O, who knows the truth,
How she perished in her youth,

And like a queen went down

Pale in her royal crown?
How she went up to glory

From the sea-foam chill and hoary,
From the sea-depth black and riven
To the calm that is in Heaven?

They went down, all the crew,
The silks and spices too,

The great ones and the small,
One and all, one and all.

Was it through stress of weather,
Quicksands, rocks, or all together?
Only the Raven knows this,

And he will not disclose this.

After a day and a year

The bridal bells chime clear;

After a year and a day

The Bridegroom is brave and gay:
Love is sound, faith is rotten;
The old Bride is forgotten:-
Two ominous Ravens only
Remember, black and lonely.

THE GERMAN-FRENCH CAMPAIGN.

1870-1871.

These two pieces, written during the suspense of a great nation's agory, aim at expressing human sympathy, not political bias.

I.

"THY BROTHER'S BLOOD CRIETH."

ALL her corn-fields rippled in the sunshine,

All her lovely vines, sweets-laden, bowed;

Yet some weeks to harvest and to vintage :
When, as one man's hand, a cloud

Rose and spread, and, blackening, burst asunder
In rain and fire and thunder.

Is there nought to reap in the day of harvest?
Hath the vine in her day no fruit to yield?
Yea, men tread the press, but not for sweetness,
And they reap a red crop from the field.
Build barns, ye reapers, garner all aright,
Though your souls be called to-night.

A

cry of tears goes up from blackened homesteads, A cry of blood goes up from reeking earth: Tears and blood have a cry that pierces Heaven

Through all its Hallelujah swells of mirth; God hears their cry, and though He tarry, yet He doth not forget.

Mournful Mother, prone in dust weeping,

Who shall comfort thee for those who are not?

As thou didst, men do to thee; and heap the measure.

And heat the furnace sevenfold hot:

As thou once, now these to thee

From sea to sea?

who pitieth thee

O thou King, terrible in strength, and building
Thy strong future on thy past!

Though he drink the last, the King of Sheshach,
Yet he shall drink at the last.
Art thou greater than great Babylon,
Which lies overthrown?

Take heed, ye unwise among the people;
O ye fools, when will ye understand?
He that planted the ear shall He not hear,
Nor He smite who formed the hand?

"Vengeance is Mine, is Mine," thus saith the Lord: O Man, put up thy sword.

II.

"TO-DAY FOR ME."

HE sitteth still who used to dance,

SHE

She weepeth sore and more and more

Let us sit with thee weeping sore,

O fair France !

She trembleth as the days advance
Who used to be so light of heart:
We in thy trembling bear a part,
Sister France!

Her eyes shine tearful as they glance: "Who shall give back my slaughtered sons? "Bind up," she saith, "my wounded ones." Alas, France!

She struggles in a deathly trance,
As in a dream her pulses stir,
She hears the nations calling her,
"France, France, France!"

Thou people of the lifted lance, Forbear her tears, forbear her blood: Roll back, roll back, thy whelming flood, Back from France.

Eye not her loveliness askance, Forge not for her a galling chain; Leave her at peace to bloom again, Vine-clad France.

A time there is for change and chance,

A time for passing of the cup:
And One abides can yet bind up
Broken France.

A time there is for change and chance: Who next shall drink the trembling cup, Wring out its dregs and suck them up After France?

ON THE WING.

Ο

SONNET.

NCE in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
We stood together in an open field;

Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,
Sporting at ease and courting full in view.
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew,
Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;
Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new.
Then, as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground,
Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson
drops,

I wept, and thought I turned towards you to

weep:

But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound

Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep.