34 ACROSS THE WAVES AWAY AND PAR. My heart is tutored not to weep; Where grief lies hushed, but not asleep, Hallows the hours I love to keep For only thee and heaven :- Too far and fair to aid the birth Of thoughts that have a taint of earth! And yet, the days for ever gone,— When thou wert as a bird, Living 'mid sun and flowers alone, And singing in so soft a tone As I never since have beard, Will make me grieve that birds, and things So beautiful, have ever wings! And there are hours in the lonely night When I seem to hear thy calls, Faint as the echos of far delight, And dreamy and sad as the sighing flight Of distant waterfalls ; 35 And then my vow is hard to keep, For it were a joy, indeed, to weep! For I feel as men feel when moonlight falls Or the wind plays, sadly, along the walls That we knew in their day of smiles; Or as one who hears, amid foreign flowers, A tune he had learnt in his mother's bowers. But I may not and I dare not weep, Lest the vision pass away, And the vigils that I love to keep Be broken up, by the fevered sleep That leaves me—with the day— Like one who has travelled far, to the spot Where his home should be-and finds it not! Yet then, like the incense of many flowers, 36 ACROSS THE WAVES-AWAY AND FAR. For I know, from thy dwelling in eastern bowers, That thy spirit has come, in those silent hours, And I feel, in my soul, the fadeless truth Of her whom I loved in early youth. Like hidden streams,-whose quiet tone Is unheard in the garish day, That utter a music all their own, When the night-dew falls, and the lady moon I knew not half thy gentle worth, We shall not meet on earth again! For, they tell me that the cloud of pain And I have heard that storm and shower Have dimmed thy loveliness, my flower! I would not look upon thy tears,— Just as thou wert, in those blessed years And I would not aught should mar the spell, I love to think on thee, as one And feel that I am journeying on, Wasted, and weary, and alone, To join thee on that shore Where thou-I know-wilt look for me, And I, for ever, be with thee! THE DEAD TRUMPETER. AFTER A VIGNETTE PICTURE, BY HORACE VERNET. WAKE, soldier, wake!-thy war-horse waits, To bear thee to the battle back ;— Thou slumberest at a foeman's gates ;- And thy red faulchion gathering rust! Sleep, soldier, sleep!-thy warfare o'er,- |