THE STRANGE LADY

THE summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by,

As if they love to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky;

Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rustling sound,

An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground.

A dark-haired woman from the wood comes suddenly

in sight;

Her merry eye is full and black, her cheek is brown and

bright;

Her gown is of the mid-sea blue, her belt with beads is strung,

And yet she speaks in gentle tones, and in the English

tongue.

It was an idle bolt I sent, against the villain crow; Fair sir, I fear it harmed thy hand; beshrew my erring

bow !'

ΙΟ

Ah! would that bolt had not been spent! then, lady, might I wear

A lasting token on my hand of one so passing fair!'

'Thou art a flatterer like the rest, but wouldst thou take with me

A day of hunting in the wilds, beneath the greenwood tree? I know where most the pheasants feed, and where the red-deer herd,

And thou shouldst chase the nobler game, and I bring down the bird.'

Now Albert in her quiver lays the arrow in its place, And wonders as he gazes on the beauty of her face: Those hunting-grounds are far away, and, lady, 'twere not meet,

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That night, amid the wilderness, should overtake thy feet.'

'Heed not the night; a summer lodge amid the wild is mine

'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'tis mantled by the vine; The wild plum sheds its yellow fruit from fragrant thickets nigh,

And flowery prairies from the door stretch till they meet the sky.

'There in the boughs that hide the roof the mock-bird sits and sings,

And there the hang-bird's brood within its little hammock swings;

A pebbly brook, where rustling winds among the hopples

sweep,

Shall lull thee till the morning sun looks in upon thy sleep.'

Away into the forest depths by pleasant paths they go, He with his rifle on his arm, the lady with her bow, Where cornels arch their cool dark boughs o'er beds of winter green,

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And never at his father's door again was Albert seen.

That night upon the woods came down a furious hurri

cane,

With howl of winds and roar of streams, and beating of the rain;

The mighty thunder broke and drowned the noises in its crash;

The old trees seemed to fight like fiends beneath the lightning-flash.

Next day, within a mossy glen, 'mid mouldering trunks were found

The fragments of a human form upon the bloody ground; With bones from which the flesh was torn and locks of

glossy hair;

They laid them in the place of graves, yet wist not whose they were.

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THE STRANGE LADY

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And whether famished evening wolves had mangled

Albert so,

Or that strange dame so gay and fair were some mys

terious foe,

Or whether to that forest lodge, beyond the mountains blue,

He went to dwell with her, the friends who mourned him never knew.

LIFE

On Life, I breathe thee in the breeze,
I feel thee bounding in my veins,
I see thee in these stretching trees,

These flowers, this still rock's mossy stains.

This stream of odour flowing by,

From clover field and clumps of pine,

This music, thrilling all the sky,

From all the morning birds, are thine.

Thou fill'st with joy this little one,

That leaps and shouts beside me here,
Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run

Through the dark woods like frighted deer.

Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes
Insect and bird, and flower and tree,
From the low-trodden dust, and makes
Their daily gladness, pass from me—

Pass, pulse by pulse, till o'er the ground
These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain,
And this fair world of sight and sound
Seem fading into night again?

The things, oh LIFE! thou quickenest, all

Strive upward towards the broad bright sky,

Upward and outward, and they fall

Back to earth's bosom when they die.

ΤΟ

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All that have borne the touch of death,
All that shall live, lie mingled there,
Beneath that veil of bloom and breath,
That living zone 'twixt earth and air.

There lies my chamber dark and still,
The atoms trampled by my feet,
There wait, to take the place I fill

In the sweet air and sunshine sweet.

Well, I have had my turn, have been
Raised from the darkness of the clod,
And for a glorious moment seen

The brightness of the skirts of God;

And knew the light within my breast.
Though wavering oftentimes and dim,
The power, the will, that never rest,

And cannot die, were all from Him.

Dear child! I know that thou wilt grieve
To see me taken from thy love;

Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve,
And weep, and scatter flowers above.

Thy little heart will soon be healed,
And being shall be bliss, till thou
To younger forms of life must yield
The place thou fill'st with beauty now.

When we descend to dust again,
Where will the final dwelling be
Of Thought and all its memories then,
My love for thee, and thine for me?

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'EARTH'S CHILDREN CLEAVE TO EARTH'

EARTH'S children cleave to Earth-her frail
Decaying children dread decay.

Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale,
And lessens in the morning ray:
Look, how, by mountain rivulet,

It lingers as it upward creeps,
And clings to fern and copsewood set
Along the green and dewy steeps:
Clings to the flowery kalmia, clings
To precipices fringed with grass,

Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings,
And bowers of fragrant sassafras.
Yet all in vain-it passes still

From hold to hold; it cannot stay,

And in the very beams that fill

The world with glory wastes away,

Till, parting from the mountain's brow,
It vanishes from human eye,

And that which sprung of earth is now
A portion of the glorious sky.

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THE HUNTER'S VISION

UPON a rock that, high and sheer,
Rose from the mountain's breast,
A weary hunter of the deer

Had set him down to rest,

And bared to the soft summer air
His hot red brow and sweaty hair.

All dim in haze the mountains lay,
With dimmer vales between ;
And rivers glimmered on their way,
By forests faintly seen;
While ever rose a murmuring sound,
From brooks below and bees around.

ΤΟ