LOVE AND MATRIMONY. to hear, First Love. 'TIS sweet night on the blue and moonlit deep, The song and oar of Adria's gondolier, By distance mellowed, o'er the waters sweep; 'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear; 'Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep From leaf to leaf; 'tis sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky. 'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home; 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we c 'Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark, Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes She tied her raven ringlets in. But not alone in the silken snare Did she catch her lovely floating hair, For, tying her bonnet under her chin, She tied a young man's heart within. They were strolling together up the hill, All over the happy peach-colored face. Till scolding and laughing, she tied them in, And it blew a color, bright as the bloom, Steeper and steeper grew the hill, The western wind blew down, and played O western wind, do you think it was fair O Ellery Vane, you little thought An hour ago, when you besought IF Love. F in youth, the universe is majestically unveiling, and everywhere heaven revealing itself on earth, nowhere to the young man does this heaven on earth so immediately reveal itself as in the young maiden. Strangely enough, in this strange life of ours, it has been so appointed. In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there already blooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some fairest Eve; nor in the stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage of that garden, is a tree of knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst thereof, wanting. Perhaps, too, the whole is but the lovelier if cherubim and a flaming sword divide it from all footsteps of men, and grant him, the imaginative stripling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season of virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable barrier; and the sacred air-cities of hope have not shrunk into the mean clay hamlets of reality, and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free! -Thomas Carlyle. The Immortality of Love. HEY sin who tell us love can die! Twith life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity; Its holy flame forever burneth. From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. At times deceived, at times oppress'd, Ode To Love. To sing thee, oh Immortal Love, who knows By what majestic voices long ago Thy eulogy was said. I do not dare To bring a voice which thou didst never train, To the high soaring difficult air Of thy celestial strain. Yet how of Life to sing, and yet not tell of Love; And since thou art the source of song, And all our hearts dost move, I will essay thy praise, nor fear to do thee wrong. For see, the lovers go With lingering steps and slow, By dim arcades where sunbeams scarcely reach; On sea-struck northern beach, Or breathless tropic strand, By evening breezes fanned; Or through the thick life-laden air Of some great city; or through the hush Of summer twilights 'midst the corn; When all the dying heavens glow and blush Or the young moonlight curves its crescent horn. Oh, wondrous bond that binds In one sweet concord separate minds, And from their union gives To the rapt gazer's eye A finer essence and more high, A young and winged God, who lives In purer air, and seeks a loftier sky! If growing cares and lower aims should banish Thou art the immortal part of man, the soul, Lifts us from selfish thought and groveling gains. Thou always, whilst thy power remains, Canst pierce the dull dead weight of cloud, By which our thought is bowed. And raise our clear and cleansed eyes To the eternal skies. No sting of sense it is That gives thee wing and lifts thee to the heaven. Too high art thou for this; Ethereal, pure, free from earth's grosser leaven If aught of sense be thine, it is the air, From brute earth more and more Up to the fount of Power and Love And see, the lovers go With lingering steps and slow, Over all the world together, all in all, The blight of war, a bitter flood, The light of knowledge sinks, the fire of thought burns low; There seems scant thought of God; but yet And still through every land beneath the skies, Rapt, careless, looking in each other's eyes, The lovers go. A pillar of light Goes evermore before their dazzled eyes. Purple and golden bright, Youth's vast horizons spread and the unbounded skies. Oh, blessed dream which for awhile dost hide The sorrows of the world and leave life glorified ! Linked arms and hearts aglow; Which Love, with unheard accents, all day long Sings to them, like a hidden bird. A strange, mixed song, a mystic strain, But with a sweeter music far than this He sees within her eyes That which his nature needs to be complete The grace, the pureness, the diviner sweet, Which to rude souls and strong our Life denies ; The vision of his nightly dream More pure than e'er did seem The nymphs of old, by wood, or hill, or stream. For although we were but friends, 'tis hard for honest friends to part. "Good-bye, old fellow! don't forget your friends beyond the sea, And some day, when you've lots of time, drop a line or two to me." The words came lightly, gaily, but a great sob, just behind, Welled upward with a story of quite a different kind. And then she raised her eyes to mine-great liquid eyes of blue, Filled to the brim, and running o'er, like violet cups of dew; One long, long glance, and then I did, what I never did before- Perhaps the tears meant friendship, but I'm sure the kiss meant more. - William B. Terrett. |