Yes, come from the black Stygian river
To cheer our hearts forever.

Beyond the rolling clouds of earth
And the raven days of sorrow,

She's passed to scenes of Heavenly birth
In the realms of the glorious morrow;
She has gone in all her beauty

To be at rest forever.

And there we'll trust ere long to meet her
On the bright Elysian shore,

And there we know again we'll greet her
With all the love of yore,-

With all the rare, ecstatic love

Of sainted souls above.

Semptember 12, 1895.

THE BROKEN SHAFT.

(A Monody.)

Gone like the sunbeam that smiled in the west,

Long after darkness had spread o'er the sky, Chased by the shadows that followed him to

rest

Gone line the meteor, the day-dream, the sigh. Or swift summer bird when winter draws

nigh.

Vanished from earth on the first glimmering ray

That disputed with grim Darkness his throne,

And mantled the blush of the coming day
With a beauty and glory that have flown
With him to the depths of the great Unknown.

Gone! just as the rainbow of promise came,
And the white-winged angels of hope foretold
A name unsullied by spot or blame,

Eternally set in purple and gold,

While times and seasons unceasingly rolled.

Gone! and oft has flowery Spring returned,

And green-robed Summer changed to Autumn's hue;

And oft have Autumn's glories been inurned, And the winter's frosts and the spring-time's dew

Now fall on a grave long ceased to be new.

Still, in the deepest chambers of my soul
The echoes sound in awful monotone
Of that darkest day on memory's scroll,
When Jacob-like I strove with God alone,
And heard from those who watched, the
words, "He's gone!"

'Tis strange that in the wreck of time and change.

Those voiceless words should never die away,That he whose life had brought within its range The unfading hope of eternal day

Should turn to dust and they should ne'er decay.

They dwell in the hush of the twilight hour, They battle sometimes with the whirlwind's

roar;

They smite my soul with the avalanche's power. And unbidden roll 'gainst the heart's barred door,

Sounding the dirge of the wild "never more!"

Yet not alone is this, my heart, beset

With the sounding knell of what might have been.

Each heart has had its star of hope to set;

Each soul some fondly cherished pet to wean. And wide, dreary deserts now lie between. But false is the wild song that sorrows sing: My soul cries out against their sad refrain; Though the earth may from her moorings swing, And demons may howl in hopeless pain,

My faith endures; the past will live again. April, 1905.

AUTUMN TWILIGHT MUSINGS.

I sit in my chair where the roses rare
By the side of the porch are dying,
And the balsam vine doth its leaves resign

To the wandering breeze that is sighing.
The bright sunset hues and the twilight dews
Their strangely sweet magic are weaving,
While the silent tread of a cloud o'er head
Is an omen of voiceless grieving.

But a golden gleam from the sunset stream
Gives promise of a glorious morrow,
Like a smile of love from the saints above
That beams on the children of sorrow;
And the cloud glides away with parting day
And leaves not a trace in the heaven:-
Oh! would that thus brief might be the deep
grief

That some fond loving hearts has riven.

The shadows now brood over field and wood; The splendors of the west are banished; The stars up above send glances of love From many a friend that has vanished: And memories roll on my wakened soul,

And the world fades fast from around me. While soft, loving eyes from the star-lit skies Confirm the fond spell that has bound me.

What voices are these on the sighing breeze That whisper to my soul while dreaming? No mortal's dull ear can their accents hear, For to such they are a baseless seeming; But my soul full well knows the tale they tell

Of friends long passed over the river, Of hopes that were born in life's early morn That now have departed forever.

'Tis a tale of bright forms beyond life's storms Arrayed in white vesture supernal,

And it brings into view the tried and true
Who bask in the sunlight eternal.

Oh! they were true as the bright rainbow hue
To its place in the arch of glory,

And some were as brave as the world e'er gave
To the aegis of song and story.

And one was as fair as the morning star
On its throne in the eastern heaven;-

Has that one's pure soul yet passed the fixed goal

Of life that to mortals is given?

The line grows dim as the shadow's vague rim
Between assurance and misgiving;-
The body decays with the blight of days,
"Tis only the spirit that's living.

My vision now breaks as the night bird wakes.
In the tangled brush of the hollow:-
If true hearts have flown to the great unknown,
There are others as true to follow;
And why should I care if they're here or there,
On this or that side of death's portal,