While those who sing for fame and crown Must bide the Poet’s tether, Dear Muse and I will wander down Thro’ Freedom’s vale, together. ’Tis sweet to us, the path we tread— All Nature’s song is ours, Her wildest scenes, the stars o’erhead And all her fragrant flowers. We Never Know. Ah, me! we never know What cold, wild winds may blow Across the springtime’s balmy promise, sweet— By what untimely frost The fruit germs may be lost, And rosy petals beaten down with sleet. The eyes that glow tonight With childhood’s loving light, To-morrow may, with pallid lids be veiled— The bounding pulse be stilled, Life’s crimson current chilled, And rich, red lips with Death’s cold kisses paled. We never know the fate So near, until too late; Tho’ oft the black-winged demon’s shadow falls In heavy gloom upon the heart— A thousand dreads upstart, Yet onward, all, until the shock appalls. Warm love anticipates, With open arms awaits, ’Till hissing wires the stunning message brings. Oh, God! the wild despair That hushes e’en the voice of prayer, And makes the soul forget all offerings. Such sudden, crushing grief! Hope, rising, scouts belief, But falls down, prone, before the sorrow-flashing wires. Hear Sympathy’s whispered tone, Oh, ye, who sit alone, With but the light of memory’s altar fires. A June in Childhood. I stood in the flush of an evening in June When leafage and blossom and fragrance triune, Crown this, of the months, the most queenly and fair; The clover and roses had poured on the air A nectar I drank with enjoyment rare; Baptized in this flood of ecstatic delight My child eyes were blessed with miraculous sight. O, gladly I’d yield up the wisdom of years, If gazing out now, thro’ the mist of my tears, I could think as I tho’t in that beautiful dream, That the gates were ajar, and the shimmer and gleam Of golden-paved streets on that silvery stream, “The River of Life”—shining thro’ in the west, Gave us a bright glimpse of the home of the blest. I saw, as I gazed with my dream-lighted eyes, A broad, gilded stairway let down from the skies, And angels came out with their robings of white, All ’broidered and shining with flosses of light, And bound on each brow with a coronet bright, Was a veil of soft gossamer, fold upon fold, With amethyst border, and flutings of gold. And spread on the sky, to my glorified view, Was a foam crested ocean, pavillioned with blue; Bright islands of azure thro’ cloud-rifts were seen, Then sunk, like Atlantis, in billowy sheen: While ships, that I fancied from shores evergreen, Afloat on its bosom, at anchor would ride, Or cut with their prows thro’ the rose-tinted tide.