His eyes grew cold-his voice grew strange—
They only grew more dear.
She served him meekly, anxiously,
With love-half faith, half fear.
For which it beats?-Ah! woe to those
Who such a heart despise.
Poor child! what lonely days she passed,
With nothing to recall
But bitter taunts, and careless words,
And looks more cold than all.
Alas! for love, that sits at home,
Forsaken, and yet fond;
The grief that sits beside the hearth,
Life has no grief beyond.
He left her, but she followed him—
She thought he could not bear
When she had left her home for him
To look on her despair.
Adown the strange and mighty stream
She took her lonely way!
The stars at night her pilots were,
As was the sun by day.
Yet mournfully-how mournfully!-
The Indian looked behind,
When the last sound of voice or step
Died on the midnight wind.
Yet still adown the gloomy stream
She plied her weary oar;
Her husband-he had left their home,
And it was home no more.
She found him-but she found in vain—
He spurned her from his side;
He said, her brow was all too dark,
For her to be his bride.
She grasped his hands,-her own were cold,—
And silent turned away,
As she had not a tear to shed,
And not a word to say.
And pale as death she reached her boat,
And guided it along;
With broken voice she strove to raise
A melancholy song.
None watched the lonely Indian girl,
She passed unmarked of all,
Until they saw her slight canoe
Approach the mighty Fall! *
Upright, within that slender boat,
They saw the pale girl stand,
Her dark hair streaming far behind—
Upraised her desperate hand.
The air is filled with shriek and shout-
They call, but call in vain ;
The boat amid the waters dashed
'T was never seen again.
I TELI, you, hopeless grief is passionless-
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air,
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
In souls, as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blenching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death;
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe,
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath!
Touch it! the marble eyelids are not wet-
If it could weep, it could arise and go.
WHEN Some beloved voice, that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new-
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship's sigh-
Not reason's subtle count! Not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew―
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales,
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress trees
To the clear moon; nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted,-
-nor the angels' sweet All hails,
Met in the smile of God. Nay, none of these.
Speak THOU, availing Christ!—and fill this pause.
SPEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low,
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so
Who art not missed by any that entreat.
Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet—
And if no precious gums my hands bestow,
Let my tears drop like amber, while I go
In reach of thy divinest voice complete
In humanest affection-thus, in sooth,
To lose the sense of losing! As a child,
Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore,
Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth;
Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled,
He sleeps the faster that he wept before.
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