The sweet spring day is glad with music, But through it sounds a sadder strain; The worthiest of our narrowing circle Sings Loring's dirges o'er again. O woman greatly loved! I join thee In tender memories of our friend; With thee across the awful spaces The greeting of a soul I send! What cheer hath he? How is it with him? Where lingers he this weary while? Over what pleasant fields of Heaven Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile? Does he not know our feet are treading The earth hard down on Slavery's grave? That, in our crowning exultations, We miss the charm his presence gave? Why on this spring air comes no whisper From him to tell us all is well? Why to our flower-time comes no token Of lily and of asphodel? I feel the unutterable longing, Thy hunger of the heart is mine; I reach and grope for hands in darkness, My ear grows sharp for voice or sign. Still on the lips of all we question The finger of God's silence lies; Will the lost hands in ours be folded? Will the shut eyelids ever rise? O friend! no proof beyond this yearning, This outreach of our hearts, we need; God will not mock the hope He giveth, No love He prompts shall vainly plead. Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, And call our loved ones o'er and o'er; Some day their arms shall close about us, And the old voices speak once more. No dreary splendors wait our coming Where rapt ghost sits from ghost apart; Homeward we go to Heaven's thanksgiving, The harvest-gathering of the heart. 1870. THE SINGER. This poem was written on the death of Alice Cary. Her sister Phoebe, heart-broken by her loss, followed soon after. Noble and richly gifted, lovely in person and character, they left behind them only friends and admirers. Years since (but names to me before), Two sisters sought at eve my door; Two song-birds wandering from their nest, A gray old farm-house in the West. How fresh of life the younger one, Half smiles, half tears, like rain in sun! Her gravest mood could scarce displace The dimples of her nut-brown face. Wit sparkled on her lips not less For quick and tremulous tenderness; And, following close her merriest glance, Dreamed through her eyes the heart's romance. Timid and still, the elder had Even then a smile too sweetly sad; The crown of pain that all must wear Too early pressed her midnight hair. Yet ere the summer eve grew long, Her modest lips were sweet with song; A memory haunted all her words Of clover-fields and singing birds. Her dark, dilating eyes expressed The broad horizons of the west; Her speech dropped prairie flowers; the gold Of harvest wheat about her rolled.