I have been out at eventide Beneath a moonlight sky of spring, When earth was garnished like a bride, And night had on her silver wing; When bursting leaves and diamond grass, And waters leaping to the light, And all that makes the pulses pass With wilder fleetness, thronged the night-- When all was beauty--then have I, With friends on whom my love is flung Like myrrh on winds of Araby, Gazed up where evening’s lamp is hung, And when the beautiful spirit there Flung over me its golden chain, My mother’s voice came on the air Like the light dropping of the rain, And resting on some silver star The spirit of a bended knee, I’ve poured her low and fervent prayer That our eternity might be To rise in heaven like stars at night, And tread a living path of light! I have been on the dewy hills When night was stealing from the dawn, And mist was on the waking rills, And tints were delicately drawn In the gray east; when birds were waking With a low murmur in the trees, And melody by fits was breaking Upon the whisper of the breeze-- And this when I was forth, perchance, As a worn reveller from the dance! And when the sun sprang gloriously And freely up, and hill and river Were catching upon wave and tree The arrows from his subtle quiver-- I say a voice has thrilled me then, Heard on the still and rushing light, Or creeping from the silent glen, Like words from the departing night-- Hath stricken me, and I have pressed On the wet grass my fevered brow, And pouring forth the earliest, First prayer with which I learned to bow, Have felt my mother’s spirit rush Upon me as in by-past years, And yielding to the blessed gush Of my ungovernable tears, Have risen up--the gay, the wild-- As humble as a very child! THE HINDOO MOTHER. It was a gentle eve in Hindoostan. The rains were past, and the delighted earth Was beautiful once more, and glittering leaves Were lifting lightly on their beaten stems, And glancing to the pure, transparent sky, Like a pleased infant smiling through its tears. Clouds lingered in the west, and tints were drawn By sunset fingers on their skirts of gold, And they were floating as serenely there, As if the children of the restless storm Could sleep upon the azure floor of heaven.