BRIDE AND WIDOW. O YESTERMORN, the bells were ringing The joy and rapture they were bringing O merrily, merrily floats along The flower-sprent valley their glad ding-dong! O yestermorn, with hope unbounded, The flower-sprent valley their glad ding-dong! O yestermorn, the priest with blessing O merrily, merrily floats along The flower-sprent valley their glad ding-dong! But oh, to-day the rolling billows O'er their mountains and their hollows Roar a sad and gloomy dirge. On the strand, oh, on the strand the tide is sweeping; And on the strand a new-made widow's weeping. For he, the happy bridegroom yestermorn, And she, the happy bride, now stands forlorn, On the strand, oh, on the strand the tide is sweeping; And o'er the sands the cruel waves are rolling, Heedless of the heart's death knell that's tolling On the strand, oh, on the strand the tide is sweeping; THE BURDEN OF TYRE. ISAIAH C. Xxiii. THE burden of Tyre: though over the waters Though proud be her sons, and far prouder her daughters, Her wealth and her glory shall nothing avail, Her merchants and traders, though princes they be ; I will raze every fortress, and rend every sail, Of this Lord of the earth, of this Queen of the sea. Her palace and mart I will level to earth; The strength of her arm I will wholly destroy ; Her daughters' wild tears shall follow their mirth, And the low wail of sorrow succeed to their joy. She is doomed! she is doomed! where her children have fed, Shall the wolf and the raven find shelter and food; O'er her pride and her glory my wrath will I shed, REWARD. OH the agony of life, the burden of its sorrow, Oft weighs upon the soul too heavily to bear; To each unfruitful day succeeds an unfulfilling morrow, And the voice of doubt comes fearful as the wailings of despair. The noble aspirations that in youth the soul inspired, To deeds of glorious sacrifice, where have they vanished now? Oh dimly beams the eye that once with purest hopes was fired, And calmly now reposes the once-ensanguined brow. The cold hand of the world the noblest aims have blighted, And selfishness its withering touch has laid upon the heart; For cynic tongues have sneered, and cynic minds have slighted, The self-denying ones who strove to make a temple of the mart. And now to raise the world from out its slough of degradation, Who would lose a single pleasure, or throw aside a gain, When the only fruit that follows such deeds of abnegation, Are the scorn and scoff of jesters, and unrequited pain. "And if you laboured but for these," said a soft voice in replying, "Your actions met with their desert, a fit requital found; The world might turn aside, but the love that is undying Would have borne you through such trials, and kept your purpose sound. Then Hope, with rainbow glories, her graces o'er you throwing, Had gently said, 'he labours but in vain who toils alone for time;' And this simple truth once deeply feeling, loving, knowing, Had filled your heart with rapture, making woe itself sublime. Then Faith, the angel of this world, had made you more enduring, To suffer uncomplainingly, if in a holy cause; Had made you see that he an empty bubble is securing, Who labours not for higher ends than profit or applause. And Love, and Hope, and Faith within the soul remaining, In lowliest duty-doing lead the spirit Heaven-ward; And he who has a chamber for their thrice-blessed re taining, May dwell in slight, and want, and sorrow, but he has a rich reward!" MY RICHES. MEN call me poor; and so the world, But richer than the richest there. Whole kingdoms I can call my own; And heaven was mine before my birth. I cannot count my treasures o'er ; Can scarcely compass them in thought; And are from every region brought. |