i cannot make him dead!
His fair sunshiny head
Is ever bounding round my study-chair;
Yet, when my eyes, now dim
With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vanishes—he is not there!
I walk my parlor floor,
And through the open door
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair;
I ’m stepping toward the...
Her ways were gentle while a babe,
With calm and tranquil eye,
That turned instinctively to seek
The blueness of the sky.
A holy smile was on her lip
Whenever sleep was there;
She slept, as sleeps the blossom, hushed
Amid the silent air.
And ere she left with tottling steps
The low-roofed cottage door,
...
As doth his heart who travels far from home
Leap up whenever he by chance doth see
One from his mother-country lately come,
Friend from my home—thus do I welcome thee.
Thou art so late arrived that I the tale
Of thy high lineage on thy brow can trace,
And almost feel the breath of that soft gale
That wafted thee unto this desert place,...
Even as tender parents lovingly
Send a dear child in some true servant’s care
Forth in the street, for larger light and air,
Feeling the sun her guardian will be,
And dreaming with a blushful pride that she
Will earn sweet smiles and glances every-where,
From loving faces; and that passers fair
Will bend, and bless, and kiss her, when...
I wish I were the little key
That locks Love’s Captive in,
And lets Him out to go and free
A sinful heart from sin.
I wish I were the little bell
That tinkles for the Host,
When God comes down each day to dwell
With hearts He loves the most.
I wish I were the chalice fair,
That holds the Blood of Love,...
Her voice was like the song of birds;
Her eyes were like the stars;
Her little waving hands were like
Birds’ wings that beat the bars.
And when those waving hands were still,—
Her soul had fled away,—
The music faded from the air,
The color from the day.
I
long, long before the Babe could speak,
When he would kiss his mother’s cheek
And to her bosom press,
The brightest angels standing near
Would turn away to hide a tear—
For they are motherless.
II
WHERE were ye, Birds, that bless His name,
When wingless to the world He came,
And wordless, though Himself...
About her head or floating feet
No halo’s starry gleam,
Still dark and swift uprising, like
A bubble in a stream,—
A soul, from whose rejoicing heart
The bonds of earth were riven,
Sped upward through the silent night
To the closed Gates of Heaven.
And waiting heard a voice,—“Who comes
To claim Eternity?...
What, are you hurt, Sweet? So am I;
Cut to the heart;
Though I may neither moan nor cry,
To ease the smart.
Where was it, Love? Just here! So wide
Upon your cheek!
Oh happy pain that needs no pride,
And may dare speak.
Lay here your pretty head. One touch
Will heal its worst,
While I, whose...
Do you remember, my sweet, absent son,
How in the soft June days forever done
You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high;
And, when I lifted you, soft came your cry,—
“Put me ’way up,—’way, ’way up in blue sky”?
I laughed and said I could not,—set you down,
Your gray eyes wonder-filled beneath that crown
Of bright hair gladdening me...
