I tell ye, banks of Krumley, ALICE CAREY. 'Tis not your sunny days That set your meadows up and down With blossoms all ablaze. The flowers that love her crowd to bloom O dim and dewy Krumley, O bold, bold winds of Krumley, O flower and bird, O wave and wind, THE SURE WITNESS. THE solemn wood had spread Shadows around my head, "Curtains they are," I said, "Hung dim and still about the house of prayer"; Softly among the limbs, Turning the leaves of hymns, I hear the winds, and ask if God were there. No voice replied, but while I listening stood, Sweet peace made holy hushes through the wood. With ruddy, open hand, I saw the wild rose stand Beside the green gate of the summer hills, And pulling at her dress, I cried, "Sweet hermitess, Hast thou beheld Him who the dew distils?" No voice replied, but while I listening bent, Her gracious beauty made my heart con tent. The moon in splendor shone,"She walketh Heaven alone, And seeth all things," to myself I mused; "Hast thou beheld Him, then, Who hides himself from men In that great power through nature interfused?" 255 Sang in the wild insanity of glee; And seemed, in the same lays, Calling his mate and uttering songs of praise. The golden grasshopper did chirp and sing; To the Creator lift a smiling face, Life's countless blessings was to live at all ! So with a book of sermons, plain and true, Hid in my heart, where I might turn them through, I went home softly, through the falling dew, Still listening, rapt and calm, To Nature giving out her evening psalm. While, far along the west, mine eyes discerned, Where, lit by God, the fires of sunset burned, The tree-tops, unconsumed, to flame were turned; And I, in that great hush, Talked with His angels in each burning bush! NEARER HOME. ONE Sweetly welcome thought, Than I've ever been before; Nearer my Father's house Where the many mansions be; Nearer the Great White Throne, Nearer the Jasper Sea; Nearer that bound of life, Where we lay our burdens down, — Nearer leaving the cross, Nearer gaining the crown. But lying dimly between, Winding down through the night, Lies the dark and uncertain stream That leads us at length to the light. O LAND, of every land the best, Take from your flag its fold of gloom, And let it float undimmed above, Till over all our vales shall bloom The sacred colors that we love. On mountain high, in valley low, Welcome, with shouts of joy and pride, Your veterans from the war-path's track; You gave your boys, untrained, untried; You bring them men and heroes back! And shed no tear, though think you must With sorrow of the martyred band; Not even for him whose hallowed dust Has made our prairies holy land. Though by the places where they fell, The places that are sacred ground, Death, like a sullen sentinel, Paces his everlasting round. Yet when they set their country free, And gave her traitors fitting doom, They left their last great enemy, Baffled, beside an empty tomb 257 | Not there, but risen, redeemed, they go They fought to give us peace, and lo! SYDNEY DOBELL. KEITH OF RAVELSTON. O HAPPY, happy maid, In the year of war and death She wears no sorrow! By her face so young and fair, By the happy wreath That rules her happy hair, She might be a bride to-morrow! She sits and sings within her moonlit bower, Her moonlit bower in rosy June, Like fragrance from some sweet nightblowing flower, Moves from her moving lips in many a mournful tune! She sings no song of love's despair, No fond peculiar grief Has ever touched or bud or leaf Of her unblighted spring. She sings because she needs must sing; The murmur of the mourning ghost Ravelston, Ravelston, The merry path that leads Down the golden morning hill, And through the silver meads; Ravelston, Ravelston, The stile beneath the tree, The maid that kept her mother's kine, She sang her song, she kept her kine, Rode through the Monday morn ; His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring, O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line! Year after year, where Andrew came, Comes evening down the glade, Her misty hair is faint and fair, The sorrows of thy line! I lay my hand upon the stile, Yet, stranger! here, from year to year, O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line! Step out three steps, where Andrew stood: "T is not the burn I hear! She makes her immemorial moan, She keeps her shadowy kine; O Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line! THOMAS BURBIDGE. EVENTIDE. COMES Something down with eventide, Upon the river's rippling face, Ruled by some fond ideal's power, In worship vain, and useless prayer. Ah! where are they who rose in might, Who fired the temple and the shrine, And hurled, through earth's chaotic night, The helpless gods it deemed divine? Cease, longing soul, thy vain desire! What idol, in its stainless prime, Before the steady eyes of Time? ANNE C. (LYNCH) BOTTA. 259 So the wild wind strews its perfumed caresses, Evil and thankless the desert it blesses, Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses, Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing. What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses? What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes? Sweetest is music with minor-keyed closes, Fairest the vines that on ruin will cling. Almost the day of thy giving is over; Ere from the grass dies the bee-haunted clover, Thou wilt have vanished from friend and from lover. What shall thy longing avail in the grave? Give as the heart gives whose fetters are breaking, Life, love, and hope, all thy dreams and thy waking. Soon, heaven's river thy soul-fever slaking, Thou shalt know God and the gift that he gave. |