BY LOUISA P. SMITH.
THEY were gathered for a bridal! I knew it by their hue; Fair as the summer moonlight Upon the sleeping dew.
From their fair and fairy sisters
They were borne, without a sigh, For one remembered evening To blossom and to die.
They were gathered for a bridal! And fastened in a wreath; But purer were the roses
Than the heart that lay beneath; Yet the beaming eye was lovely, And the coral lip was fair, And the gazer looked and asked not For the secret hidden there.
They were gathered for a bridal!
Where a thousand torches glistened, When the holy words were spoken, And the false and faithless listened
And answered to the vow
Which another heart had taken
Yet he was present then- The once loved, the forsaken.
They were gathered for a bridal! And now, now they are dying, And young Love at the altar Of broken faith is sighing. Their summer life was stainless,
And not like her's who wore them; They are faded, and the farewell Of beauty lingers o'er them!
TOIL on! toil on! ye ephemeral train,
Who build in the tossing and treacherous main; Toil on-for the wisdom of man ye mock,
With your sand-based structures and domes of rock Your columns the fathomless fountains lave, And your arches spring up to the crested wave; Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear A fabric so vast, in a realm so drear.
Ye bind the deep with your secret zone, The ocean is sealed, and the surge a stone:
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement spring, Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king; The turf looks green where the breakers rolled; O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold; The sea-snatched isle is the home of men, And mountains exult where the wave hath been.
But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark The wrecking reef for the gallant bark? There are snares enough on the tented field, 'Mid the blossomed sweets that the valleys yield; There are serpents to coil, ere the flowers are up; There's a poison drop in man's purest cup; There are foes that watch for his cradle breath. And why need ye sow the floods with death?
With mouldering bones the deeps are white, From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright; The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold, And the gods of ocean have frowned to see The mariner's bed in their halls of glee ;— Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must spread The boundless sea for the thronging dead?
Ye build-ye build-but ye enter not in,
Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their
From the land of promise ye fade and die,
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your weary eye;—
As the kings of the cloud-crowned pyramid, Their noteless bones in oblivion hid,
Ye slumber unmarked 'mid the desolate main, While the wonder and pride of your works remain.
WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,--- The desert and illimitable air,-
Lone wandering, but not lost.
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