The way is lonely, let me feel them now. Think gently of me; I am travel-worn; My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn.
Forgive, oh, hearts es- tranged, forgive, I plead;
When dreamless rest is mine I shall not need
The tenderness for which I long tonight.
BELLE EUGENIA SMITH.
"WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME."
WHEN the grass shall cover me, Head to foot, where I am lying; When not any wind that blows, Summer blooms or winter snows, Shall wake me to your sighing; Close above me as you pass, You will say, "How kind she was," You will say, "How true she was,” When the grass grows over me.
When the grass shall cover me,
Holden close to Earth's warm bosom;
While I laugh, or weep, or sing Nevermore for anything ;
You will find in blade and blossom, Sweet, small voices, odorous, Tender pleaders in my cause, That shall speak me as I was— When the grass grows over me.
When the grass shall cover me! Ah, beloved, in my sorrow Very patient, I can wait— Knowing that or soon or late,
There will dawn a clearer morrow; When your heart will moan, Alas! Now I know how true she was; Now I know how dear she was "- When the grass grows over me!
WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.
TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Finds us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act, act in the living Present ! Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
SEGOVIA AND MADRID.
IT sings to me in sunshine, It whispers all day long, My heart-ache, like an echo, Repeats the wistful song; Only a quaint old love-lilt, Wherein my life is hid,— "My body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid!"
I dream, and wake, and wonder, For dream and day are one; Alight with vanished faces,
And days forever done. They smile and shine around me As long ago they did; For my body is in Segovia, But my soul is in Madrid!
Through inland hills and forests I hear the ocean breeze, The creak of straining cordage, The rush of mighty seas, The lift of angry billows
Through which a swift keel slid;
For my body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid.
Oh, fair-haired little darlings, Who bore my heart away!
"OH, FAIR-HAIRED LITTLE DARLINGS
WHO BORE MY HEART AWAY!"
And my body leave Segovia,
-Would my soul forget Madrid?
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