Classic Poem

O SILENT hour that sacred is
To our sincerest reveries! —
When peering Fancy fondly frames
Swift visions in the oak-leaved flames;
When Whim has magic to command
Largess and lore from every land,
And Memory, miser-like, once more
Counts over all her hoarded store.
Now phantom moments come again
In a long and lingering train,
As not content to be forgot —
(O Death! when I remember not
Such moments, may my current run,
Alph-like, to thy oblivion!):
The summer bedtime, when the sky —
The boy's first wonder — gathers nigh,
And cows are lowing at the bars,
And fireflies mock the early stars
That seem to hang just out of reach —
Like a bright thought that lacks of speech;
The wistful twilight's tender fall,
When to the trundle comes the call
Of fluting robins, mingling sweet
With voices down the village street;
The drowsy silence, pierced with fear
If evil-omened owl draw near,
Quaking with presage of the night;
The soft surrender when, from sight
Hid like a goddess in a cloud,
Comes furtive Sleep, with charm endowed
To waft the willing child away
Far from the margin of the day,
Till chanticleer with roystering blare
Of reveille proclaims the glare.
Remember? — how can one forget
(Since Memory's but Affection's debt)
Those fairy nights that hold the far,
Soft rhythm of the low guitar.
When not more sweetly zephyr blows
And not more gently Afton flows
Than the dear mother's voice, to ease
The hurts of day with brook and breeze,
To soothing chords that haunt the strings
Like shadows of the song she sings!
And as the music's lullaby
Locks down at last the sleepy eye,
Green visions of a distant hill
The fancy of the singer fill,
While spreads Potomac's pausing stream,
And moonlight sets her heart adream
Of that old time when love was made
With valentine and serenade.

Now, too, come bedtimes when the stair
Was never climbed alone. — Ah, where,
Beyond the midnight and the dawn,
Has now that other footstep gone?
Does sound or echo more reveal
When thirty winters may not steal
That still-returning tread, — that voice,
That made the timid child rejoice
Against the terrors of the wind, —
That tender tone that smoothed the mind?
Great heart of pity! it was then
God seemed a father, denizen
Of His own world, not chained to feet
Of some far, awful judgment-seat.
Then was revealed the reverent soul
Whom creed nor doubt could from the goal
Of goodness swerve; who need not bend
To be of each just cause the friend.
Of whose small purse and simple prayer
The neediest had the largest share;
Beloved of child, and poor, and slave,
Nor yet more lovable than brave;
Whom place could not allure, nor pelf, —
To all men generous save himself;
Whose passion Freedom was — with no
Heat-lightning rage devoid of blow,
But as a bridegroom might defend
His chosen, to the furious end.

Still other moments come apace,
Each with fond, familiar face:
The pleasures of an inland boy
To whom great Nature was a toy
For which all others were forsook —
A spirit blithesome as a brook
Whose song in ripples crystalline
Doth flow soft silences between;
The dormant soul's slow wakenings
To dimly-apprehended things:
The sudden vision in the night
As by a conflagration's light;
The daily miracle of breath;
The awe of battle and of death;
The tears of grief at Sumter's gun,
The tears of joy when war was done,
And all the fainting doubt that masked
As hope when news of war was asked.
And oh! that best-remembered place,
That perfect moment's melting grace, —
The look, the smile, the touch, the kiss,
The halo of self-sacrifice, —
When Nature's passion, bounteous June,
To Love's surrender added boon,
As though the heir of every age
Had come into his heritage.

THE LOST ROSE

There was a garden sweet and gay,
Where rarest blossoms did delay
The look that Fanny bent to find
The flower fairest to her mind,
Till, at her word, I plucked for her
A rose of York-and-Lancaster.

The red did with the white agree,
Like passion blent in purity;
And as she blushed and blushed the more,
Till she was like the bloom she bore,
I said, " Dear heart, I too prefer
The rose of York-and-Lancaster. "

'T is years ago and leagues away!
For oh! nor rose nor maid could stay
To freshen other Junes. And yet
How few who do not quite forget! —
Or know to which the words refer:
" Sweet rose of York-and-Lancaster. "

In vain, when roses do appear
Upon the bosom of the year,
I search the tangle and the town
Among the roses of renown,
And still the answer is — " Oh, sir,
We know no York-and-Lancaster. "

But ah, my heart, it knows the truth,
And where was sown that seed of youth;
And though the world have lost the rose,
There 's still one garden where it grows —
Where every June it breathes of her,
My rose of York-and-Lancaster.