The Father spake: a dream that had been lying
Hush'd, from eternity, in silence there,
Heard the pure melody, and low replying,
Grew to that music in the wondering air—
Grew to that music—slowly, grandly waking—
Till, bathed in beauty, it became a world!
Led by his voice, its spheric pathway taking,
While glorious clouds their wings around it furl'd.
Nor yet has ceased that sound, his love revealing,
Though, in response, a universe moves by;
Throughout eternity its echo pealing,
World after world awakes in glad reply.
And wheresoever, in his grand creation,
Sweet music breathes—in wave, or bird, or soul—
'Tis but the faint and far reverberation
Of that great tune to which the planets roll.
Mrs. Osgood produced something in almost every form of poetical composition, but the necessary limits of this article permit but few illustrations of the variety or perfectness of her capacities. The examples given here, even if familiar, will possess a new interest now; and no one will read them without a feeling of sadness that she who wrote them died so young, just as the fairest flowers of her genius were unfolding. One of the most exquisite pieces she had written in the last few years, is entitled "Calumny," and we know not where to turn for anything more delicately beautiful than the manner in which the subject is treated.
A whisper woke the air,
A soft, light tone, and low,
Yet barbed with shame and wo.
Ah! might it only perish there,
Nor farther go!
But no! a quick and eager ear
Caught up the little, meaning sound;
Another voice has breathed it clear;
And so it wandered round
From ear to lip, and lip to ear,
Until it reached a gentle heart
That throbbed from all the world apart,
And that—it broke!
It was the only heart it found,
The only heart 't was meant to find,
When first its accents woke.
It reached that gentle heart at last,
And that—it broke!
Low as it seemed to other ears,
It came a thunder-crash to hers—
That fragile girl, so fair and gay.
'Tis said a lovely humming bird,
That dreaming in a lily lay,
Was killed but by the gun's report
Some idle boy had fired in sport—
So exquisitely frail its frame,
The very sound a death-blow came—
And thus her heart, unused to shame,
Shrined in its lily too,
(For who the maid that knew,
But owned the delicate, flower-like grace
Of her young form and face!)—
Her light and happy heart, that beat
With love and hope so fast and sweet,
When first that cruel word it heard,
It fluttered like a frightened bird—
Then shut its wings and sighed,
And, with a silent shudder, died!
In some countries this would, perhaps, be the most frequently quoted of the author's effusions; but here, the terse and forcible piece under the title of "Laborare est Orare," will be admitted to all collections of poetical specimens; and it deserves such popularity, for a combination as rare as it is successful of common sense with the form and spirit of poetry: