A waking eye, a prying mind,
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind,
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.

My sprightly neighbor, gone before
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
Some summer morning,

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,

A bliss that would not go away,

A sweet forewarning?

CHARLES LAMB.

ΤΗ

They are all gone.

HEY are all gone into the world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here!

Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear;

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days,
My days which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.

THEY ARE ALL GONE.

243

O holy hope and high humility,-

High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have showed them me

To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous death,

the jewel of the just, —

Shining nowhere but in the dark!

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,

Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know,

At first sight, if the bird be flown;

But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.

If a star were confined into a tomb,

Her captive flames must needs burn there,
But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.

O Father of eternal life, and all

Created glories under thee!

Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall

Into true liberty.

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass;

Or else remove me hence unto that hill

Where I shall need no glass.

HENRY VAUGHAN.

Ο

Over the River.

VER the river they beckon to me,

Loved ones who 've crossed to the farther side, The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue;
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view.
We saw not the angels who met him there,
The gates of the city we could not see:
Over the river, over the river,

My brother stands waiting to welcome me.

Over the river the boatman pale

Carried another, the household pet;
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale,
Darling Minnie! I see her yet.

She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
And fearlessly entered the phantom bark;

We felt it glide from the silver sands,

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark; We know she is safe on the farther side, Where all the ransomed and angels be: Over the river, the mystic river,

My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

For none return from those quiet shores,
Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;

We hear the dip of the golden oars,

And catch a gleam of the snowy sail;

And lo! they have passed from our yearning heart, They cross the stream and are gone for aye;

We may not sunder the veil apart

That hides from our vision the gates of day;

LONGING FOR HOME.

We only know that their barks no more
May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea;
Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,
They Watch, and beckon, and wait for me.

And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold
Is flushing river and hill and shore,
I shall one day stand by the water cold,

And list for the sound of the boatman's oar;
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail,
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand,
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale
To the better shore of the spirit-land.
I shall know the loved who have gone before,
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,
The angel of death shall carry me.

245

NANCY PRIEST WAKEFIELD.

A

Longing for Home.

SONG of a boat:

There was once a boat on a billow:

Lightly she rocked to her port remote,

And the foam was white in her wake like snow,

And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow, And bent like a wand of willow.

I shaded mine eyes one day when a boat
Went courtesying over the billow,

I marked her course till a dancing mote
She faded out on the moonlit foam,
And I stayed behind in the dear-loved home;
And my thoughts all day were about the boat
And my dreams upon the pillow.

I pray you hear my song of a boat,

For it is but short:

My boat, you shall find none fairer afloat,
In river or port.

Long I looked out for the lad she bore,
On the open desolate sea,

And I think he sailed to the heavenly shore,
For he came not back to me -

There was once a nest in a hollow,

Down in the mosses and knot-grass pressed,
Soft and warm, and full to the brim;
Vetches leaned over it purple and dim,

With buttercup-buds to follow.

I pray you hear my song of a nest,
For it is not long:

You shall never light in a summer quest
The bushes among

Shall never light on a prouder sitter,
A fairer nestful, nor ever know
A softer sound than their tender twitter,
That wind-like did come and go.

I had a nestful once of my own,

Ah happy, happy I!

Right dearly I loved them: but when they were grown They spread out their wings to fly –

Oh, one after one they flew away

Far up to the heavenly blue,

To the better country, the upper day,
And I wish I was going too.

I pray you, what is the nest to me,
My empty nest?

And what is the shore where I stood to see

My boat sail down to the west?