"When their wings break from their silvery shell, Touched by my tender care, Here shall my little ones safely dwell, Little ones soft and fair; Some summer morn they shall try their wings While their father sits by my side and sings." Hard by, just over the streamlet's edge A great rock towered in might, High up, half hidden in moss and sedge, Were safe little nooks and bright; Ah well for the bird with her tender breast, Had she flown to the rock to build her nest! Poor bird, she built her nest too low; Alas! for the bird, alas! That she chose that spot to her woe In the low dewy grass; For the reaper came with his gleaming blade. Alas for love in the violet shade! AT LAST. What though upon a wintry sea our life bark sails, What though we tremble 'neath its cruel gales, Its icy blast; We see a happy port lie far before, We see its shining waves, its sunny shore, Where we shall wander, and forget the troubled past, At last. No storms approach that quiet shore, no night Falls on its silver streams, and valleys bright, And gardens vast; Within that pleasant land of perfect peace Our toil-worn feet shall stay, our wanderings cease; There shall we, resting, all forget the past, At last. The sorrows we have hid in silent weariness, As birds above a wounded, bleeding breast, Their bright plumes cast; The griefs like mourners in a dark array, That haunt our footsteps here, will flee away, And leave us to forget the sorrowful past, At last. Voices we loved sound from those far-off lands, And thrill our hearts; life's golden sands Are dropping fast; Soon shall we meet by the river of peace, and say, As the night flees before the eye of day, So faded from our eyes the mournful past, At last. TWILIGHT. Draped in shadows stands the mountain Against the eastern sky, Above it the fair summer moon Looks downward tenderly; And Venus in the glowing west, Opens her languid eye. Now the winds breathe softer music, Half a song, and half a sigh; While twilight wraps her purple veil Around us silently, And our thoughts appear like pictures, Pictures shaded wondrously. Quiet landscapes, sweet and lonely, Silvery sea, and shadowy glade, Forest lakes by man forsaken, Where the white fawn's steps are stayed; And contadinos straying 'Neath the Pantheon's solemn shade. And we see the wave bridged over By the moonlight's mystic link, Desert wells by tall palms shaded, Where dusky camels drink; While dark-eyed Arab maidens Fill their pitchers at the brink. And secluded convent chapels, Where veiled nuns kneel to pray, With a dim light streaming o'er them Through arches quaint and gray, While down the long and winding aisles Low music dies away.