The Isle of Long Ago

Oh, a wonderful stream is the river of Time,
As it runs through the realm of tears,
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme,
And a boundless sweep and a surge sublime,
As it blends with the ocean of Years.
How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow,
And the summers, like buds between;
And the year in the sheaf—so they come and they go,
On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow,
As it glides in the shadow and sheen.
There's a magical isle up the river of Time,
Where the softest of airs are playing;
There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime,
And a song as sweet as a vesper chime,
And the Junes with the roses are staying.
And the name of that isle is the Long Ago,
And we bury our treasures there;
There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow—
There are heaps of dust—but we love them so!—
There are trinkets and tresses of hair;
There are fragments of song that nobody sings,
And a part of an infant's prayer,
There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings;
There are broken vows and pieces of rings,
And the garments that she used to wear.
There are hands that are waved, when the fairy shore
By the mirage is lifted in air;
And we sometimes hear, through the turbulent roar,
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before,
When the wind down the river is fair.
Oh, remembered for aye be the blessed Isle,
All the day of our life till night—
When the evening comes with its beautiful smile.
And our eyes are closing to slumber awhile,
May that "Greenwood" of Soul be in sight!
Benjamin Franklin Taylor.
NOTE: The last line of this poem needs explanation. "Greenwood" is the name of a cemetery in
Brooklyn, N.Y. "Greenwood of Soul" means the soul's resting place, or heaven.

The Dying Newsboy

In an attic bare and cheerless, Jim the newsboy dying lay
On a rough but clean straw pallet, at the fading of the day;
Scant the furniture about him but bright flowers were in the room,
Crimson phloxes, waxen lilies, roses laden with perfume.
On a table by the bedside open at a well-worn page,
Where the mother had been reading lay a Bible stained by age,
Now he could not hear the verses; he was flighty, and she wept
With her arms around her youngest, who close to her side had crept.
Blacking boots and selling papers, in all weathers day by day,
Brought upon poor Jim consumption, which was eating life away,
And this cry came with his anguish for each breath a struggle cost,
"'Ere's the morning Sun and 'Erald—latest news of steamship lost.
Papers, mister? Morning papers?" Then the cry fell to a moan,
Which was changed a moment later to another frenzied tone:
"Black yer boots, sir? Just a nickel! Shine 'em like an evening star.
It grows late, Jack! Night is coming. Evening papers, here they are!"
Soon a mission teacher entered, and approached the humble bed;
Then poor Jim's mind cleared an instant, with his cool hand on his head,
"Teacher," cried he, "I remember what you said the other day,
Ma's been reading of the Saviour, and through Him I see my way.
He is with me! Jack, I charge you of our mother take good care
When Jim's gone! Hark! boots or papers, which will I be over there?
Black yer boots, sir? Shine 'em right up! Papers! Read God's book instead,
Better'n papers that to die on! Jack—" one gasp, and Jim was dead!
Floating from that attic chamber came the teacher's voice in prayer,
And it soothed the bitter sorrow of the mourners kneeling there,
He commended them to Heaven, while the tears rolled down his face,
Thanking God that Jim had listened to sweet words of peace and grace,
Ever 'mid the want and squalor of the wretched and the poor,
Kind hearts find a ready welcome, and an always open door;
For the sick are in strange places, mourning hearts are everywhere,
And such need the voice of kindness, need sweet sympathy and prayer.
Emily Thornton.

Break, Break, Break

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman's boy
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Alfred Tennyson.