And I half arraigned the goodness
That made Death king everywhere--
Stretching forth his cruel sceptre--
Lord of sea, and earth, and air.
Summer came, and all the hillsides
Wore a shim'ring robe of green;
And with rifts of sky and cloudlet
Flashed the river's golden sheen.
I was walking the old pathway,
When a tiny shout I heard;
Harken! was it elfin fairy,
Or some truant mocking bird?
No! a family of blue-bells
Waved their slender arms on high,
Clapped their tiny arms in triumph,
Crying, "See! we did not die.
"Never more distrust the Master,
Love and Truth His ways attend;
Death is but a darkened portal
Of a life that ne'er shall end.
"Loved ones, parted from in anguish,
Your glad eyes again shall see,--
Brighter than the hopes you cherished
Shall the glad fruition be."
[A WAIF.]
My soul is like a poor caged bird to-night,
Beating its wings against the prison bars,
Longing to reach the outer world of light,
And, all untrammeled, soar among the stars.
Wild, mighty thoughts struggle within my soul
For utterance. Great waves of passion roll
Through all my being. As the lightnings play
Through thunder clouds, so beams of blinding light
Flash for a moment on my darkened brain--
Quick, sudden, glaring beams, that fade away
And leave me in a darker, deeper night.
Oh, poet souls! that struggle all in vain
To live in peace and harmony with earth,
It cannot be! They must endure the pain
Of conscience and of unacknowledged worth,
Moving and dwelling with the common herd,
Whose highest thought has never strayed as far,
Or never strayed beyond the horizon's bar;
Whose narrow hearts and souls are never stirred
With keenest pleasures, or with sharpest pain;
Who rise and eat and sleep, and rise again,
Nor question why or wherefore. Men whose minds
Are never shaken by wild passion winds;
Women whose broadest, deepest realm of thought
The bridal veil will cover.
Who see not
God's mighty work lying undone to-day,--
Work that a woman's hands can do as well
Oh, soul of mine; better to live alway
In this tumultuous inward pain and strife,
Doing the work that in thy reach doth fall,
Weeping because thou canst not do it all;
Oh, better, my soul, in this unrest to dwell,
Than grovel as _they_ grovel on through life: