Nearer the great white throne,
Nearer the crystal sea;

Nearer the bound of life,

Where we lay our burdens down; Nearer leaving the cross,

Nearer gaining the crown.

But lying darkly between,

Winding down through the night,
Is the silent, unknown stream,
That leads at last to the light.

Closer and closer my steps

Come to the dread abysm:

Closer Death to my lips
Presses the awful chrism.

Oh, if my mortal feet

Have almost gained the brink;

If it be I am nearer home

Even to-day than I think;

Father, perfect my trust;

Let my spirit feel in death,

That her feet are firmly set

On the rock of a living faith!

ALAS!

Phoebe Cary.

SINCE, if you stood by my side to-day,
Only our hands could meet,

What matter that half the weary world
Lies between our feet;

EBB AND FLOW

That I am here by the lonesome sea,

You by the pleasant Rhine?

Our hearts were just as far apart
If I held your hand in mine!

Therefore, with never a backward glance,

I leave the past behind;

And standing here by the sea alone,
I give it to the wind.

I give it to the cruel wind

And I have no word to say; Yet, alas! to be as we have been,

And to be as we are to-day!

131

Phoebe Cary.

EBB AND FLOW

I WALKED beside the evening sea,
And dreamed a dream that could not be;
The waves that plunged along the shore
Said only "Dreamer, dream no more!"

But still the legions charged the beach;
Loud rang their battle-cry, like speech;
But changed was the imperial strain:
It murmured

"Dreamer, dream again!"

I homeward turned from out the gloom,
That sound I heard not in my room;
But suddenly a sound that stirred
Within my very breast, I heard.

It was my heart, that like a sea
Within my breast beat ceaselessly:
But like the waves along the shore,
It said

"Dream on!" and "Dream no more!" George William Curtis.

THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH

THERE are gains for all our losses,

There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.

We are stronger, and are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign:
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,
And will never come again.

Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain:
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth, and in the air,

But it never comes again.

Richard Henry Stoddard.

BIRDS

BIRDS are singing round my window,

Tunes the sweetest ever heard,

And I hang my cage there daily,

But I never catch a bird.

MERCEDES

So with thoughts my brain is peopled,
And they sing there all day long:
But they will not fold their pinions
In the little cage of Song!

133

Richard Henry Stoddard.

MERCEDES

UNDER a sultry, yellow sky,
On the yellow sand I lie;

The crinkled vapors smite my brain,
I smoulder in a fiery pain.

Above the crags the condor flies;
He knows where the red gold lies,
He knows where the diamonds shine;
If I knew, would she be mine?

Mercedes in her hammock swings;
In her court a palm-tree flings
Its slender shadow on the ground,
The fountain falls with silver sound.

Her lips are like this cactus cup;
With my hand I crush it up;
I tear its flaming leaves apart;
Would that I could tear her heart!

Last night a man was at her gate;
In the hedge I lay in wait;
I saw Mercedes meet him there,
By the fireflies in her hair.

I waited till the break of day,
Then I rose and stole away;
But left my dagger in the gate;
Now she knows her lover's fate!

Elizabeth Stoddard.

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew,

-

Waiting the Judgment Day:

Under the one, the Blue;

Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the Judgment Day:-

Under the laurel, the Blue;

Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers,

Alike for the friend and the foe:

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the Judgment Day: