Chapter XIX

"Farewell! the thread of sympathy that tied
My heart to man is sundered, and I go
To hold communion with the shades that glide,
Wherever forests wave, or waters flow.
And when my fluttering heart shall faint and fail,
These limbs shall totter to some hollow cave,
Where the poor Dreamer's dream shall cease. The gale
Shall gather music from the wood and wave,
And pour it in my dying ear; the wing
Of busy zephyrs to the flowers shall go,
And from them all their sweetest odors bring,
To soothe, perchance, their fainting lover's woe.
My sinking soul shall catch the dreamy sound
Of far-off waters, murmuring to their doom,
And eddying winds, from distant mountains bound,
Shall come to sing a requiem round my tomb.
The breeze shall o'er me weave a leafy shroud,
And I shall slumber in the shadowy dell--
Till God shall rend the spirit's darkling cloud,
And give it wings of light. Stranger, Farewell!"

Good and Evil.

When man from Paradise was driven,
And thorns around his pathway sprung,
Sweet Mercy wandering there from heaven
Upon those thorns bright roses flung.

Aye, and as Justice cursed the ground,
She stole behind, unheard, unseen--
And while the curses fell around,
She scattered seeds of joy between.

And thus, as evils sprung to light,
And spread, like weeds, their poisons wide,
Fresh healing plants came blooming bright,
And stood, to check them, side by side.

And now, though Eden blooms afar,
And man is exiled from its bowers,
Still mercy steals through bolt and bar,
And brings away its choicest flowers.

The very toil, the thorns of care,
That Heaven in wrath for sin imposes,
By mercy changed, no curses are--
One brings us rest, the other roses.

Thus joy is linked with every woe--
Each cup of ill its pleasure brings;
The rose is crushed, but then, you know,
The sweeter fragrance from it springs.

If justice throw athwart our way,
A deepening eve of fear and sorrow,
Hope, like the moon, reflects the ray
Of the bright sun that shines to-morrow.

And mercy gilds with stars the night;
Sweet music plays through weeping willows;
The blackest cave with gems is bright,
And pearls illume the ocean billows.

The very grave, though clouds may rise,
And shroud it o'er with midnight gloom,
Unfolds to faith the deep blue skies,
That glorious shine beyond the tomb.

The Mountain Stream.

One summer morn, while yet the thrilling lay,
Of the dew-loving lark was full and strong,
Trampling the wild flowers in my careless way,
Up the steep mountain-side I strode along--
My only guide, a brook whose joyous song,
Seemed like a boy's light-hearted roundelay,
As down it rushed, the leafy bowers among,
Scattering o'er bud and bloom its pearly spray--
A beauteous semblance of life's opening day.

And looking back to that all-gladdening morn,
When I was free and sportive as the stream--
When roses blushed with no suspected thorn,
And fancy's sunlight gilded every dream--
While hope yet shed its sweet delusive beam,
And disappointment still delayed to warn--
With fond regret, I still pursued the theme--
With clambering step still up the steep was borne,
Too sad to smile, too pleased perchance to mourn.

And now I stood beside that rivulet's spring,
That came unbidden with a bubbling bound--
And stealing forth, a gentle trembling thing,
It seemed an infant fearing all around--
Yet clinging to its mother's breast--the ground.
But soon it bolder grew, and with a wing
It went: its carol was a joyous sound,
Making the silent woods responsive ring,
And the far forest-echoes, sighing, sing.

And now I stood upon the mountain's height--
Like a wide map, the landscape lay unrolled--
There could I trace that rivulet's path of light,
From the steep mountain to the sea of gold;
Now leaping o'er the rocks like chamois bold,--
Now like a crouching hare concealed from sight,--
Now hid beneath the willow's bowering fold,
As if they sought to stay its arrowy flight,
Then give it forth again more swift and bright.

'Twas changeful--beautiful; now dark, now fair--
A tale of life, from childhood to the tomb--
Its birth-place near the skies, in mountain air,
Where wild flowers throw around their sweet perfume,
Like the blest thoughts that often brightly bloom,
At home, beneath a mother's culturing care--
Its form now hid in shadows, such as gloom
Our downward way--its grave in ocean, where
It mingles with the wave--a dweller there!

And though that stream be hidden from the view,
'Tis yet preserved 'neath ocean's briny crest:
That wide eternity of waves is true--
And as the planets anchored in their rest,
The sparkling streamlet lives; and while unblest,
The land-wave stagnant lingers--there the blue
Tide holds the river stainless in its breast--
An image still of life, that sparkles through
The starry deep of heaven, for ever new.