Pike County Ballads and Other Poems Part 12

Why read ye not the changeless truth,-- The free can conquer but to save?

May G.o.d upon these shining sands Send Love and Victory clasping hands, And Freedom's banners wave in peace For ever o'er the rescued lands!

And here, in that triumphant hour, Shall yielding beauty wed with power; And blushing earth and smiling sea In dalliance deck the bridal bower.

KEY WEST, 1864.

IN THE FIRELIGHT.

My dear wife sits beside the fire With folded hands and dreaming eyes, Watching the restless flames aspire, And rapt in thralling memories.

I mark the fitful firelight fling Its warm caresses on her brow, And kiss her hands' unmelting snow, And glisten on her wedding-ring.

The proud free head that crowns so well The neck superb, whose outlines glide Into the bosom's perfect swell Soft-billowed by its peaceful tide, The cheek's faint flush, the lip's red glow, The gracious charm her beauty wears, Fill my fond eyes with tender tears As in the days of long ago.

Days long ago, when in her eyes The only heaven I cared for lay, When from our thoughtless Paradise All care and toil dwelt far away; When Hope in wayward fancies throve, And rioted in secret sweets, Beguiled by Pa.s.sion's dear deceits,-- The mysteries of maiden love.

One year had pa.s.sed since first my sight Was gladdened by her girlish charms, When on a rapturous summer night I clasped her in possessing arms.

And now ten years have rolled away, And left such blessings as their dower; I owe her tenfold at this hour The love that lit our wedding-day.

For now, vague-hovering o'er her form, My fancy sees, by love refined, A warmer and a dearer charm By wedlock's mystic hands entwined,-- A golden coil of wifely cares That years have forged, the loving joy That guards the curly-headed boy Asleep an hour ago upstairs.

A fair young mother, pure as fair, A matron heart and virgin soul!

The flickering light that crowns her hair Seems like a saintly aureole.

A tender sense upon me falls That joy unmerited is mine, And in this pleasant twilight shine My perfect bliss myself appals.

Come back! my darling, strayed so far Into the realm of fantasy,-- Let thy dear face shine like a star In love-light beaming over me.

My melting soul is jealous, sweet, Of thy long silence' drear eclipse; O kiss me back with living lips, To life, love, lying at thy feet!

IN A GRAVEYARD.

In the dewy depths of the graveyard I lie in the tangled gra.s.s, And watch, in the sea of azure, The white cloud-islands pa.s.s.

The birds in the rustling branches Sing gaily overhead; Grey stones like sentinel spectres Are guarding the silent dead.

The early flowers sleep shaded In the cool green noonday glooms; The broken light falls shuddering On the cold white face of the tombs.

Without, the world is smiling In the infinite love of G.o.d, But the sunlight fails and falters When it falls on the churchyard sod.

On me the joyous rapture Of a heart's first love is shed, But it falls on my heart as coldly As sunlight on the dead.

THE PRAIRIE.

The skies are blue above my head, The prairie green below, And flickering o'er the tufted gra.s.s The shifting shadows go, Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds Fleck white the tranquil skies, Black javelins darting where aloft The whirring pheasant flies.

A glimmering plain in drowsy trance The dim horizon bounds, Where all the air is resonant With sleepy summer sounds,-- The life that sings among the flowers, The lisping of the breeze, The hot cicala's sultry cry, The murmurous dream of bees.

The b.u.t.terfly--a flying flower-- Wheels swift in flashing rings, And flutters round his quiet kin, With brave flame-mottled wings.

The wild Pinks burst in crimson fire The Phlox' bright cl.u.s.ters shine, And Prairie-Cups are swinging free To spill their airy wine.

And lavishly beneath the sun, In liberal splendour rolled, The Fennel fills the dipping plain With floods of flowery gold; And widely weaves the Iron-Weed A woof of purple dyes Where Autumn's royal feet may tread When bankrupt Summer flies.

In verdurous tumult far away The prairie-billows gleam, Upon their crests in blessing rests The noontide's gracious beam.

Low quivering vapours steaming dim The level splendours break Where languid Lilies deck the rim Of some land-circled lake.

Far in the east like low-hung clouds The waving woodlands lie; Far in the west the glowing plain Melts warmly in the sky.

No accent wounds the reverent air, No footprint dints the sod, Lone in the light the prairie lies Rapt in a dream of G.o.d.

ILLINOIS, 1858.

CENTENNIAL.

A hundred times the bells of Brown Have rung to sleep the idle summers, And still to-day clangs clamouring down A greeting to the welcome comers.

And far, like waves of morning, pours Her call, in airy ripples breaking, And wanders to the farthest sh.o.r.es, Her children's drowsy hearts awaking.

The wild vibration floats along, O'er heart-strings tense its magic plying, And wakes in every breast its song Of love and grat.i.tude undying.

My heart to meet the summons leaps At limit of its straining tether, Where the fresh western sunlight steeps In golden flame the prairie heather.

And others, happier, rise and fare To pa.s.s within the hallowed portal, And see the glory shining there Shrined in her steadfast eyes immortal.

What though their eyes be dim and dull, Their heads be white in reverend blossom; Our mothers smile is beautiful As when she bore them on her bosom!

Her heavenly forehead bears no line Of Time's iconolastic fingers, But o'er her form the grace divine Of deathless youth and wisdom lingers.

We fade and pa.s.s, grow faint and old, Till youth and joy and hope are banished, And still her beauty seems to fold The sum of all the glory vanished.

As while t.i.thonus faltered on The threshold of the Olympian dawnings, Aurora's front eternal shone With l.u.s.tre of the myriad mornings.

So joys that slip like dead leaves down, And hopes burnt out that die in ashes, Rise restless from their graves to crown Our mother's brow with fadeless flashes.

And lives wrapped in traditions mist These honoured halls to-day are haunting, And lips by lips long withered kissed The sagas of the past are chanting.