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Balmy morning! blessed morning!
Dew-drops bright
All the emerald glade adorning
In thy light -
In thy golden glowing beam
With an ever-changeful gleam
Flashing sparkling deeply glowing...

Be in earnest, Christian toilers,
Life is not the summer, dream
Of the careless, child that gathers
Daisies in the noontide beam!
It hath conflict, it hath danger,
It hath sorrow, toil, and strife;...

O throbbing heart, be still!
Canst thou not bear
The heavy dash of Memory's troubled tide,
Long sternly pent, but broken forth again,
Sweeping all barriers ruthlessly aside,...

Thou hast entered the land without shadows,
Thou who, 'neath the shadow, so long
Hast sat with thy white hands close-folded,
And lips that could utter no song;
Through a rift in the cloud, for an instant,...

Brethren, go! the day is bright'ning
As the sultry noon steals on,
And the fields, already whit'ning,
Tell of labor to be done.

There are toilsome days before you,
Burdens that you may not shun,...

Will the shadows be lifted to-morrow? -
Will the sunshine come ever again? -
Will the clouds, that are weeping in sorrow,
Their glorious beauty regain?
Will the forest stand forth in its greenness? -...

I.

Broken!
It's only a ring - a plain, old ring,
Worn down to a thread almost -
Fling it away - the useless thing!
What value now can it boast? -
Fling it away!
Yet stay! - oh stay...

IN MEMORY OF THE REV. J. E. V.


Rest, brother, rest! Thy eyes no more shall weep
O'er unhealed anguish and unconquered sin;
Thy peaceful slumber, tranquilized and deep,...

God will not let His bright gifts die
If I may not sing my songs just now
I shall sing them by and by


A young man with a Poet's soul,
And a Poet's kindling eye -...

Alien blossoms! tell me why
Seek ye such a lonely place,
Thus to bloom, and droop, and die
Far away from all your race?

Wherefore, from the sunny bowers
Where your beauteous kindred bloom,...

"Yea I have loved thee with an everlasting love."


Love of God! - amazing love!
Height, above all other height,
Depth no creature thought can prove,
Boundless, endless, infinite!...

"For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield."


Like the dew-drops that fall
Through the chill, midnight hours,
Unheeded by all,...

(IN MEMORY OF A PUPIL)


Thou art but gone before -
Gone to that unknown shore
Toward which my feet are journeying swiftly on
Thou hast but laid thy head
First with the dreamless dead,...

I shall be satisfied when I awaken
In thy dear likeness, my King and my Lord, -
When the dark prison of death shall be shaken,
And the freed spirit comes forth at thy word! -...

Do the dancing leaves of summer
To the time of buds look back? -
Does the river moan regretful
For the brooklet's mountain-track?
Does the ripened sheaf of summer,
Heavy with precious grain,...

Up from the spirit-depths ringing,
Softly your melody swells,
Sweet as a seraphim's singing,
Tender-toned memory-bells!
The laughter of childhood,
The song of the wildwood,...

WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF A BEREAVED BROTHER.


We were playmates long together,
By the brook and on the hill,
In the golden, summer weather,
When the days were long and still;...

One by one, ye are passing, beloved,
Out of the shadow into the light.
One by one,
Are your tasks all done.
Ended the toil, and the swift race run.
Child and maiden, mother and sire,...

Ring out your glad peals of rejoicing!
Wake Music's enlivening strain!
Let the sound float abroad o'er your waters,
And echo through valley and plain;
From the shores of the far-distant Fundy,...

"ALL PERSON'S HELD AS SLAVES, within said designated States and parts of States, ARE, AND HENCEFORWARD SHALL BE FREE!"
- Proclamation of Emancipation, Jan. 1st, 1863.

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