic spell
Fashioned the dew to music as it fell,
Like merry mermaids, chanting ’neath the seas,
Or fairy chorus in a moon-lit grove,
Or band of nightingales, each to its rose
Trilling of love when all things else repose.
Such sweet sounds haunt me wheresoe’er I rove
Shaping themselves to words that sing to me,
“Happy art thou of men, thy loved one loves but thee!”
WORK.
Work! use all thy will, give all thy might,
Ply all thy strength,
Until the golden dawn of early light
Shall change at length
Into deep purple shades, soft, pure and bright,
That bring glad tidings of the peaceful night.
Work! while the subtle seasons onward roll
In certain course,
The ways of this frail world to help control;
That keen remorse
In life’s last moment—’ere thy deeds unroll
May strike no sudden anguish to thy soul.
Work! taking lessons from the mighty Past,
What men have done;
Yet let not those old masters hold thee fast,
They have begun;
What later souls must finish. They have cast
The first stones at earth’s evil—not the last.
Work! but seek not false Ambition’s flame
To light thee on;
Not so the men of wisdom ever came
In days long gone;
No sordid dream,—no bare desire for Fame
Has left on Memory’s lips one worthy name.
Work! in the hope of sowing seedlings great;
Let others reap,—
That, when stern Nature bids thy step abate,
Thy body sleep,
Thy soul shall tremble not at Death’s dark gate,
But calm and sure shall meet its After-Fate.