A BIRTHDAY SONG.

To S. G.

FOR ever wave, for ever float and shine
Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine
Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine,

A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread
Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead,
Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o'erhead.

This vine bore many blossoms, which were years.
Their petals, red with joy, or bleached by tears,
Waved to and fro i' the winds of hopes and fears.

Here all men clung, each hanging by his spray.
Anon, one dropped; his neighbor 'gan to pray;
And so they clung and dropped and prayed, alway.

But I did mark one lately-opened bloom,

Wherefrom arose a visible perfume

That wrapped me in a cloud of dainty gloom.

And rose-an odor by a spirit haunted—
And drew me upward with a speed enchanted,
Swift floating, by wild sea or sky undaunted,

Straight through the cloud of death, where men are free.
I gained a height, and stayed and bent my knee.
Then glowed my cloud, and broke and unveiled thee.

"O flower-born and flower-souled!" I said, "Be the year-bloom that breathed thee ever red, Nor wither, yellow, down among the dead.

"May all that cling to sprays of time, like me, Be sweetly wafted over sky and sea

By rose-breaths shrining maidens like to thee!"

Then while we sat upon the height afar
Came twilight, like a lover late from war,

With soft winds fluting to his evening star.

And the shy stars grew bold and scattered gold,
And chanting voices ancient secrets told,
And an acclaim of angels earthward rolled.

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, October, 1866.

RESURRECTION.

SOMETIMES in morning sunlights by the river
Where in the early fall long grasses wave,
Light winds from over the moorland sink and shiver
And sigh as if just blown across a grave.

And then I pause and listen to this sighing.

I look with strange eyes on the well-known stream. I hear wild birth-cries uttered by the dying.

I know men waking who appear to dream.

Then from the water-lilies slow uprises

The still vast face of all the life I know,
Changed now, and full of wonders and surprises,
With fire in eyes that once were glazed with snow.

Fair now the brows old Pain had erewhile wrinkled,
And peace and strength about the calm mouth dwell.
Clean of the ashes that Repentance sprinkled,

The meek head poises like a flower-bell.

All the old scars of wanton wars are vanished;
And what blue bruises grappling Sense had left
And sad remains of redder stains are banished,
And the dim blotch of heart-committed theft.

O still vast vision of transfigured features
Unvisited by secret crimes or dooms,
Remain, remain amid these water-creatures,
Stand, shine among yon water-lily blooms.

For eighteen centuries ripple down the river,

And windy times the stalks of empires wave, -Let the winds come from the moor and sigh and shiver, Fain, fain am I, O Christ, to pass the grave.

ΤΟ

THE Day was dying; his breath
Wavered away in a hectic gleam;

And I said, if Life's a dream, and Death
And Love and all are dreams-I'll dream.

A mist came over the bay

Like as a dream would over an eye.

The mist was white and the dream was grey
And both contained a human cry,

The burthen whereof was 66 Love,"

And it filled both mist and dream with pain,
And the hills below and the skies above
Were touched and uttered it back again.

The mist broke down the rift

A kind ray shot from a holy star.

Then my dream did waver and break and lift-
Through it, O Love, shone thy face, afar.

So Boyhood sets: comes Youth,
A painful night of mists and dreams;
That broods till Love's exquisite truth,

The star of a morn-clear manhood, beams.

BOYKIN'S BLUFF, VIRGINIA, 1863.

THE WEDDING.

O MARRIAGE-BELLS, your clamor tells
Two weddings in one breath.
She marries whom her love compels :
-And I wed Goodman Death!

My brain is blank, my tears are red;
Listen, O God:-" I will," he said :—
And I would that I were dead.

Come groomsman Grief and bridesmaid Pain
Come and stand with a ghastly twain.

My Bridegroom Death is come o'er the meres
To wed a bride with bloody tears.
Ring, ring, O bells, full merrily:
Life-bells to her, death-bells to me :

O Death, I am true wife to thee!

MACON, GEORGIA, 1865.