Mazelli, and Other Poems - George W. Sands (great novels TXT) 📗

its mantle round the heart.


AFTER WITNESSING A DEATH-SCENE.

Press close your lips,
And bow your heads to earth, for Death is here!
Mark ye not how across that eye so clear,
Steals his eclipse?

A moment more,
And the quick throbbings of her heart shall cease,
Her pain-wrung spirit will obtain release,
And all be o'er!

Hush! Seal ye up
Your gushing tears, for Mercy's hand hath shaken
Her earth-bonds off, and from her lip hath taken
Grief's bitter cup.

Ye know the dead
Are they who rest secure from care and strife,--
That they who walk the thorny way of life,
Have tears to shed.

Ye know her pray'r,
Was for the quiet of the tomb's deep rest,--
Love's sepulchre lay cold within her breast,
Could peace dwell there?

A tale soon told,
Is of her life the story; she had loved,
And he who won her heart to love, had proved
Heartless and cold.

Lay her to rest,
Where shines and falls the summer's sun and dew;
For these should shine and fall where lies so true
And fond a breast!

A full release
From every pang is given to the dead,--
So on the stone ye place above her head,
Write only "Peace."*

When Spring comes back,
With music on her lips,--joy in her eye,--
Her sunny banner streaming through the sky,--
Flow'rs in her track--

Then come ye here,
And musing from the busy world apart,
Drop on the turf that wraps her mouldering heart,
Sweet Pity's tear.

* The most touchingly beautiful epitaph I have ever read, was
written in that one word, "Peace." It seemed like the last sigh
of a departing spirit, over the clay which it was about to
abandon for ever.


LOVE AND FANCY.

"Whenever, amid bow'rs of myrtle,
Love, summer-tressed and vernal-eyed,
At morn or eve is seen to wander,
A dark-haired girl is at his side."
De La Hogue.

One morn, just as day in the far east was breaking,
Young Love, who all night had been roving about,
A charming siesta was quietly taking,
His strength, by his rambles, completely worn out.

Round his brow a wreath, woven of every flower
That springs from the hillside, or valley, was bound;
In his hand was a rose he had stol'n from some bower,
While his bow and his quiver lay near on the ground.

Wild Fancy just came from her kingdom of dreams,
The breath of the opening day to enjoy,
And to catch the warm kiss of its first golden beams
On her cheek, caught a glimpse of the slumbering boy!

With a light, noiseless step she drew near to the sleeper,
And gazed till her snowy-breast heaved a soft sigh;
Then she bade sleep's dull god bring a sounder and deeper
And heavier trance for Love's beautiful eye.

Then back to her shadowy kingdom she flow,
And called up the bright mystic forms she has there;
And filling an urn from a fountain of dew,
She bade them all straight to Love's couch-side repair.

They came, and stood round, as her hand, o'er his pillow,
From a chalice of pearl, poured its magical stream:
While his red rosy lips, that now sighed like a billow
At play with the breeze, told how sweet was his dream.

He dreamed that he sat on a shining throne, wrought
Of the purest of gold that the earth could supply,
While a trio of beautiful maids, who each brought
A gift for his shrine, in succession past by.

First Fame, with the step and the glance of a queen,
Came up, and before him bent down her proud knee,
And held up a garland, whereon played the sheen
Of the beams which insure immortality!

Next Wealth, the stern mistress of men, for whose smile
They toil like the galley slave,--brought in her hand
The fair gems of many an ocean isle,
And the diamonds of many a far off land.

And Beauty came too, with her blue, laughing eye,
Her fair flowing locks, and her soft rosy cheek,
And red lips, whose sweet smile told silently
The tale which they seemed ashamed to speak.

'Neath the shade of a palm branch a fourth one stood by,
With locks like in hue to the tresses of Night,
With a pale, pensive brow, and a dark dreamy eye,
Where the soul of sweet softness lay gleaming in light!

It was Fancy: Love gazed, and his eager eye shone
With a lustre of feeling, deep, fervent, and sweet;
And he thought it were better to give up his throne
For a place, on his knees, at the coy maiden's feet.

