Strike the chords softly with tremulous fingers, While, on the threshold of happiest years, For a brief moment fond memory lingers, Ere we go forth to life's conflicts and fears! ...
The glorious sun, behind the western hills, Slowly, in gorgeous majesty, retires, Flooding the founts and forests, fields and rills, With the reflection of his golden fires....
Soft evening bells! - sweet evening bells! O'er vale and plain your music swells, And far away The echoes play O'er shaggy mount and forest grey; And every rock its secret tells...
Little bird, is that thy sphere, Yonder threat'ning cloud so near? Sunbeams blaze along its brow, Yet what darkness reigns below! There the sullen thunder mutt'ring,...
A little child stood moaning At the hour of midnight lone, And no human ear was list'ning To the feebly wailing tone; The cold, keen blast of winter With funeral wail swept by,...
When the heavy, midnight shadows Gather o'er a slumbering world, And the banner folds of darkness Are in gloomy pomp unfurled, - Think, lone watcher, pale and tearful, In thy sad, unpitied lot,...
I sat beside a bed of pain, And all the muffled hours were still; The breeze that bent the summer grain, Scarce sighed along the pine-clad hill; The pensive stars, the silvery moon...
We had finished our pitiful morsel, And both sat in silence a while; At length we looked up at each other. And I said, with the ghost of a smile, - "Only two little potatoes...
I heard a voice - twas the voice of Spring, Up from the rivulets murmuring, Singing of freedom, - thus the lay On the breezes floated away - "Joy! joy! - the chains that bound us Now disappear,...
Standing alone by the highway side, Stately, and stalwart, and tempest-tried, Staunch of body and strong of bough, Fronting the sky with an honest brow, King of the forest and field is he -...
Dark was the world when from the bowers Of forfeit Eden man went forth, With aching heart and blighted powers, To till the sterile soil of earth; Yet, even then, a glimmering light...
Over the mountains, under the snow Lieth a valley cold and low, 'Neath a white, immovable pall, Desolate, dreary, soulless all, And soundless, save when the wintry blast Sweeps with funeral music past....
Yes, the weary earth shall brighten - Brighten in the perfect day, And the fields that now but whiten, Golden glow beneath the ray! Slowly swelling in her bosom, Long the precious seed has lain, -...