And art thou not still fondly, truly loved?
Thou art the love his spirit bore away,
Was not for death!—a treasure but removed,
A bright bird parted for a clearer day,—
Thine still in Heaven!

WOMAN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE.

Where hath not woman stood,
Strong in affection's might? a reed upborne

By an o'ermastering current!

GENTLE and lovely form,

What didst thou here,
When the fierce battle-storm
Bore down the spear?

Banner and shiver'd crest,
Beside thee strown,
Tell, that amidst the best,
Thy work was done!

Yet strangely, sadly fair,

O'er the wild scene,

Gleams, through its golden hair,

That brow serene.

Low lies the stately head,-
Earth-bound the free;

How gave those haughty dead
A place to thee?

Some, for the stormy play

And joy of strife;
And some, to fling away

A weary life;

But thou, pale sleeper, thou,
With the slight frame,

And the rich locks, whose glow
Death cannot tame;

Only one thought, one power,
Thee could have led,

So, through the tempest's hour,
To lift thy head!

Only the true, the strong,

The love, whose trust Woman's deep soul too long Pours on the dust!

LAND OF DREAMS.

THE LAND OF DREAMS.

And dreams, in their developement, have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They make us what we were not-what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by.

BYRON.

83

O SPIRIT-LAND! thou land of dreams!
A world thou art of mysterious gleams,
Of startling voices, and sounds at strife,-
A world of the dead in the hues of life.

Like a wizard's magic glass thou art,
When the wavy shadows float by, and part:
Visions of aspects, now loved, now strange,
Glimmering and mingling in ceaseless change.

Thou art like a city of the past,

With its gorgeous halls in fragments cast,
Amidst whose ruins there glide and play
Familiar forms of the world's to-day.

Thou art like the depths where the seas have birth,
Rich with the wealth that is lost from earth,-

All the sere flowers of our days gone by,
And the buried gems in thy bosom lie.

Yes! thou art like those dim sea-caves,

A realm of treasures, a realm of graves!

And the shapes through thy mysteries that come

and go,

Are of beauty and terror, of power and woe.

But for me, O thou picture-land of sleep!
Thou art all one world of affections deep,-
And wrung from my heart is each flushing dye,
That sweeps o'er thy chambers of imagery.

And thy bowers are fair-e'en as Eden fair;
All the beloved of my soul are there!
The forms my spirit most pines to see,
The eyes, whose love hath been life to me;

They are there, and each blessed voice I hear,
Kindly, and joyous, and silvery clear;

But under-tones are in each, that say,
"It is but a dream; it will melt away!"

I walk with sweet friends in the sunset's glow;

I listen to music of long ago;

But one thought, like an omen, breathes faint through

the lay,

"It is but a dream; it will melt away!"

I sit by the hearth of my early days;
All the home-faces are met by the blaze,-
And the eyes of the mother shine soft, yet say
"It is but a dream; it will melt away!"

And away, like a flower's passing breath, 'tis gone,
And I wake more sadly, more deeply lone!
Oh! a haunted heart is a weight to bear,-
Bright faces, kind voices! where are ye, where?

Shadow not forth, O thou land of dreams,
The past, as it fled by my own blue streams!
Make not my spirit within me burn

For the scenes and the hours that may ne'er return!