Up from the spirit-depths ringing
Richly your melody swells,
Sweet reminiscences bringing,
Joyous-toned memory-bells!—
Youth's beautiful bowers,
Her dew-spangled flowers,
The pictures which Hope of futurity drew,—
Love's rapturous vision
Of regions Elysian,
In glowing perspective unfolding to view.
Up from the spirit-depths ringing,
Sadly your melody swells,
Tears with its mournful tones bringing,
Sorrowful memory-bells!
The first heart-link broken,
The first farewell spoken,
The first flow'ret crushed in life's desolate track,—
The agonized yearning
O'er joys unreturning,
All, all with your low, wailing music come back.
Up from the spirit-depths ringing.
Dirge-like your melody swells;
But Hope wipes the tears that are springing,
Mournful-toned memory-bells!
Above your deep knelling
Her soft voice is swelling,
Sweeter than angel-tones, silvery clear,
Singing:—in Heaven above,
All is unchanging love,
Mourner, look upward, thy home is not here!
I WILL NOT DESPAIR.
I will not despair while thou rulest the storm,
Though the red lightning stream o'er the cloud's sable-breast,
For I catch through the darkness bright gleams of thy form,
And I know 'tis thy voice lulls the tempest to rest—
The wild tempest to rest:
Nor yet, though the shadows of deepening night,
Hang over my path like the pall of despair;
For one star through the gloom sends its hallowed light,
And I know 'tis thy love smiling tenderly there,
—Ah! tenderly there.
I will not despair, though the fountain that burst
For me in life's desert be wasted and dry;
For thy love was the fountain that cheered me at first,
And again to its life-giving waters I fly—
O Holiest, fly!
No; I will not despair while thy hand points me on,
Though flowerless and thorny the path where I roam.
For a calm sunlight rests on the far hills beyond,
And I know 'tis the radiance that streams from my home,
—Home, beautiful home!
GOD'S WITNESSES.
A PEN PICTURE FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT.
Upon the plain of Dura stood an image great and high,
With golden forehead broad and bright beneath the morning sky;
All regal in its majesty and kingly in its mien,
The grandest and most glorious thing the world had ever seen!
Full sixty cubits high in air the lordly head was reared,
And robed in gold from head to foot the stately form appeared;
Adown the breast six cubits broad, a flood of yellow gold,
All deftly wrought with matchless skill, its shining tresses rolled.