When sickness pales thy cheek,
And dims thy lustrous eye,
And pulses low and weak
Tell of a time to die
Sweet hope shall whisper then,
"Though thou from earth be riven,
There's bliss beyond thy ken,
There's rest for thee in Heaven!"
BY CATHARINE H. WATERMAN.
I WOULD be with thee when the pale moon stealeth
Like a sad spirit through the evening sky,
When its dim, melancholy light revealeth,
In shadowy beauty, early days gone by,
I would be with thee then.
I would be with thee, when at eve thou'rt straying
To the old haunts we loved in by-past time,
When through some streamlet in the deep woods play.
Long buried voices murmur in its chime,
I would be with thee then.
I would be with thee when those forms shall meet thee,
That long ago have faded from the light,
When their loved tones, like far-off music greet thee,
Bringing young sunshine on thy mental night,
I would be with thee then.
I would be with thee when those dreams have faded,
When to the buried past their lights shall flee,
When fate's dark cloud their rainbow hues hath shaded,
And thou art wakened to reality,
I would be with thee then.
I would be with thee when the smile of gladness
Gleams with its meteor ray across thy brow,
And when the silent tear, and sigh of sadness,
Teaches thy once glad heart in grief to bow,
I would be with thee then.
I would be with thee, though the cold world wither
Each bud of promise in its early bloom,
When the young hearts that clung in joy together,
Cling but the closer in the icy tomb,
I would be with thee then.
I REMEMBER-I remember-
The days when I was young-
And those who tried to teach me then
To speak my mother tongue-
The ancient, smokey, raftered room,
Where gathered girls and boys-
I think our parents sent us there
To rid them of our noise.
I remember the old Mistress,
Who taught me A, B, C,
And, when I couldn't say it right,
Who took me o'er her knee
The boys who were my mates at school:
And all our little plays;-
And what a length of time it seemed,
Between the holidays.
I remember Sawney Bigelow,
Who tried to make me speak
A little broken Latin-and
A smattering of Greek ;-
It would have puzzled any one,
In learned lore more rich,
When we recited either tongue,
To tell you which was which.
I remember Master Snelling
I never can forget,
He made me write and cipher too;-
That man is living yet:-
I remember the old cowskin well,
Which filled us all with fear-
I never liked the thing-and hope
He has not brought it here.
I remember how impatient
We boys were of the rules-
We longed to grow to man's estate,
And shake off all the schools-
I since have found those visions vain ;-
And, oh! 'tis little joy,
To find I know less Latin now,
Than when I was a boy.
How calmly they sleep on the ocean floor,
By the sparkling gem and the gilded ore,
The shining sand and the glittering stone,
With the wealth of the ocean deep gone down.
Youth and beauty, and age and care,
Have lain them down in chambers there;
And the opening bud and spreading flower
Bloom side by side in the coral bower.
And what to them is the angry roar
As the surges lash the pebbly shore-
Or the sea-bird's shriek o'er the troubled deep,
Where they sleep on in their dreamless sleep!
Sleep on, sleep on, in your lowly graves,
Beneath the swell of the curling waves,
And the tempest and wind shall the requiem be
Of the sleepers who rest in the deep, deep sea.
THE stars, through falling dews, that steep
The shades of twilight, faintly shine;
And, if they weep not, seem to weep,
In silence, o'er the day's decline;
O'er hues, that, though they fast decay,
And set in darkness, soon return;
But who for me, when gone far away
Will mourn, nay, who will seem to mourn?
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