So shall thy plaintive melody, Undying, linger in my heart, Till the last string of memory, By death"s chill finger struck, shall part!
The Broken Heart.
Oh think not with love"s soft token, Or music my heart to thrill-- For its strings--its strings are broken, And the chords would fain be still!
Oh think not to waken the measure Of joy on a ruined lute-- Think not to waken pleasure, Where grief sits mourning and mute.
The pearls that gleam in the billow, But darken the gloom of the deep-- And laughter plants the pillow With thorns, where sorrow would sleep.
The gems that gleam on the finger Of her who is sleeping and cold, But wring the hearts that linger.
And dream of the love they told.
My bosom is but a grave, My breast a voiceless choir-- Speak not to the echoless cave, Touch not the broken lyre!
The Star Of The West.
I.
The cannon is mute and the sword in its sheath-- Uncrimsoned the banner floats joyous and fair: Yet beauty is twining an evergreen wreath, And the voice of the minstrel is heard on the air.
Are these for the glory encircling a crown-- A phantom evoked but by tyranny"s breath?
Are these for the conqueror"s vaunted renown-- All ghastly with gore, and all tainted with death?
Bright Star of the West--broad Land of the Free, The wreath and the anthem are woven for thee!
II.
When Tyranny came, his fierce lions aloft Told the instinct that burned in his cohorts of mail-- But our eagles swooped down, and the battle-field oft, Was the grave of the foeman,--stern, ghastly and pale.
The cloud of the strife rolled darkly away-- And the carnage-fed wolves slunk back to their den-- While Peace shone around like the G.o.d of the day, And shed her blest light on the children of men.
Bright Star of the West--broad Land of the Free!
The wreath and the anthem are woven for thee!
III.
Thus Liberty dawned from the midnight of years; And here rose her altar. Oh kneel at her shrine!
Her blessings unnumbered--ye children of tears, Whatever be thy Fatherland--lo they are thine!
In faith and in joy, let us cherish the light, That comes like the sunshine all warm from above, For thus shall the Demons that sprung from the night Of the Past fade away in the noontide of love.
Bright Star of the West--broad Land of the Free, The wreath and the anthem are woven for thee!
IV.
Stern Seer of the future, thy curtain unroll, And show to long ages our empire of peace-- Where man never bent to the despot"s control, And the spirit of liberty never shall cease.
Our Stars and our Stripes "mid battle"s loud thunder, Were bound by our sires in the wedlock of love-- Oh! ne"er shall the spirit of strife put asunder, The UNION thus hallowed by spirits above.
Bright Star of the West--broad Land of the Free, The wreath and the anthem are woven for thee!
The Outcast.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Outcast]
I.
Far, far away, where sunsets weave Their golden tissues o"er the scene, And distant glaciers, dimly heave, Like trailing ghosts, their peaks between-- Where, at the Rocky Mountain"s base, Arkansas, yet an infant, lingers, A while the drifting leaves to chase, Like laughing youth, with playful fingers-- There Nature, in her childhood, wrought "Mid rock and rill, with leaf and flower, A vale more beautiful than thought E"er gave to favored fairy"s bower: And in that hidden hermitage, Of forest, river, lake, and dell,-- While Time himself grew gray and sage, The lone Enchantress loved to dwell.
II.
Ages have flown,--the vagrant gales Have swept that lonely land; the flowers Have nodded to the breeze; the vales, Long, long, have sheltered in their bowers, The forest minstrels; and the race Of mastodons hath come and gone; And with the stream of time, the chase Of bubbling life hath swept the lawn, Unmarked, save that the bedded clay, Tells where some giant sleeper lies; And wrinkled cliffs, tottering and gray, Whisper of crumbled centuries.
Yet there the valley smiles; the tomb Of ages is a garden gay, And wild flowers freshen in their bloom, As from the sod they drink decay.
And creeping things of every hue, Dwell in this savage Eden-land, And all around it blushes new, As when it rose at G.o.d"s command.
Untouched by man, the forests wave, The floods pour by, the torrents fall, And shelving cliff and shadowy cave, Hang as bold nature hung them all!
The hunter"s wandering foot hath wound, To this far scene, perchance like mine, And there a Forest Dreamer found, Who walks the dell with spectral mien.
Youthful his brow, his bearing high-- Yet writhed his lip, and all subdued, The fire that once hath lit his eye.
Wayward and sullen oft his mood; But he perchance may deign to tell, As he hath told to me, his tale, In words like these,--while o"er the dell, The autumn twilight wove its veil.
III.
"Stranger! these woods are wild and drear; These tangled paths are rough and lone; These dells are full of things of fear, And should be rather shunned than known.
Then turn thy truant foot away, And seek afar the cultured glade, Nor dare with reckless step to stray, "Mid these lone realms of fear and shade!
You go not, and you seek to hear, Why one like me should idly roam, "Mid scenes like these, so dark, so drear-- These rocks my bed, these woods my home?
IV.
"One crime hath twined with serpent coil Around my heart its fatal fold; And though my struggling bosom toil, To heave the monster from its hold-- It will not from its victim part.
By day or night, in down or dell, Where"er I roam, still, still my heart Is pressed by that sad serpent spell.
Aye, as the strangling boa clings Around his prey with fatal grasp, And as he feels each struggle, wrings His victim with a closer clasp; Nor yet till every pulse is dumb, And every fluttering spasm o"er, Releases, what, in death o"ercome, Can strive or struggle now no more; So is my wrestling spirit wrung, By that one deep and deadly sin, That will not, while I live, be flung, From its sad work of woe within.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "My native hills," &c.]
V.
"My native hills are far away, Beneath a soft and sunny sky; Green as the sea, the forests play, "Mid the fresh winds that sweep them by.
I loved those hills, I loved the flowers, That dashed with gems their sunny swells, And oft I fondly dreamed for hours, By streams within those mountain dells.
I loved the wood--each tree and leaf, In breeze or blast, to me was fair, And if my heart was touched with grief, I always found a solace there.
My parents slumbered in the tomb; But thrilling thoughts of them came back, And seemed within my breast to bloom.