My heart is dark again.
My tree of life but yestermorn was flusht
With golden fruit: to-day it creaks in pain,
And wintry winds moan through its leafless boughs.
Time, some hours younger, saw me clasp the sky
Of hope with radiant brow: the plodding churl
May see me now go stumbling in the dark,
And blindly groping for the hand of Death
To lead me hence. O life! O world! O woman!

Experience tells the world it were as mad
To link the Present with the sluggish Past,
As wed the ways of winsome, wanton youth,
To lean and laggard age. I pitied her:
Made her the mistress of my countless wealth--
Loving with doting and uxorious love.
And the ripe graces of her radiant mind
Shone out resplendent. But my withered life
Woke to her love with sere and sickly hope;
As some departed June, won with the sighs
Of waning Winter, turns and spends a day
For very pity with the lonely eld,
Who greets her sunny visit with a glance

O love sublime!
How thy sweet influence agitates the soul,
Voicing its hidden chords, as breathing winds
Wake the rude harp to thrilling melody.
All things must pass away; but love shall live
For ever. 'Tis th' immortal soul of life.
Scathless and beauteous midst th' incongruous mass
Of desolated hearts and stricken souls,
And spirits faintful 'neath a world of woe,
And dusky millions in the mine of life;
And all the rank corruption of the earth--
Its weeds, its thorns, its sadness-breeding hate;
Its selfishness, its swallow-pinioned friends;

To love unbeloved--O how painful the bliss!
By such passion our heart-strings we sever:
Like raindrops in rivers, which die with a kiss,
We are lost in life's waters for ever.

SET TO MUSIC AND PUBLISHED.

There's a place in this world, free from trouble and strife,
Which the wise try their hardest to find,
Where the heart that encounters the sharp thorns of life
Will meet nought that's harsh or unkind;
Where each tries his best to make joy for the rest--
In sunshine or shadow the same;
Where all who assemble in Friendship's behest
Are Brothers in heart and in name.
Let brotherly love continue--
Let the flag of the Craft be unfurled;
We 'll join hand-in-hand

Though toilers for gold stain their souls in a strife
That enslaves them to Avarice grim,
Though Tyranny's hand fills the wine cup of life
With gall, surging over the brim;
Though Might in dark hatefulness reigns for a time,
And Right by Wrong's frownings be met;
Love lives--a guest-angel from heaven's far clime,
And walks with humanity yet.

And still the world, Balaam-like, blind as the night,
Sees not the fair seraph stand by
That beckons it onward to Morning and Light,
Lark-like, from the sod to the sky;

I.

Her hair is as bright as the sunbeam's light,
And she walks with a regal grace,
And she bares full proud to the empty crowd
The wealth of her wondrous face;
And her haughty smile thus speaks the while:
"Approach me on bended knee!"
She's a beautiful star I could worship afar,
But--her love's not the love for me.


II.

Her hair is as black as the raven's back,
And her face--what a queenly one;
And her voice ripples out like the trembling shout
Of a Lark when he sings to the sun;

"O changeful woman! Constant man!"
Has been the theme for buried ages.
But here's the truth: say "No" who can--
Ye bards, philosophers, and sages:
Men buy their Hats all kinds of shapes;
Our own Welshwomen change their's never;
'Tis with their Hats as with their loves--
Where fancy rests the heart approves,
And, loving once, they love for ever!

The mist that rises from the river,
Evermore--evermore,
Tells how hearts are born to sever
As of yore--as of yore.
But the silvery mist returneth
Sparkling dew and blessed rain;
So the loving heart, though distant,
Comes again--comes again.

The stars that shine in brightness o'er us
In the sky--in the sky,
Speak of loved ones gone before us
Born to die--born to die,
Who, in days of earthly sadness,
O'er us watch with tender love,
As the starlight falls around us
From above--from above.

In silent grief the blow we'll bear:
Though gone, with us she'll still abide.
Her name a shape of love will wear,
In viewless influence by our side.