Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away;

All my task upon earth is done;

My poor father, old and gray,

Slumbers beneath the churchyard stone.

In the dreams of my lonely bed,
Ever thy form before me seems;
All night long I talk with the dead,
All day long I think of my dreams.

This deep wound that bleeds and aches, This long pain, a sleepless painWhen the Father my spirit takes,

I shall feel it no more again.

THE RETURN OF YOUTH.

My friend, thou sorrowest for thy golden prime,
For thy fair youthful years too swift of flight;
Thou musest, with wet eyes, upon the time

Of cheerful hopes that filled the world with light,— Years when thy heart was bold, thy hand was strong, And quick the thought that moved thy tongue to speak, And willing faith was thine, and scorn of wrong Summoned the sudden crimson to thy cheek.

Thou lookest forward on the coming days,
Shuddering to feel their shadow o'er thee creep;
A path, thick-set with changes and decays,

Slopes downward to the place of common sleep;
And they who walked with thee in life's first stage,
Leave one by one thy side, and, waiting near,
Thou seest the sad companions of thy age-
Dull love of rest, and weariness and fear.

Yet grieve thou not, nor think thy youth is gone,
Nor deem that glorious season e'er could die.

Thy pleasant youth, a little while withdrawn,

Waits on the horizon of a brighter sky;

Waits, like the morn, that folds her wing and hides, Till the slow stars bring back her dawning hour; Waits, like the vanished spring, that slumbering bides Her own sweet time to waken bud and flower.

There shall he welcome thee, when thou shalt stand On his bright morning hills, with smiles more sweet Than when at first he took thee by the hand,

Through the fair earth to lead thy tender feet.
He shall bring back, but brighter, broader still,
Life's early glory to thine eyes again,

Shall clothe thy spirit with new strength, and fill
Thy leaping heart with warmer love than then.

Hast thou not glimpses, in the twilight here,

Of mountains where immortal morn prevails?
Comes there not, through the silence, to thine ear
A gentle rustling of the morning gales;
A murmur, wafted from that glorious shore,

Of streams that water banks for ever fair,
And voices of the loved ones gone before,

More musical in that celestial air?

A HYMN OF THE SEA.

THE sea is mighty, but a mightier sways

His restless billows. Thou, whose hands have scooped
His boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy breath,

That moved in the beginning o'er his face,
Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient waves
To its strong motion roll, and rise and fall.
Still from that realm of rain thy cloud goes up,
As at the first, to water the great earth,
And keep her valleys green. A hundred realms
Watch its broad shadow warping on the wind,
And in the dropping shower, with gladness hear
Thy promise of the harvest. I look forth
Over the boundless blue, where joyously
The bright crests of innumerable waves
Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands
Of a great multitude are upward flung

In acclamation. I behold the ships.

Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle,
Or stemming toward far lands, or hastening home
From the old world. It is thy friendly breeze

That bears them, with the riches of the land,
And treasure of dear lives, till, in the port,
The shouting seaman climbs and furls the sail.

But who shall bide thy tempest, who shall face The blast that wakes the fury of the sea? Oh God! thy justice makes the world turn pale, When on the armed fleet, that royally" Bears down the surges, carrying war, to smite Some city, or invade some thoughtless realm, Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks, Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf, Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayed In trappings of the battle-field, are whelmed By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks. Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause, A moment, from the bloody work of war.

the shores

These restless surges eat away
Of earth's old continents; the fertile plain
Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down,
And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets
Of the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afar
In the green chambers of the middle sea,