Imatges de pàgina
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Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:

Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod

I did but touch the honey of romance
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

HER VOICE

HE wild bee reels from bough to bough

TH With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,

Now in a lily-cup, and now

Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering;

Sit closer love: it was here I trow
I made that vow,

Swore that two lives should be like one
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sun-flower sought the sun,—
It shall be, as I said, for eternity

'Twixt you and me!

Dear friend, those times are over and done,
Love's web is spun.

Look upward where the poplar trees
Sway in the summer air,
Here in the valley never a breeze
Scatters the thistledown, but there
Great winds blow fair

From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,
And the wave-lashed leas.

Look upward where the white gull screams,
What does it see that we do not see?

Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
On some outward voyaging argosy,—
Ah! can it be

We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
How sad it seems.

Sweet, there is nothing left to say
But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the breasts of May
Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
Ships tempest-tossed

Will find a harbor in some bay,

And so we may.

And there is nothing left to do
But to kiss once again, and part,
Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
I have my beauty,—you your Art,
Nay, do not start,

One world was not enough for two
Like me and you.

F

RICHARD HENRY WILDE
(1789-1847)

A FAREWELL TO AMERICA

AREWELL, my more than fatherland! Home of my heart and friends, adieu! Lingering beside some foreign strand, How oft shall I remember you!

How often o'er the waters blue, Send back a sigh to those I leave,

The loving and beloved few,

Who grieved for me,-for whom I grieve!

We part !—no matter how we part,
There are some thoughts we utter not,
Deep treasured in our inmost heart,
Never revealed, and ne'er forgot!
Why murmur at the common lot?
We part!—I speak not of the pain

But when shall I each lovely spot
And each loved face behold again?

It must be months,—it may be years,-
It may-but no !-I'will not fill
Fond hearts with gloom,-fond eyes with tears,
"Curious to shape uncertain ill."

Though humble,—few and far,—yet, still

Those hearts and eyes are ever dear;

Theirs is the love no time can chill,

The truth no chance or change can sear!

All I have seen, and all I see,

Only endears them more and more;
Friends cool, hopes fade, and hours flee,
Affection lives when all is o'er !
Farewell, my more than native shore !
I do not seek or hope to find,

Roam where I will, what I deplore
To leave with them and thee behind!

MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE'

Y life is like the summer rose,

MY

That opens to the morning sky,
But ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground-to die.
Yet on the rose's humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As if she wept the waste to see

But none shall weep a tear for me!

My life is like the autumn leaf,

That trembles in the moon's pale ray,
Its hold is frail-its date is brief,

Restless and soon to pass away!

1 These beautiful verses ran the risk of being considered merely a translation from the Greek. Some time after their publication they appeared in a Georgia newspaper in Greek, purporting to be an ode written by Alcæus, an early Eolian poet of obscure fame. Mr. Wilde, conscious that the poem was his own, had the matter investigated. It was found that the author was a young Oxford scholar, who had translated the poem into Greek for the purpose of deciding a wager that no one in the University was sufficiently familiar with the style of the early Greek poets to detect the forgery. We believe the student won the wager.

Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree will mourn its shade, The winds bewail the leafless tree, But none shall breathe a sigh for me!

My life is like the prints which feet Have left on Tampa's desert strand; Soon as the rising tide shall beat,

All trace will vanish from the sand; Yet, as if grieving to efface

All vestige of the human race,

On that lone shore loud moans the sea, But none, alas! shall mourn for me!

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