Ella Lee.
Where is Ella? Ella Lee?
How I’ve missed her childish glee.
Missed her step so light and airy,
Missed the darling little fairy.
She was nimble as a fawn,
Lovely as the blush of dawn,
And her voice sweet as the rill
Gliding down the grassy hill.
Where is she, I’ve missed her so,
Surely some one ought to know.
I have called her in the crowd,
Called her soft and called her loud,
Called her sad and called her sweet,
In the house and on the street.
Yet she does not seem to hear,
Though I’ve called her far and near.
Hark! I hear a blackbird’s note,
And he wears a brand new coat;
Surely some sweet word he brings,
On his iridescent wings.
Let me hail him by this tree.
Listen! now he sings to me,
Tells me, in his honest way,
That our darling’s gone away.
Far, so far away she roams,
Into other hearts and homes,
Ah! the budding little flower
Sweetens every empty hour,
Making earth a dream of bliss
By the magic of her kiss.
Though she fled like a sunbeam,
Still I hold a treasured dream,
And were she to skip to-day,
In her easy, childish way,
To the playground of my heart,
Childhood’s gate would fly apart,
And she’d find the violet’s face,
Smiling still in memory’s vase;
Green and fresh the springtime sod,
That her dainty feet had trod.
What is the West Wind Saying.
O! What is the west wind saying!
It whispers so strange in my ear,
As if some sad message delaying,
From friends who are absent and dear.
It laughs with the leaves on the tree-tops,
And bows as the cloudlets go by,
And plays with the flowers
For hours and hours,
Yet for me has only a sigh.
O! what is the west wind singing?
’Tis rocking the birds in the nest,
And over the world it is flinging
The emblems of quiet and rest.
New comfort it brings to the mother,
And hushes the babe on her knee,
Singing softly to her
And the tired laborer,
Yet sadly and strangely to me.
O! what is the west wind showing?
New faces look strangely in mine,
Stranger tints in the sunset are glowing,
Somber shadings of amber and wine.
Far away the blue hills seem to beckon
Me back to a sweet cottage home,
Where the rose and the vine
’Round the door-way entwine--
Alas! that from them I must roam!
O! what is the west wind asking?
Why question a stranger like me?
If a friend, why so perfect the masking?
Your counterpart glad would I see.
Ah, a friend in disguise! what is sweeter,
Come, let us together commune,
If you bring but a kiss
From the loved ones I miss,
I can ask of you no greater boon.
To a Mountain Stream.
Glad as childish laughter
From a childish throng,
Sweet as bird voice after
Daybreak is your song.
Racing down the mountain
On your shining feet,
Waltzing at the fountain
To its love song sweet.
On and on you travel,
Leaving me behind,
Like a silken ravel
With the weeds you wind.
Laughing at distresses;
Braving battles, too;
Who your trouble guesses,
And your sorrow--who?
Tell me as you hurry
Through the stubble field,
Why not stop to worry--
But no frown’s revealed.
Sometime you must weary
Of this constant strife;
When the clouds are dreary,
Tire you not of life?
Of the dead leaves drifted
On your saddened face,
And the snow flakes sifted
From the cloudland place?
Yet you ne’er repineth,
But alike content
With the sun that shineth,
And the rainstorm sent.
Teach me half the beauty
That your heart must know,
And through fields of duty
Like you, will I go.
Pen Pictures.
(WRITTEN DURING A SNOW-STORM.)
I love the snow flakes in the air,
When from the heavens they downward dart;
I love to watch them sailing there,
Like thoughts freed from a poet’s heart,
Uncertain which, the earth or sky,
Should claim their last abiding place;
And yet I watch them drifting by,
And strive to join the airy race.
The railway cars like spirits glide
Through many a mountain’s haunted tomb,
Above the river’s solemn tide,
Along the ravine’s chilly room;
On, on, through cedar groves we wind,
That yesterday a zephyr wooed;
To-day they stand with heads inclined,
A sad and stricken multitude.
The sky bends low with heavy clouds,
And from the long slope of a hill,
The pines look down in spotless shrouds
Upon a valley whiter still.
A tiny stream runs breathless by,
Affrighted at the ghostly sight;
The sun sleeps in the western sky,
And twilight deepens into night.
The train glides on. Each mountain scene
Is like a panoramic view,
Though oft I toward the window lean,
To scan some object that I knew.
I see a log hut in the vale,
And rustic children glad and warm;
A mother’s face, forlorn and pale,
Looks out upon the winter storm.
The little cascade down the glen
Is falling like a mourner’s tears;
The wind shrieks by, and from his den
Jack Frost hangs out his icy spears,
Defying e’en the piling drift;
And while the Winter King he warns,
Lo! through a cloud above the cliff,
The young moon shakes her silver horns.
Orion next his rage revealed,
As if he, too, the insult felt;
He raises high his club and shield,
And swings his bright sword from his belt;
And like a demon downward driven,
The howling wind his dungeon seeks;
For nature sees the hosts of heaven
Resent her cold and heartless freaks.
The storm grew still, and I could see
The clouds above the cliff disband,
E’en as the wave on Galilee
Grew docile at the Lord’s command;
And as I shake from off my pen
The ink that stamped these pictures chill,
I seem to hear those words again
Breathed softly o’er me, “Peace, be still.”