On Mullaboy the darkness looms weird on the lonely hill,
The cattle have ceased their lowing, and the song-birds'
notes are still;
And here, in the gloom and silence, 'neath the stars and the
quiet sky,
Old memories throng around me, of days long, long gone by.
Two scenes are ever fairest, and first in this heart of mine,
And with clearer light and brighter, 'mong the dimmer
phantoms shine,
And perfect in light and shadow, in tracing true and grand
Are the pictures as memory paints them, with firm and master-
hand.
The first is a cloudless moonlight, in calm and silvery
sheen,
And the range of the Morne Mountains in the dim background is
seen;
Beneath them the sea is rolling, all fair in the gentle
light,
And beauty and peace are blending in the hush of the summer
night.
I gaze, till again in fancy, I hear the waves' soft roar,
As they break in wild sweet music along Rostrevor's shore;
And a voice with their song is blending telling the old sweet
tale,
Of a fond, true love, that through life's long years would
never change or fail.
That picture fades before me and the second comes in view—
A walk 'neath o'er-arching beeches, with the sunlight
glinting through
Leaves that rustle and whisper on branches that wave above,
A silent, tearful parting, the death of a deathless love!
Dead, and yet unforgotten, worn, but never estranged,
The glory and brightness of morning to the darkness of
midnight changed!
And life is dull and dreary, and joy from earth is fled,
For the love that was light and beauty, and joy and peace, is
dead.
SABBATH ON THE PRAIRIE.
The year's first, blushing roses,
Were decking the prairie's breast;
And the summer garb of beauty
Made fair the wild North-West.
It flashed in the sedgy hollows,
And smiled in the woodland dell;
It whispered in low, soft zephyrs
That breathed o'er the lake and fell.
How it glowed in the mystic star-shine
Of the clear blue Northern sky;
How it crmison'd and flushed in grandeur
In the sunset's sweet good-bye!
And gaudy birds from the South-land
Made brilliant the poplar grove,
And plaintiff calls came sounding,
From the haunts where the plovers rove.
With dream-notes in the gloaming
The wind-lutes swept the boughs,—
Sweet songs of the distant stretches,
Where the moose and bison browse.
And we lay in our camp, and listened,
And thought of the wilds untrod;
Of the misty, lonely future,
And the homes on the stranger sod.
And still o'er the wide, wide ocean,
Our eager thoughts would stray,
To the homes and scenes, to the loves and hopes
Of the youth-time, far away.
Then we slept, to dream of the morrow,
"'Twill be Sunday at home," we said;
"But our church must be the prairie,
With the blue sky overhead."