Weary of sobbing, like some tired child Over the tears it has shed; Weary of sowing the wayside and wild, Watching the husbandman fled;

Nevermore reaping the harvest we deem, Evermore gathering in woe-- Say, are the sheaves and the gladness a dream, Or to the patient who sow?

Lynn, Ma.s.s., _September 3, 1871_.

_MEETING OF MY DEPARTED MOTHER AND HUSBAND_

Joy for thee, happy friend! thy bark is past The dangerous sea, and safely moored at last-- Beyond rough foam.

Soft gales celestial, in sweet music bore-- Spirit emanc.i.p.ate for this far sh.o.r.e-- Thee to thy home.

"You've traveled long, and far from mortal joys, To Soul's diviner sense, that spurns such toys, Brave wrestler, lone.

Now see thy ever-self; Life never fled; Man is not mortal, never of the dead: The dark unknown.

"When hope soared high, and joy was eagle-plumed, Thy pinions drooped; the flesh was weak, and doomed To pa.s.s away.

But faith triumphant round thy death-couch shed Majestic forms; and radiant glory sped The dawning day.

"Intensely grand and glorious life's sphere,-- Beyond the shadow, infinite appear Life, Love divine,-- Where mortal yearnings come not, sighs are stilled, And home and peace and hearts are found and filled, Thine, ever thine.

"Bearest thou no tidings from our loved on earth, The toiler tireless for Truth's new birth All-unbeguiled?

Our joy is gathered from her parting sigh: This hour looks on her heart with pitying eye,-- What of my child?"

"When, severed by death's dream, I woke to Life, She deemed I died, and could not know the strife At first to fill That waking with a love that steady turns To G.o.d; a hope that ever upward yearns, Bowed to His will.

"Years had pa.s.sed o'er thy broken household band, When angels beckoned me to this bright land, With thee to meet.

She that has wept o'er thee, kissed my cold brow, Rears the sad marble to our memory now, In lone retreat.

"By the remembrance of her loyal life, And parting prayer, I only know my wife, Thy child, shall come-- Where farewells cloud not o'er our ransomed rest-- Hither to reap, with all the crowned and blest, Of bliss the sum.

"When Love's rapt sense the heartstrings gently sweep With joy divinely fair, the high and deep, To call her home, She shall mount upward unto purer skies; We shall be waiting, in what glad surprise, Our spirits' own!"

_ISLE OF WIGHT_

On receiving a painting of the Isle.

Isle of beauty, thou art singing To my sense a sweet refrain; To my busy mem'ry bringing Scenes that I would see again.

Chief, the charm of thy reflecting, Is the moral that it brings; Nature, with the mind connecting, Gives the artist's fancy wings.

Soul, sublime 'mid human _debris_, Paints the limner's work, I ween, Art and Science, all unweary, Lighting up this mortal dream.

Work ill-done within the misty Mine of human thoughts, we see Soon abandoned when the Master Crowns life's Cliff for such as we.

Students wise, he maketh now thus Those who fish in waters deep, When the buried Master hails us From the sh.o.r.es afar, complete.

Art hath bathed this isthmus-lordling In a beauty strong and meek As the rock, whose upward tending Points the plane of power to seek.

Isle of beauty, thou art teaching Lessons long and grand, tonight, To my heart that would be bleaching To thy whiteness, Cliff of Wight.

_SPRING_

Come to thy bowers, sweet spring, And paint the gray, stark trees, The bud, the leaf and wing-- Bring with thee brush and breeze.

And soft thy shading lay On vale and woodland deep; With sunshine's lovely ray Light o'er the rugged steep.

More softly warm and weave The patient, timid gra.s.s, Till heard at silvery eve Poor robin's lonely ma.s.s.

Bid faithful swallows come And build their cozy nests, Where wind nor storm can numb Their downy little b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Come at the sad heart's call, To empty summer bowers, Where still and dead are all The vernal songs and flowers.

It may be months or years Since joyous spring was there.

O come to clouds and tears With light and song and prayer!

_JUNE_

Whence are thy wooings, gentle June?

Thou hast a naiad's charm; Thy breezes scent the rose's breath; Old Time gives thee her palm.

The lark's shrill song doth wake the dawn: The eve-bird's forest flute Gives back some maiden melody, Too pure for aught so mute.

The fairy-peopled world of flowers, Enraptured by thy spell, Looks love unto the laughing hours, Through woodland, grove, and dell; And soft thy footstep falls upon The verdant gra.s.s it weaves; To melting murmurs ye have stirred The timid, trembling leaves.

When sunshine beautifies the shower, As smiles through teardrops seen, Ask of its June, the long-hushed heart, What hath the record been?

And thou wilt find that harmonies, In which the Soul hath part, Ne'er perish young, like things of earth, In records of the heart.

_RONDELET_

The flowers of June The gates of memory unbar: The flowers of June Such old-time harmonies retune, I fain would keep the gates ajar,-- So full of sweet enchantment are The flowers of June.