Poems of the Heart and Home Part 11

SABBATH MEMORIES.

I love thee, Sabbath morn!--I cannot say But 'tis because my father loved thee so,-- Because my mother's care-worn face would grow So sweetly placid in thy peaceful ray;--

It may be, _that_ is part of what endears Thee, Sabbath, to my soul; for memory stirs Old buried thoughts of his voice and of hers-- Heard never more on Earth--till sudden tears

So sadly sweet well up, I bid them flow, They leave a Sabbath in the soul when past; As when the sky, by April clouds o'ercast, Shows fairer in the sun's returning glow.

I see the gra.s.s-grown lane we trod of old, Dear father, sainted mother! while The Sabbath sun looked down with loving smile, And touched the hills and streams with rippling gold.

I hear your voices as ye talked, what time In childish pride I walked before, and thought This world a paradise, and Earth full-fraught With blessedness and love,--a summer clime

Of changeless beauty!--Ah! those streams flow on, Blue are those skies, as green the woods, as still The Sabbath hush that foldeth vale and hill In sweet embrace, but ye, beloved, are gone!

She sleeps in stranger dust.--He, old and lone, Long waited by the river, staff in hand, Till a voice called him, and he sought that land Where age takes on fresh youth to change unknown.

And we are parted, brothers, sisters dear-- Alas, the band is broken!--One by one Ye left the hill-side green,--the Sabbath sun Finds those old paths to-day, forsaken, drear.

And Mem'ry paints me yet another scene-- A home, love-lighted by an earnest eye-- A home, of fellowship so pure, so high.

I pause, and ask myself, have such things been?--

Or have I dreamed?--Was it a blessed dream?-- A dream of peace, and rest, and hallowed calm,-- The skies all sunshine, and the air all balm,-- The tranquil hours aglow with Heaven's own beam?--

A dream?--a dream?--the long, long, clouded day That ended in a longer, sadder night, When, in my home went out that blessed light, And Love from its hushed chambers pa.s.sed away?

O no!--oh no! 'Tis but the old, old tale Of human bliss and human agony,-- Of morning's joy-bells ringing full and free,-- And evening's hollow winds and funeral wail!

Yet thou art left me, Sabbath! In thy light I sit and muse, this sweet, June morning, till The past, with all its varied scenes of good and ill, Fades from my thought--fades, with the bliss and blight,

The short-lived transports of those buried years,-- The summer flowers I gathered with such pains,-- The gold I h.o.a.rded in slow-gathered grains,-- All lost,--the summer chilled by Autumn's tears,--

The long, lone, flowerless autumn--when the sun, Hurled from his zenith, shivered cold and pale On the horizon's verge--the funeral wail O! tempest-burdened winds through forests dim,

And desolate, and drear,--all pa.s.s away This morn, O Sabbath, in thy hallowed light, And, glancing far beyond the infinite Of thy blue heavens, where a clearer day

Lights the Eternal hills, I seem to see The Heavenly City, whence the radiant gleam Of a fair Temple, and a crystal stream Of living water wanders down to me

In changeless light! O Home!--O Rest!-O Heaven!

Thus to thy hallowed calm I'd look away, Sabbath of G.o.d!--Eternal Sabbath day!

Till to my soul thy tranquil rest is given.

THE EYE THAT NEVER SLEEPS

When the heavy, midnight shadows Gather o'er a slumbering world, And the banner folds of darkness Are in gloomy pomp unfurled,-- Think, lone watcher, pale and tearful, In thy sad, unpitied lot, By the death couch waking, weeping, There is One who slumbers not!-- One who, though no mourning brother Share thy vigils lone and drear, Loving, pitying, as no other Loves or pities, watches near!

When the waves, o'erwrought by tempest, Lift their strong arms to the skies, And amid the inky darkness Shrieks of winds and waters rise,-- Mariner, 'mid doubt and danger, Wildly tossed upon the deep, Think, o'er all in power presiding There is One who does not sleep-- One who holds the risen tempest In obedience to His will, Who, to still its wildest fury, Need but whisper--"Peace, be still"

When, weighed down by heavy anguish, Waking, sad, at midnight lone, Sorrowing mourner, thou dost languish For affection's missing tone,-- When thy heart o'er buried treasures In its uncheered misery weeps, Think, that gently watching o'er thee, Is an eye that never sleeps!

And, above the mournful shadows, Lift thy heart so lone and riven, Up to Him who 'mid thy sorrows Wooes thee still to hope and Heaven

BY AND BY

_G.o.d will not let His bright gifts die If I may not sing my songs just now I shall sing them by and by_

A young man with a Poet's soul, And a Poet's kindling eye-- Dark, dreamy, full of unvoiced thought-- And forehead calm and high, Toiled wearily at his heavy task Till his soul grew sick with pain, And the pent up fires that burned within Seemed withering heart and brain

"Work, work, work!" he murmured low, Glancing up at the golden west-- Work, with the sunset heavens aglow By the hands of angels dressed, Work for this perishing, human clay, While the soul, like a prisoned bird, Flutters its helpless wings always By pa.s.sionate longings stirred

"I hear in the wandering zephyr's song Tones that no others hear, And alien melodies all day long Are murmuring in my ear,-- Phantoms of beauty in cloud and flower Haunt me where'er I stray, And flit thro' the green of the summer bower, At the close of each toil spent day

"There are voices that sigh in the wind's low sigh, Or wail in the tempest's roar,-- That sing in the brooklets that wander by, Or sob along ocean's sh.o.r.e;-- I hear them ever, yet may not stay, To list to the rhythmic strain; And the unvoiced melodies die away, Never to come again.

"Something I see in the lightning's flash That my fellows may not see, And something hear in the thunder's crash, That cometh alone to me;-- But the glory fades ere I gather it in, And fix it in brain or heart; And the strains I caught thro' the elements' din, Are lost in Toil's crowded mart.

"O haunting strains of unuttered song!

O tenderest melodies lost!

O sweet, stray notes of the heavenly throng On the wing of the tempest tossed!

O spirit-harp that, untouched, untuned, To each subtle influence thrills, As thrills some wild, Aeolian harp, To the breezes that sweep the hills!--

"I thirst, I pant, to be free to list To the voices that call to me, From flood and fountain, from vale and height, From forest, and sh.o.r.e, and sea,-- To gaze on the Beauty whose subtle fire Breaks on me thro' Nature's eyes, And pour from the strings of my unused lyre All tenderest harmonies!"

Ah, thirsty spirit! the day will come, When, the sway of this mortal o'er, Thou shall strike thy lyre with a fearless hand On a brighter, calmer sh.o.r.e; For G.o.d, who giveth the breath of Song, Will not let His bright gifts die; And though thy harp-strings be silent long, Thou shalt waken them by and by.

Aye! and the Music that seemeth lost Shall linger in Memory's cells, As lingers along the Alpine heights The echo of vesper-bells;-- Not lost, but waiting the freer pulse Of the life thou yet shalt know, To blend with the tides of enraptured song That the Heavenly heights o'erflow.

And the Beauty that, lost to thee, seemeth now Sealed in thy heart shall stay, As the sun-ray sealed in the diamond's heart, Burns on with unchanging ray, Then take with gladness the joy that steals The sting of thy toil away, And wait in hope for the higher joy That shall crown thee another day.

THE ONE REFUGE.

I.

Storms gather o'er thy path, Christian!--the sullen, tempest-darkened sky Grows lurid with the elemental wrath,-- Say, whither wilt thou fly?