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| HOWE’ER 1 the sceptic scoffs, the poet sighs, | |
| Hope oft reveals her dimly shadow’d dreams, | |
| And seraph joy descends from pale blue skies, | |
| And, like sweet sunset on wood-skirted streams, | |
| Peace breathes around her stilling harmonies, | 5 |
| Her whisper’d music,—while her soft eye beams— | |
| And the deep bliss, that crowns the household hearth, | |
| From all its woes redeems the bleeding earth. | |
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| Like woods that shadow the blue mountain sky, | |
| The troubled heart still seeks its home in heaven, | 10 |
| In those affections which can never die, | |
| In hallowed love and human wrongs forgiven! | |
| From the fair gardens of the blest on high | |
| The fruit of life is yet to lost man given, | |
| And ’mid the quiet of his still abode | 15 |
| Spirits attend him from the throne of God. | |
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| The mild deep gentleness, the smile that throws | |
| Light from the bosom o’er the high pale brow, | |
| And cheek that flushes like the May-morn rose; | |
| The all-reposing sympathies, that glow | 20 |
| Like violets in the heart, and o’er our woes | |
| The silent breathing of their beauty throw— | |
| Oh! every deed of daily life doth prove | |
| The depth, the strength, the truth of woman’s love! | |
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| When harvest days are pass’d, and autumn skies | 25 |
| The giant forests tinge with glorious hues, | |
| How o’er the twilight of our thought sweet eyes | |
| The fairy beauty of the soul diffuse! | |
| The inspiring air like spirit voices sighs | |
| ’Mid the close pines and solitary yews, | 30 |
| Though the broad leaves on forest boughs look sere, | |
| And naked woodlands wail the dying year. | |
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| Yet the late season brings no hours of gloom, | |
| Though thoughtful sadness sighs her evening hymn, | |
| For hearth-fires now light up the curtain’d room, | 35 |
| And love’s wings float amid the twilight dim; | |
| Lost loved ones gather round us from the tomb, | |
| And blest revealments o’er our spirits swim, | |
| And Hopes, that droop’d in trials, soar on high, | |
| And link’d affections bear into the sky. | 40 |
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| Then, side by side, hearts, wedded in their youth, | |
| In their meek blessedness expand and glow, | |
| And, though the world be faithless, still their truth | |
| No pause, no change, no soil of time may know! | |
| They hold communion with the world, in sooth, | 45 |
| Beyond the stain of sin, the waste of wo, | |
| And the deep sanctities of well-spent hours | |
| Crown their fair fame with Eden’s deathless flowers. | |
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| Frail as the moth’s fair wing is common fame, | |
| Brief as the sunlight of an April morn; | 50 |
| But love perpetuates the sacred name | |
| Devoted to his shrine; in glory born, | |
| The boy-god gladly to the lone earth came | |
| To vanquish victors and to smile at scorn, | |
| And he will rise, when all is finish’d here, | 55 |
| The holiest seraph of the highest sphere. | |
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| As fell the prophet’s mantle, in old time, | |
| On the meek heir of Israel’s sainted sage, | |
| Woman! so falls thy unseen power sublime | |
| On the lone desert of man’s pilgrimage; | 60 |
| Thy sweet thoughts breathe, from love’s delicious clime, | |
| Beauty in youth, and faith in fading age; | |
| Through all earth’s years of travail, strife and toil, | |
| His parch’d affections linger round thy smile. | |
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| In the young beauty of thy womanhood | 65 |
| Thou livest in the being yet to be, | |
| Yearning for blessedness ill understood, | |
| And known, young mother! only unto thee. | |
| Love is her life; and to the wise and good | |
| Her heart is heaven—’t is even unto me, | 70 |
| Though oft misguided and betrayed and grieved, | |
| The only bliss of which I ’m not bereaved. | |
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| Draw near, ye whom my bosom hath enshrined! | |
| O Thou! whose life breathes in my heart! and Thou | |
| Whose gentle spirit dwelleth in my mind, | 75 |
| Whose love, like sunlight, rests upon thy brow! | |
| Draw near the hearth! the cold and moaning wind | |
| Scatters the ruins of the forest now, | |
| But blessings crown us in our own still home— | |
| Hail, holy image of the life to come! | 80 |
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| Hail, ye fair charities! the mellow showers | |
| Of the earth’s springtime! from your rosy breath | |
| The way-worn pilgrim, though the tempest lowers, | |
| Breathes a new being in the realm of death, | |
| And bears the burden of life’s darker hours | 85 |
| With cheerlier aspect o’er the lonely heath, | |
| That spreads between us and the unfading clime | |
| Where true Love triumphs o’er the death of Time. | |
