Lays from the West Part 17

The year's first, blus.h.i.+ng roses, Were decking the prairie's breast; And the summer garb of beauty Made fair the wild North-West.

It flashed in the sedgy hollows, And smiled in the woodland dell; It whispered in low, soft zephyrs That breathed o'er the lake and fell.

How it glowed in the mystic star-s.h.i.+ne Of the clear blue Northern sky; How it crmison'd and flushed in grandeur In the sunset's sweet good-bye!

And gaudy birds from the South-land Made brilliant the poplar grove, And plaintiff calls came sounding, From the haunts where the plovers rove.

With dream-notes in the gloaming The wind-lutes swept the boughs,-- Sweet songs of the distant stretches, Where the moose and bison browse.

And we lay in our camp, and listened, And thought of the wilds untrod; Of the misty, lonely future, And the homes on the stranger sod.

And still o'er the wide, wide ocean, Our eager thoughts would stray, To the homes and scenes, to the loves and hopes Of the youth-time, far away.

Then we slept, to dream of the morrow, "'Twill be Sunday at home," we said; "But our church must be the prairie, With the blue sky overhead."

The Sabbath dawned in beauty, With a calm whose breath of peace, Made a solemn grand cathedral Of the wild vast wilderness.

The woods were the soft-toned organs, And the winds, thro' their alleys dim, Now raised some high, glad anthem, Now chanted some low, sweet hymn.

We came from our tents together, And stood on the lone hill-side, To join in the songs of Nature, That Sabbath morning-tide.

"With one consent let all the earth,"

Swelled on' the sunny air.

And then, how each home-sick, heart went forth In that strange hour of prayer!

And the text the preacher gave us Was, "Rejoice in the Lord always,"

Alike in the summer suns.h.i.+ne, And the gloom of winter days.

And the clouds of our gloom were banished Like the mists from the morning air; We had strength for the untried future For G.o.d is everywhere.

AT EVENING.

Slowly along the darkening sky The twilight comes with stealthy tread; Far out to west great cloud-ranks lie, By sunset flushed a rosy red.

Oh! shadows of the gloaming time, Gather, and loom, and darkly fall, The winding path to Fancy's clime, Lies hidden 'neath your dusky pall.

Pent in the city, now I dream Of country scenes, of lanes and flowers, Of woodland glen, and woodland stream, Pictures of bygone sunset hours!

Oh, bygone! mighty claims you own, That summon me to seek your shrine, I hear the call and wait alone, Until the charmed light shall s.h.i.+ne.

'Tis breaking! Glistening near and far A radiance floats, of dazzling light Untouched by Time, or Tempest-scar I view my past again to-night!

Oh! fair, false hope, your fruit is pain, Oh, Love! when life's spring leaves were green, Sweet, e'en in thought to see again Th' Elysian called "what might have been."

"What might have been," we scan it o'er And charmed we live the dreams in thought, But wake to find that mist-world sh.o.r.e, Like cloudy vapor melt to nought-- The brightness fades, the sweet rays die, Deep darkness falls and night is come; A wan new moon looks down the sky, And stars are trembling in the gloom.

Morning, and noon, and evening grey, And mystic twilight, all are flown; And e'en my dreams are pa.s.s'd away,-- Again I find myself alone!

Young love's sweet morn, when hope was nigh.

Stern noonday toiling, which is best?

Ah! me, they all must fade and die,-- 'Tis but the end can give us rest.

IN PEACE.

The name, the age, and a sentence written On a marble cross o'er a gra.s.sy mound, Where, calmly beneath sleeps the tired heart smitten, Cruelly pierced by a dastard wound, At peace in the heart of the restless city.

She slumbers well in her lowly bed, With never a tear of love or pity By kindly mourner above her shed.

High birth is safely, its rank and splendor, Blazoned lineage, pride and show, Scorn coward justice, who fears to tender, The lash to vice, in this world below, What matter--a thousand such things have happened Man has been false since woman was fair;-- But say, must he stand at yon High Tribunal, And what account shall he render there?

TO THE SEA.

'Tis eventide and the sun is dying, Painting the sky in its roseate beam, And out to sea-ward the cloud-ranks lying, Are crimson-bright in his parting beam; In dazzling light o'er the waves extending, In burnished glow on each foamy crest, At the golden portals of sunset ending, Its pathway illumines the ocean's breast.

Oh! light of the sunset, soft and tender, Oh! waves that s.h.i.+ne in the rosy glow, Oh! mountains, so grand in your h.o.a.ry splendour, Oh! billowy ocean that heaves below!

Oh! rolling waves, that are ever beating, In wild, sweet music along the sh.o.r.e, Tell me tales ye are still repeating, Sighing and moaning forever more; In seething foam 'mong the grey rocks meeting, Where, rus.h.i.+ng, ye break in doleful roar!

Sighing on in your restless roaming Wailing so wildly and ceaselessly; In the morning light, or the shadowy gloaming, Tell me, what are thy songs, oh, sea!

Is thine the wail of a life-long sorrow, The hopeless crying of hope long dead; The dearth of loneness that cannot borrow One beam of light from the brightness fed, To point to the dawn of a fairer morrow Far away in the future spread?

But, heedless, it rolls in its wonderous splendour, Onward, in cadence sublime and vast; Are these ocean-songs, in their mystic grandeur Requiems sung for the vanished past?

It is buried and dead, yet still unsmitten, It lives and blooms in one hidden spot, Where in Memory's chamber each scene is written, Graven too deeply for Time to blot!

But see! o'er the waters the light grows dimmer, The white-winged sea-gulls to Westward fly; Pale stars look down in a fitful glimmer As the crimson fades from the opal sky.

I soon shall sleep, and perchance in dreaming, I'll live again in the time that's fled, And fancy the rays of its brightness beaming In mellow radiance around my bed And it may be I'll dream not of bliss that's fleeting But of that fair life that is yet to be, Where no cloud can arise to dim our meeting As I stand with _him_ by the Jasper Sea!

NOT LOST.

"Mine," saith the Lord, "these jewels bright and pearless.

Mine, in the day when I shall count mine own!"

So He has called them, and the hearts left cheerless Sad and bereaved, must mourn the loved ones flown "Mine," saith the Lord, He gave, and He has taken In wisdom infinite He dealt the blow; And round our hearth their places are forsaken But _they_ are gathered to His fold, we know!

Home-gathered early, when the sun so brightly In life's fair morning tinged their curls with gold, And o'er their snowy brows all calm and lightly-- The joyous span of earth's brief time had roll'd.

Home-gathered early; fair to mortal seeming, The promises that o'er their pathway hung, But ah! we cannot e'en in fondest dreaming Conceive their bliss amid the cherub throng.

Eye hath not seen, nor to man's heart is given, To know what to His loved one He bestows What joys untold the ransomed band in heaven, Through the eternal, blissful ages knows.

And the bereavement is no hopeless sorrow, No lasting parting, but an ending pain; We feel that upward, toward the glad to-morrow Are drawn these links of the earth-binding chain.

For well we know that these, our darlings, entered, Into His joy, shall be at last restored So while our hope in perfect faith is centred We wait for resurrection in the Lord.

LOOKING UNTO JESUS.