RIDE

five forks, aPRIL IST, 1865.

IIo! pony? Down the lonely road
Strike now your cheeriest pace!
The woods on fire do not burn higher
Than burns my anxious face;
Far have you sped, but all this night
Must feel my nervous spur;

The tidings we aver:

To home and hamlet, town and hearth,
To thrill child, mother, man,

I carry to the waiting North
Great news from Sheridan !

The birds are dead among the pines,
Slain by the battle fright,
Prone in the road the steed reclines
That never reached the fight;

THE LOVER'S SONG

LEND me thy fillet, Love!
I would no longer see:
Cover mine eyelids close awhile,
And make me blind like thee.

Then might I pass her sunny face,

And know not it was fair;

Theu might I hear her voice, nor guess

Her starry eyes were there.

Ah! Banished so from stars and sun
Why need it be my fate?
If only she might dream me good
And wise, and be my mate!

Lend her thy fillet, Love!
Let her no longer see:

If there is hope for me at all,

She must be blind like thee.

THE COUP de grace

IF I were very sure

That all was over betwixt you and me,

That, while this endless absence I endure With but one mood, one dream, one misery Of waiting, you were happier to be free,

Then I might find again

In cloud and stream and all the winds that blow,

Yea, even in the faces of my fellow

men,

The old companionship; and I might know Once inore the pulse of action, ere I go.

But now I cannot rest,

While this one pleading, querulous tone without

Breaks in and mars the music in my breast.

I open the closed door-lo! all about, What seem your lingering footprints; then I doubt.

Waken me from this sleep! Strike fearless, let the naked truth-edge gleam!

For while the beautiful old past I keep, I am a phantom, and all mortals seem But phantoms, and my life fades as a dream.

TEMPTED

YES, I know what you say:

Since it cannot be soul to soul, Be it flesh to flesh, as it may; But is Earth the whole?

Shall a man betray the Past
For all Earth gives?
"But the Past is dead?" At last,
It is all that lives.

Which were the nobler goal,

To snatch at the moment's bliss, Or to swear I will keep my soul Clean for her kiss?

FORCE

THE stars know a secret
They do not tell;

And moru brings a message
Hidden well.

There's a blush on the apple,

A tint on the wing,
And the bright wind whistles,
And the pulses sting.

Perish dark memories!
There's light ahead;
This world's for the living,
Not for the dead.

In the shining city,

On the loud pave, The life-tide is running Like a leaping wave.

How the stream quickens, As noon draws near! No room for loiterers,

No time for fear.

Out on the farm lands

Earth smiles as well; Gold-crusted grain-fields, With sweet, warm smell;

Whir of the reaper,

Like a giant bee; Like a Titan cricket, Thrilling with glee.

THE wintry blast goes wailing by,
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry's tread,
And distant wateli-fires light the sky.

Dim forms go flitting through the gloom;
The soldiers cluster round the blaze
To talk of other Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.

My sabre swinging overhead

Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow, While fiercely drives the blinding snow, And memory leads me to the dead.

My thoughts go wandering to and fro,
Vibrating 'twixt the Now and Then;
I see the low-browed home again,
The old hall wreathed with mistletoe.

The voices of the Long Ago! My eyes are wet with tender tears.

I feel again the mother-kiss,

I see again the glad surprise

That lightened up the tranquil eyes And brimmed them o'er with tears of biiss,