English

Fair are the Springtide features of the hills—
Glorious their Summer aspect of repose—
Calm in Autumnal hues their shadowy forms—
But not less beautiful when Winter fills—
Their wild untrodden solitudes; and throws
Around them all the grandeur of its storms!
Such are my musings on the craggy crown
Of Oldermann, the sterile, stern, and cold,
As days sink sloping to the evening hour;
Round my proud centre mountain regions frown,
Abrupt and lone, wherein my eyes behold
Gigantic proofs of God's unmeasured power,

Oh, sing all de way, my Lord,
Hear de angels singin'.

We're marchin up to hebben, it's a happy time; Hear…
An' Jesus is on-a de middle line; Hear…
Dem-a Christians take up too much time; Hear…
Dey're idlin' on dat battle line; Hear…

Now all things well, an' I don't dread hell;
I am goin' up to hebben, where my Jesus dwell;
For de angels are callin' me away;
An' I must go, I cannot stay.

Now take your Bible, an' read it through;
An' ebery word you'll find is true;
For in dat Bible you will see;

The Mina stream comes tumbling down
From Mount Tsukuba's height;
Strong as my love, it leaps into
A pool as black as night
With overwhelming might.

The spring was mild, the air was warm,
All green the things upon the farm,
The corn put forth its tender sprout,
The daffodils came bursting out;
Above the hedge, in skimming flight,
The blackbird hardly touched the light,
Whilst in the meadows lush and green
The lambs and foals at play were seen,
When suddenly the wind turned round
And blew across from “Deadman's Ground”
(Where Farmer Rogers caught his wife
And killed her with a carving knife).
The oldest labourers about,
Who read the weather inside out,

I hear again the tread of war go thundering through the land,
And Puritan and Cavalier are clinching neck and hand,
Round Shiloh church the furious foes have met to thrust and slay,
Where erst the peaceful sons of Christ were wont to kneel and pray.

The wrestling of the ages shakes the hills of Tennessee,
With all their echoing mounts a-throb with war's wild minstrelsy;
A galaxy of stars new-born round the shield of Mars,
And set against the Stars and Stripes the flashing Stars and Bars.

The wind—the world-old rhapsodist—goes by,
And the great pines in changeless vesture gloomed,
And all the towering elm-trees thatched and plumed
With green, take up, one after one, the cry,
And as their choral voices swell and die,
Catching the infinite note from tree to tree,
Others far off in long antistrophe
With swaying arms and surging tops, reply.
So to men's souls, at sacred intervals,
Out of the dust of life takes wing and calls
A spirit that we know not, nor can trace,
And heart to heart makes answer with strange thrill,

Thou loveliest of the lovely, where
Is thy bright spirit gone?
Where is thy gentle throne;
In what sweet and silver sphere?

Tell me, my H ELENA , that I
All night on thee may gaze,
And know thy temple's blaze
From all the splendours of the sky.

Oh! if the loved in death return,
To love and look upon
The pale, heart-broken one,
Who weeps at midnight o'er their urn;

Tell me, when on the blissful air
They stoop, that I may be
Found fit to welcome thee,

A LITTLE figure glided through the hall;
“Is that you, Pet?” the words came tenderly:
A sob—suppressed to let the answer fall—
“It is n't Pet, mamma; it's only me.”

The quivering baby lips! they had not meant
To utter any word could plant a sting,
But to that mother-heart a strange pang went;
She heard, and stood like a convicted thing!

One instant, and a happy little face
Thrilled 'neath unwonted kisses rained above:
And, from that moment, “Only Me” had place
And part with “Pet” in tender mother-love.

When he was young and beautiful and bold
We hated him, for he was very strong.
But when he came back home again, quite old,
And wounded too, we could not hate him long.

For kingliness and conquest pranced he forth
Like some high-stepping charger bright with foam.
And south he strode and east and west and north
With need of crowns and never need of home.

Enraged we heard high tidings of his strength
And cursed his long forgetfulness. We swore
That should he come back home some eve at length,

So hot shines the sun on the Nile's fertile shore,
The shade of the palms can protect us no more.
Then back to our home-land we fain would set forth,
Our squadrons assemble: “Away! to the north!”

And there far below like a grave to our view
We see the green earth and the ocean so blue,
Where storms and unrest never cease, but on high
As free as the clouds of the heavens we fly.

Far up mid the mountains a vale is outspread,
And there we alight and prepare us a bed.
Our eggs near the Pole then are laid every one,