Those soft airs she played--through my mem’ry they glide
Like a cloud-shadow crossing the plain;
The sun follows often, the wind at his side,
Then a whisper that never the roses denied,
And a sound like a light fall of rain.
Grander music she plays--music weird and sublime,
Thunder toned, like the sound of the sea,
That rolleth away like the surges of time;
But, to quicken my thoughts and to sweeten my rhyme,
She always played soft airs for me.
Faint whispers that blend with the deep forest’s sound,
From which a wild fawn would not flee,
And sweet as the brook that the summer has found,
When singing its song soft and glad underground,
And carrying its heart to the sea....
A movement then mingles like those that are heard
When the trees toss their shade to the eaves;
A pause and a tremble, as of a sweet word,
Or the dream-haunted wing of a night-hidden bird
That is shaking the dew from the leaves.
Then silence, that even a word would profane--
Silence, holding some thoughts heaven-born,
That only her fingers a moment can chain;
Up, up to the skies they have wandered again,
Like a prayer holy spoken at morn.
Those soft airs she played in the dim lighted room,
With her heart in the past far away--
Ah, what would I give if to-night, through the gloom,
Along with the budding and bursting of bloom,
They now past my window would stray.
Alas! vain the thought, and as vain sounds the sigh,
Long distance my wish has delayed;
But we sit in the twilight--my mem’ry and I--
And listen and linger, we scarcely know why,
Unless for those soft airs she played.
To Albert.
Thou art going from us, Albert,
Going far away from me,
Where I can not hear thy prattle,
And thy face I can not see.
Back into the Southern country,
Thou art going--there to roam,
Where my heart began its singing--
In the old Kentucky home.
Lonely all the days will linger,
When I miss your little face;
Shadows gray, from out the hours,
All the sunbeams soon will chase.
Dim will seem the sunny window,
Where the pansy blossom grows,
And no restless little fingers
Will disturb the opening rose.
Soon the playthings will be missing,
Soon they gathered up must be--
Thou art going from us, Albert,
Going far away from me.
Soon the little boy that vexed me,
When I tried to read and write,
Will be gone. No one will listen
When I sing my songs at night.
Soon the halls will lose their echo,
And the yard grow silent, too,
And the pretty face will vanish,
With those wondrous eyes of blue.
So good-bye, my little darling;
All these tears have been for thee--
Thou art going from us, Albert,
Going far away from me.
The Reunion of the Flowers.
A few of the springtime flowers,
And the summer blossoms sweet,
Agreed, at the early autumn,
In a locust grove to meet,
And there to hold communion,
By the light of the setting sun,
And each relate or mention
Some kind act they had done.
And he whose deed was noblest
Should, at the close of day,
Be colonel of the regiment,
And lead the ranks away.
So, one by one I watched them
Assemble where the trees
Had lowered their limbs to listen
And halted every breeze.
A Rose in the richest satin,
With a bud to her bonnet tied,
Was first to break the silence
That reigned on every side.
“I lived with a lovely lady,
In a handsome house of brick,
And went with her each morning,
To wait upon the sick.
“I’ve leaned beside the pillows,
Where wounded soldiers lay,
And I wept at the funeral service,
Of an orphan child to-day.”
“I bloomed in an humble garden,
Where an old man used to look,”
Said the Johnquil, “ere the snow-drift
His window-sill forsook.”
“A poor bee shivered homeward
One night,” the Tulip said,
“Fell through my scarlet curtains,
And died upon my bed.”
“I looked in at a window,
And made two lovers kiss,”
The Pansy owned, and laughing
Said it was not amiss.
“I went into a palace,”
The Lily then replied,
“And held the veil that evening
Of a happy-hearted bride.”
“I sweetened the room of a poet,
And o’er his coffin wept,”
The Heliotrope low whispered,
And back in the shadows crept.
“O, that was very noble,”
Exclaimed the Golden-rod,
“I tried to gather the sunshine
And hold it up to God.
“To make the world less sober,
To make the heart less sad,
Was all the mission, brethren,
Your humble servant had.”
* * * * *
In the ranks of that floral army
That marched at the close of day,
That sunny-featured blossom
Was the one that led the way.
Children of the Brain.
Our thoughts--the children of the brain--
Are born for us some good to gain,
And if we rear them just and right,
They’ll seek the day instead of night.
Long in the harvest field they’ll work--
Brave laborers that do not shirk,
And they will reap just what we sow,
As written you will find below.
* * * * *
I sent them forth into the world,
Some thoughts that long my heart impearled.
Their countenance was of a light
That beamed upon me through the night.
The features were like mine, perchance,
With part of heaven hid in the glance;
And the apparel that they wore
My fingers long had labored o’er.
A vine ran through the tunic’s hem
That wilted not though broke the stem,
And all the undergarments showed
The time and care on them bestowed.
Some of the moonbeams took a place
Within the frill about the face;
And, stars that bright as Lyra glowed,
The overdress and mantle showed.
The sandals that encased the feet
Were fashioned for a journey fleet,
And pinions, like a sail unfurled,
I saw outspread before the world,
With promises to come again
And glorify the parent pen.
I tore apart the silken skein
And let them drift from out my brain.
Where are they tarrying to-night?
I see, around a fireside bright,
One looking in a friendly face.
How tender seems the warm embrace!
Now close, close to this loved one’s lip
’Tis held, and for companionship
Is nestling down into the heart,
And of the same becomes a part.
Some beckon me across the seas,
Are favored by a foreign breeze,
Are traveling where I can not go,
Are learning what I ne’er shall know,
Are praised, perhaps, with offered funds,
While with them glad the newsboy runs;
Are welcomed in some palace home,
And ne’er allowed henceforth to roam.
The one that I had loved the best
A journey took into the West,
And by a friend it chanced to meet
Sent home a prairie flower sweet.
Two stronger ones, the North that sought,
Some words of love back home have brought;
They brighten up the lonesome hearth,
And praise the pen that gave them birth.
And one crept down in Cupid’s coat
To read a dainty perfumed note,
And afterward came back to tell
How sweetly rang the wedding bell.
Another, with as brave a face,
Had with a rival run a race;
It did its best, to gain had tried,
But came back home, alas! and died.
The tenderest one, perhaps, of all,
Upon a critic chanced to call;
He hooted at the homespun gown,
And bent his bitter, blackest frown
Upon the waif, and read its fate
Where winter winds could congregate.
I thought I heard its funeral bell,
But where the grave is I’ll not tell.
I do not know the others’ fate,
A pauper’s grave may them await.
The fabric that my hands embossed,
While Fancy figured high the cost,
May trail, to-night, some filthy street
Where sin and shame together meet,
And the loved strains from my heart’s lyre
Be sung around an outcast’s fire.
They may attain a higher sphere,
Where flows the penitential tear,
And point the wanderers they find
Upon the paths that heavenward wind.
God grant their mission may be such!
That all sad hearts they’ll lightly touch,
And spread upon the ugly wound
A balm to make them whole and sound.
A Lily of the Valley.
Just a breath of fragrance
On the breeze--alas!
A lily of the valley
Dying in the grass.
Just a recollection
Followed with a sigh;
Just a teardrop dripping
Down the cheek, and why?