Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist, When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by. -Robert Browning. HE'D NOTHING BUT HIS H long; VIOLIN E'D nothing but his violin, But we were wed when skies were blue And summer days were And when we rested by the hedge, The robins came and told How they had dared to woo and win, We sometimes supped on dew-berries, But oft the farmers' wives at eve The rare old songs, the dear old tunes,- -Mary Kyle Dallas. A EVENING VE MARIA-blessed be the hour, The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day him stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer. O Hesperus! thou bringest all good things, Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, To the young bird the parent's brooding wings, The welcome stall to the o'er-labored steer; і Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast. Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way, As the far bell of vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day's decay: Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns. -Lord Byron. |