sunshine

As we travel Life's weary journey,
And plod through the gathering years,
With our burdens of care and sorrow,
O'er a pathway bedewed with tears.
If, perchance, for a fleeting moment
Our hearts should with rapture swell,
We have added but one more sorrow,
When we bid the glad time "Farewell".

I have watched the bright dawn awaking,
And noted each changing light,
As the sun, in its morning splendour,
Dispelled the dark gloom of night.
I have welcomed its bright rays stealing

Do you remember that careless band,
Riding o'er meadow and wet sea-sand,
One autumn day, in a mist of sunshine,
Joyously seeking for fairyland?

The wind in the tree-tops was scarcely heard,
The streamlet repeated its one silver word,
And far away, o'er the depths of wood-land,
Floated the bell of the parson-bird.

Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips,
Where ferns were dipping their finger-tips,
From mossy branches a faint perfume
Breathed o'er honeyed Clematis lips.

. When first, descending from the moorlands,
I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide
Along a bare and open valley,
The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.
When last along its banks I wandered,
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border-minstrel led.
The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer,
'Mid mouldering ruins low he lies;
And death upon the braes of Yarrow,
Has closed the Shepherd-poet's eyes:

O FRIEND! I know not which way I must look
   For comfort, being, as I am, opprest,
   To think that now our life is only drest
For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook,
Or groom!--We must run glittering like a brook
   In the open sunshine, or we are unblest:
   The wealthiest man among us is the best:
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
   This is idolatry; and these we adore:
   Plain living and high thinking are no more:

Over the radiant ridges borne out on the offshore wind,
I have sailed as a butterfly sails whose priming wings unfurled
Leave the familiar gardens and visited fields behind
To follow a cloud in the east rose-flushed on the rim of the world.


I have strayed from the trodden highway for walking with upturned eyes
On the way of the wind in the treetops, and the drift of the tinted rack.
For the will to be losing no wonder of sunny or starlit skies
I have chosen the sod for my pillow and a threadbare coat for my back.

Day passeth day in sunshine or shadow,
Night unto night each cycle is told;
Sun, moon and stars in whirling and glamour,
All unto all the creation unfold.

What of the strivings, what of the gropings,
Out from the darkness into the light?
What of the weepings, what of the grievings
Now from the day to the passionate night?

Stars of the stars, heavens of the heavens,
Rising or falling or pausing a span,
Each to the great "I am" replying
E'en as the crystal, e'en as man.

Where sunshine flecks the green,
Through towering woods my way
Goes winding all the day.

Scant are the flowers that bloom
Beneath the bosky screen
And cage of golden gloom.
Few are the birds that call,
Shrill-voiced and seldom seen.

Where silence masters all,
And light my footsteps fall,
The whispering runnels only
With blazing noon confer;
And comes no breeze to stir
The tangled thickets lonely.

Let the boy have his will! I tell thee, brother,
We treat these little ones too much like flowers,
Training them, in blind selfishness, to deck
Sticks of our poor setting, when they might,
If left to clamber where themselves incline,
Find nobler props to cling to, fitter place,
And sweeter air to bloom in. It is wrong --
Thou striv'st to sow with feelings all thine own,
With thoughts and hopes, anxieties and aims,
Born of thine own peculiar self, and fed
Upon a certain round of circumstance,

The sun that sank just now beyond those calm waters
Shines not for me;
The sun that will to-morrow gild yonder mountain
I shall not see.
Faint forms draw near, and seem to beckon, beckon;
"Come now!" sweet voices seem to say;
And, but for thought of these my poor little darlings,
Glad I obey!

I must let go each little hand;
I must leave all behind.
Oh! don't be cruel to the motherless darlings;
Don't be unkind!

Since first I looked upon my Delbert and Daisy
Five years and three --

The winds came out of the west one day,
And hurried the clouds before them;
And drove the shadows and mists away,
And over the mountains bore them.
And I wept, 'Oh, wind, blow into my mind,
Blow into my soul and heart,
And scatter the clouds that hang lile shrouds,
And make the shadows depart.'

The rain came out of th eleaden skies
And beat on the earth's cold bosom.
It said to the sleeping grass, 'Arise, '
And the young buds sprang in blossom.
And I wept in pain, 'Oh, blessed rain,