And from that bright hour, through calm and through storm,
Through the sunlight of summer, and winter's dark reign,
These twain have been bound by ties, tender and warm,
Which ne'er through all time shall be severed again.

And ever where Love weaves his fond witchery,
Will Fancy the aid of her brightness bestow,
And give the loved object, whatever it be,
A purer, a dearer, a heavenlier glow!


LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM

'Tis not in youth, when life is new, when but to live is sweet,
When Pleasure strews her starlike flow'rs beneath our careless feet,
When Hope, that has not been deferred, first waves its golden wings,
And crowds the distant future with a thousand lovely things;--

When if a transient grief o'ershades the spirit for a while,
The momentary tear that falls is followed by a smile;
Or if a pensive mood, at times, across the bosom steals,
It scarcely sighs, so gentle is the pensiveness it feels

It is not then the, restless soul will seek for one with whom
To share whatever lot it bears, its gladness or its gloom,--
Some trusting, tried, and gentle heart, some true and faithful breast,
Whereon its pinions it may fold, and claim a place of rest.

But oh! when comes the icy chill that freezes o'er the heart,
When, one by one, the joys we shared, the hopes we held, depart;
When friends, like autumn's withered leaves, have fallen by our side,
And life, so pleasant once, becomes a desert wild and wide;--

As for her olive branch the dove swept o'er the sullen wave,
That rolled above the olden world--its death-robe and its grave!--
So will the spirit search the earth for some kind, gentle one,
With it to share her destiny, and make it all her own!


TO A LADY.
Suggested By Hearing Her Voice During Services At Church.

At night, in visions, when my soul drew near
The shadowy confines of the spirit land,
Wild, wondrous notes of song have met my ear,
Wrung from their harps by many a seraph's hand;
And forms of light, too, more divinely fair
Than Mercy's messenger to hearts that mourn,
On wings that made sweet music in the air,
Have round me, in those hours of bliss, been borne,
And, filled with joy unutterable, I
Have deemed myself a born child of the sky.

And often, too, at sunset's magic hour,
When musing by some solitary stream,
While thought awoke in its resistless pow'r,
And restless Fancy wove her brightest dream:
Mysterious tongues, that were not of the earth,
Have whispered words which I may not repeat,--
But Thought or Fancy ne'er have given birth
To form and voice like thine,--so fair and sweet!
Nor have I found them when my spirit's flight
Had borne me to the far shores of delight.

Above the murmurs of an hundred lips,
They rose, those silvery tones of praise and pray'r,
Soft as the light breeze, when Aurora trips
The earth, and, lighting up the darkened air,
Carols her greetings to the waking flow'rs!
They fell upon my heart like summer rain
Upon the thirsting fields,--and earlier hours,
When I too breathed th' adoring pray'r and strain,
Came back once more; the present was beguiled
Of half its gloom, and my worn spirit smiled.

Pray, lady, that the sad, soul-searing blight,
Which comes upon us when we tread the ways
Of sin, may not be suffered to alight
On thy pure spirit in its youthful days;
Or like the fruitage of the Dead Sea shore,
Tho' outward bloom and freshness thou may'st be,
Stern bitterness and death will gnaw thy core,
And thou wilt be a heart-scathed thing like me,
Bearing the weight of many years, ere thou
Hast lost youth's rosy cheek and lineless brow.


IMPROMPTU,
On The Reception Of A Letter.

I would love to have thee near me,
But when I think how drear
Is each hope that used to cheer me,
I cease to wish thee here.

I know that thou, wouldst not shrink from
The storms that burst on me,
But the bitter chalice I drink from,
I will not pass to thee.

I would share the world with thee, were it
With all its pleasures mine,
But the sorrows which I inherit,
I never will make thine!


THE OLD MAN AND THE BOY.

"Glenara, Glenara, now read me my dream."
Campbell.

Father, I have dreamed a dream,
When the rosy morning hour
Poured its light on field and stream,
Kindling nature with its pow'r;--

O'er the meadow's dewy breast,
I had chased a butterfly,
Tempted by its gaudy vest,
Still my vain pursuit to ply,--

Till my limbs were weary grown,