That far scenes would crowd upon her, when she look'd on me and thee,

In the distance dreamlike dawning from the glorious dream-countree.

She was kneeling, as she told us, at her Saviour's blessed feet

Leaning on her harp, which warbled (as she knelt) heaven's music sweet

But the thrill of that communion, and the smiles that on her fell,

And the melody of worship, words, she said, might never tell.

Still the dream grew clear and clearer, softer still that music's tone,

And she saw she was not kneeling in that glorious light

alone:

For beside her were two spirits, (well she knew them) I and thou

Life and light and love, all blended, like soft rainbows, on our brow.

And like us in blest communion kneeling, singing as

we sung,

On the hand of each of us a gentler, lovelier angel hung.

Often since I've mused, my brother, when my heart was rent, if this

Were a heaven-sent dream, prophetic of a far-off home of bliss,

Or a beautiful life-picture by affection's finger drawn, But which, like my early joys, should fade, fade, fade away at dawn.

Weep not, brother! thou hast found that angel of the far-off land,

Whom our mother saw there kneeling, gently clinging to thy hand.

I, too, have a tale to tell thee, (would that it may end in light)

Tho' a tale of sin and sorrow, I can better tell at night. Who could speak of sad hearts broken by himself, of tear-drown'd eyes,

And of wither'd hopes and feelings, underneath blue laughing skies?

Sorrow clings to sorrow's raiment-grief must have her twilight wan

Moan, ye winds and woods and waves, and let the embers smoulder on.

Gaze with me a moment down the billowy ocean of our life,

Which with tears and fitful radiance seems mysteriously

rife:

In the distance, like the earliest flush of morning o'er

the hills,

Even here, thro' cloud and gloom, a dewy mellow light distils.

Still it grows upon my sight intensely beautiful and grand, From the land of childhood streaming, childhood's

golden faery-land:

When Time went on sunshine-wheels, on wings of breezy joyaunce by,

Every feeling, like the sky-lark, from the earth and to the sky.

Then, perchance, no human seer that look'd upon our reckless brow,

Could have prophesied the diverse pathway we are travelling now.

But the first black cloud that shadow'd childhood's blue

pellucid years,

Gloom'd, rose, cover'd, broke upon us with a sudden

dash of tears

the morn,

the tidings of our father's

Gloom'd upon victory came,

Earn'd with precious drops of blood-the dew, an if ye will, of fame;

Broke the next sad post a letter, edged with black, too surely told

That his heart was still for ever, and his lips for ever

cold.

Then our mother-day by day she struggled with her choking grief

Oh, she could not-but beside us wither'd, like a dying

leaf:

And, when leaves should die, in autumn, her the first of all the year,

We did lay, with sighs and weeping, on her cold sepulchral bier;

And with faltering listless footsteps slowly sought, when all was o'er,

Hand in hand our desolate home; tho' desolate, ours,

alas, no more.

We were parted-each alone, 'mid stranger hearts and faces strange:

Dreary seem'd the waste of lifetime, like a barren shore to range.

But a gentle eye fell on thee-seem'd it but a sister's

love?

Pity's tears, that wept thy sorrows, from one tenderer than the dove ?

Oh, ye grew for five brief summers there together, side by side,

Till she stood in beauty by thee, thine own loving, lovely bride;

Blushing, trembling, till the vow to love thee-then her face grew bright,

And intense affection o'er her threw a beauty like the

light.

Ah! how beautiful life's ocean seem'd that gentle cloudless noon,

Like a moonlight sea that slumbers underneath the summer moon,

When the stars steal hearts responsive to their own wild eloquence,

And a strange sweet music o'er us comes, we know not, heed not, whence,

From the skies, or from the falling of melodious drops of foam,

Or from deeper spirit-fountains welling in our spirithome.

Few, methinks, are such blest havens on the shores of time and earth;

Seldom broods there peace so tranquil over life's exuberant mirth.

But I must not linger, brother, on the brightness of thy track,

When dark spectres round mine own with spells are whispering me back.

List! I do not wish that others should partake my sinful load,

Yet I sometimes think the streamlet from that bitter fountain flow'd :

For when harsh unkindness pruned and stunted all affection's shoots,

Then perhaps the canker enter'd, festering at my being's roots;

For with sickening heart I turn'd from human faces, as from blight,

Since they never lit with love, and never read my

ings right,

feel

To the world of thought and fancy-that, my countrybooks, my friends;

Fool, fool! deeming heartless things for gushing hearts would make amends.

Yet at first how strangely lovely seem'd that icy crys

tal air,

To a lonely nestless bird upon its first wild entrance

there.

Day by day the spirit finding eagle strength within its wings,

Proudly tracking truth and beauty there 'mid everlasting things;

Never pausing, resting never on its flight intensely keen, Deeming it would touch the bound'ry of that dark-blue vault serene.

If I gazed below, the mists were wrapping all in vaporous fold,

Mists of selfishness and meanness, chilling blight, and sordid gold;

All along whose cloudy skirts base ignis-fatuus lights would flame,

Luxury, and ease, and riches, and perhaps some petty fame.

"Let them flame and flare," I shouted, "round those spirits' prison bars,