Dark were the heavens above Thee, Saviour!—dark Aid for one sinking! Thy lone brightness gleamed To cry, through surge and blast-"I perish !-save!" Even in the portals of the unquiet grave! O Thou that art the Life! and yet didst bear But was it not a thing to rise on death, With its remembered light, that face of thine, And the pale glory of the brow!-a shrine Where power sat veiled, yet shedding softly round. What told that Thou couldst be but for a time uncrowned! And more than all, the heaven of that sad smile, Did not that look, that very look, erewhile Pour its o'ershadowed beauty on the dust? Wert Thou not such when earth's dark cloud hung o er Thee? Surely Thou wert! My heart grew hushed before Thee, Sinking with all its passions, as the gust Sank at Thy voice, along the billowy way: What had I there to do but kneel, and weep, and pray? -The Forest Sanctuary. AVE, SANCTISSIMA, ORA PRO NOBIS. Thy sad sweet hymn, at eve, the seas along :— Oh! the deep soul it breathed!-the love, the woe, The fervor, poured in that full gush of song, Which seemed responsive in its murmuring flow Hath melted from my heart the martyr's strength away. Ora pro nobis, Mater! What a spell Was in those notes, with day's last glory dying On the flushed waters! Seemed they not to swell From the far dust wherein my sires were lying With crucifix and sword? Oh! yet how clear Comes their reproachful sweetness to mine ear! Ora-with all the purple waves replying, All my youth's visions rising in the strain And I had thought it much to bear the rack and chain ! -The Forest Sanctuary. ELYSIUM. Fair wert thou in the dreams Of elder time, thou land of glorious flowers And summer winds and low-toned silvery streams, Dim with the shadow of thy laurel bowers, Left no faint sense of parting, such as clings Fair wert thou, with the light On thy blue hills and sleepy waters cast, Along the mountains! But thy golden day And ever, through thy shades, A swell of deep Æolian sound went by, And young leaves trembling to the wind's light breath, And who, with silent tread, Moved o'er the plains of waving asphodel? Called from the dim procession of the dead ; Who 'midst the shadowy amaranth bowers might dwell, And listen to the swell Of those majestic hymn-notes, and inhale The spirit wandering in the immortal gale ? They of the sword, whose praise With the bright wine at nations' feasts went round; Forth on the winds had sent their mighty sound, And in all regions found Their echoes 'midst the mountains, and become In man's deep heart as voices of his home. They of the daring thought Daring and powerful, yet to dust allied, Whose flight through stars and seas and depths had sought The soul's far birthplace-but without a guide! Sages and seers, who died, And left the world their high mysterious dreams, But the most loved are they Of whom Fame speaks not with her clarion voice Around their steps; till silently they die, As a stream shrinks from Summer's burning eye. And these-of whose abode 'Midst her green valleys earth retained no trace, Save a flower springing from their burial-sod, A shade of sadness on some kindred face, A dim and vacant place In some sweet home: thou hadst no wreaths for these, Thou sunny land, with all thy deathless trees. The peasant at his door Might sink to die when vintage feasts were spread, Thou wert for nobler dead! He heard the bounding steps which round him fell, Calm on its leaf-strewn bier Too rose-like still, too beautiful, too dear, E'en so to pass away, With its bright smile! Elysium, what wert thou Thou hadst no home, green land! For the fair creature from her bosom gone, Like Spring's first wakening. But that light was past:- |