There, at her grave, I bade farewell
To all my heart loved best;
I left our home, I could not dwell
"Mong scenes our love had marked so well,
I felt Grief's wild unrest."
This is my story told to you—
My holiest dream of life;
The blest home-love that once I knew
When she, so good, so fair, so true,
I called my own—my wife!
My sunshine faded when she died,
Such joy I might not know;
God called her early from my side,
And when I lost my gentle bride
The world seemed full of woe!
He knew 'twas best—my stubborn heart
Had need of chastening pain;
To bow beneath the rod's keen smart,
To learn, by grief, the better part,
To feel such loss is gain.
And now no earthly idol smiles,
No pleasant passions lure;
No fleeting phantom now beguiles
My soul from heaven with tempting wiles,
My hope is fixed and sure.
She waits for me—the swift year's flight
I count like miser's gold;
I keep the "watches of the night,"
I wait until the morning light
Its glories snail unfold.
SUNSET.
A burning flood of glory blazing far along the West,
And clouds on clouds aglowing towering o'er the mountains'
crest
Till the shining, burnished columns and the ranks of crimson
vie
In a living trail of splendour, lighting all the evening sky.
The grand October sunset burns above the mountains' brow,
Whose grey old heads shine redly, light-kissed and ruddy now;
There the sunshine loves to linger in a parting glow of
light,
Ere Day his throne resigneth to the dusky reign of Night.
But low and lower sinking, the sun goes down the West
And the dazzling beams are fading along the Ocean's breast
Till, pale and paler growing, the grandeur dies away,
And the wild waves and the breezes seem wailing for the Day!