Peace! Let the long procession come, Peace! Let the sad procession go, Go, darkly borne, from State to State, To honor all they can ADSUM DECEMBER 23-24, 1863 THE Angel came by night Passed over London town; Where a great man lay asleep; Who knew the most of men, And whispered in his ear; But answered, "I am here." Into the night they went. At morning, side by side, They gained the sacred Place Where the greatest Dead abide. Where grand old Homer sits In godlike state benign; Where broods in endless thought The awful Florentine; Where sweet Cervantes walks, A smile on his grave face; Where gossips quaint Montaigne, The wisest of his race; Where Goethe looks through all With that calm eye of his; Where-little seen but Light The only Shakespeare is! When the new Spirit came, They asked him, drawing near, "Art thou become like us? He answered, "I am here." AN OLD SONG REVERSED "THERE are gains for all our losses." So I said when I was young. If I sang that song again, Which but suits an idle tongue. Youth has gone, and hope gone with it, "Not under the roots of the roses, But under the luminous wings Of the King of kings The soul of my love reposes, With the light of morn in her eyes, Where the Vision of Life discloses Life that sleeps not nor dies." "Under or over the skies Whom no one hath seen nor heard, For, spoken or written word, I saw the one I love, and heard her speak, Heard, in the listening watches of the night, The sweet words melting from her sweeter lips: But what she said, or seemed to say, to me I have forgotten, though, till morning broke, I kept repeating her melodious words. Long, long may Jami's eyes be blest with sleep, Like that which last night stole him from himself, That perfect rest which, closing his tired lids, Disclosed the hidden beauty of his love, And, filling his soul with music all the while, Imposed forgetfulness, instructing him That silence is more significant of love Than all the burning words in lovers' songs! THE FLIGHT OF THE ARROW THE life of man There must be Something, Why we live and die. Margaret Junkin Preston THE VISION OF THE SNOW "SHE has gone to be with the angels;" Of his fair, young mother, dead. Of the sorrowful, silent tomb, Nor scared the sensitive spirit By linking a thought of gloom With the girl-like, beautiful being, And when he would lisp-"Where is she?" Missing the mother-kiss, They answered - "Away in a country "A land all a-shine with beauty Too pure for our mortal sight, Where the darling ones who have left us Are walking in robes of white." And with eagerest face he would listen, His tremulous lips apart, Till the thought of the Beautiful Country One morn, as he gazed from the window, Dazzled his wondering eyes. Born where the winter's harshness Is tempered with spring-tide glow, The delicate Southern nursling Never had seen the snow. And clasping his childish fingers, THE HERO OF THE COMMUNE "GARÇON! You - you Snared along with this cursed crew? (Only a child, and yet so bold, Scarcely as much as ten years old!) |