Classic Poem

BY MRS. ANNE P. DINNIES .

Come, rouse thee, dearest! — 't is not well
To let the spirit brood
Thus darkly o'er the cares that swell
Life's current to a flood.
As brooks, and torrents, rivers, all,
Increase the gulf in which they fall,
Such thoughts, by gathering up the rills
Of lesser griefs, spread real ills;
And, with their gloomy shades, conceal
The land-marks Hope would else reveal.

Come, rouse thee, now — I know thy mind,
And would its strength awaken;
Proud, gifted, noble, ardent, kind —
Strange thou shouldst be thus shaken!
But rouse afresh each energy,
And be what heaven intended thee:
Throw from thy thoughts this wearying weight,
And prove thy spirit firmly great:
I would not see thee bend below
The angry storms of earthly wo.

Full well I know the generous soul
Which warms thee into life,
Each spring which can its powers control,
Familiar to thy Wife —
For deemest thou she had stooped to bind
Her fate unto a common mind?
The eagle-like ambition, nursed
From childhood in her heart, had first
Consumed, with its Promethean flame,
The shrine that sunk her so to shame.

Then rouse thee, dearest, from the dream
That fetters now thy powers:
Shake off this gloom — Hope sheds a beam
To gild each cloud that lowers;
And though at present seems so far
The wished-for goal — a guiding star,
With peaceful ray, would light thee on,
Until its utmost bounds be won:
That quenchless ray thou 'lt ever prove,
In fond, undying, Wedded Love .