So the bargain was struck; with the little god laden
She joyfully flew to her shrine in the grove;
"Farewell," said the sculptor, "you 're not the first maiden
Who came but for Friendship and took away Love."
OURNFULLY listening to the waves' strange talk,
And marking with a sad and moistened eye
The summer days sink down behind the sea,
Sink down beneath the level brine, and fall
Into the Hades of forgotten things,
A mighty longing stealeth o'er the soul;
As of a man who panteth to behold
His idol in another land,
Her heart be treasured for him,
Have yet the old love in them. Even so,
With passion strong as love and deep as death,
Yearneth the spirit after Wonderland.
Ah, happy, happy land! The busy soul
Calls up in pictures of the half-shut eye
Thy shores of splendor. As a fair blind girl,
Who thinks the roses must be beautiful,
But cannot see their beauty. Olden tones,
Borne on the bosom of the breeze from far,
Angels that came to the young heart in dreams,
And then like birds of passage flew away,
Return. The rugged steersman at the wheel
Softens into a cloudy shape. The sails
Move to a music of their own.
Speed well, and bear us unto Wonderland!
Leave far behind thee the vexed earth, where men
Spend their dark days in weaving their own shrouds;
And Fraud and Wrong are crownèd kings; and Toil
Hath chains for Hire; and all Creation groans,
Crying, in its great bitterness, to God;
And Love can never speak the thing it feels,
Or save the thing it loves, is succorless.
For, if one say, "I love thee," what poor words
They are! Whilst they are spoken, the beloved
Traveleth as a doomèd lamb the road of death;
And sorrow blanches the fair hair, and pales
The tinted cheek. Not so in Wonderland.
There, larger natures sport themselves at ease
'Neath kindlier suns that nurture fairer flowers,
And richer harvests billow in the vales,
And passionate kisses fall on godlike brows
As summer rain. And never know they there
The passion that is desolation's prey;
The bitter tears begotten of farewells;
Endless renunciations, when the heart
Loseth the all it lived for; vows forgot,
Cold looks, estranged voices, — all the woes
That poison earth's delight. For love endures,
Nor fades, nor changes, in the Wonderland.
Alas! the rugged steersman at the wheel
Comes back again to vision. The hoarse sea
Speaketh from its great heart of discontent,
And in the misty distance dies away.
The Wonderland! —'T is past and gone. O soul!
Whilst yet unbodied thou didst summer there,
God saw thee, led thee forth from thy green haunts,
And bade thee know another world, less fair,
Less calm! Ambition, knowledge, and desire
Drove from thee thy first worship. Live and learn ;
Believe and wait; and it may be that he
Will guide thee back again to Wonderland.
The Stranger on the Sill.
BETWEEN broad fields of wheat and corn,
Is the lowly home where I was born.
The peach tree leans against the wall,
And the woodbine wanders over all;
There is the shaded doorway still,
But a stranger's foot has crossed the sill.
There is the barn; and as of yore
I can smell the hay from the open door,
And see the busy swallows throng,
And hear the pewee's mournful song;
But the stranger comes, - oh! painful proof,
His sheaves are piled to the heated roof.
There is the orchard, the very trees
Where my childhood knew long hours of ease,
And watched the shadowy moments run,
Till my life imbibed more shade than sun;
The swing from the bough still sweeps the air ;
But the stranger's children are swinging there.
There bubbles the shady spring below,
With its bulrush brook, where the hazels grow;
'T was there I found the calamus root,
And watched the minnows poise and shoot,
And heard the robin lave his wing;
But the stranger's bucket is at the spring.
who daily cross the sill,
Step lightly, for I love it still;
And when you crowd the old barn eaves,
Then think what countless harvest sheaves
Have passed within that scented door
To gladden eyes that are no more.
Deal kindly with these orchard trees,
And when your children crowd your knees,
Their sweetest fruit they shall impart,
As if old memories stirred their heart.
To youthful sport still leave the swing,
And in sweet reverence hold the spring.
The barn, the trees, the brook, the birds,
The meadows with their lowing herds,
The woodbine on the cottage wall,
My heart still lingers with them all;
Ye strangers, on my native sill
Step lightly, for I love it still.
THOMAS BUCHANAN Read.
HAVE had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I loved a love once, fairest among women;
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her-
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.
Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood, Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert thou not born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces,
How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Y the wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat a hoary pilgrim, sadly musing;
Oft I marked him sitting there alone,
All the landscape, like a page, perusing;
Poor, unknown,
By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-brimmed hat;
Coat as ancient as the form 't was folding;
Silver buttons, queue, and crimped cravat;
Oaken staff his feeble hand upholding :
There he sat !
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-brimmed hat.
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there,
No one sympathizing, no one heeding, None to love him for his thin gray hair, And the furrows all so mutely pleading Age and care:
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there.
It was summer, and we went to school,
Dapper country lads and little maidens;
Taught the motto of the "Dunce's stool,".
Its grave import still my fancy ladens,
"Here's a fool!"
It was summer, and we went to school.
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