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THE PRAIRIE.

JOHN HAY.

THE skies are blue above my head,
The prairie green below,
And flickering o'er the tufted grass
The shifting shadows go,
Vague-sailing, where the feathery

clouds

Fleck white the tranquil skies, Black javelins darting where aloft The whirling pheasant flies.

A glimmering plain in drowsy trance
The dim horizon bounds,
Where all the air is resonant

With sleepy summer sounds,
The life that sings among the flowers,
The lisping of the breeze,
The hot cicala's sultry cry.

The murmurous dreamy bees.

The butterfly, -a flying flower-
Wheels swift in flashing rings,
And flutters round his quiet kin,

With brave flame-mottled wings. The wild pinks burst in crimson fire, The phlox' bright clusters shine, And prairie-cups are swinging free To spill their airy wine.

And lavishly beneath the sun,
In liberal splendor rolled,
The fennel fills the dipping plain
With floods of flowery gold:
And widely weaves the iron-weed
A woof of purple dyes
Where Autumn's royal feet may tread
When bankrupt Summer flies.

In verdurous tumult far away
The prairie-billows gleam,
Upon their crests in blessing rests
The noontide's gracious beam.
Low quivering vapors steaming dim,
The level splendors break
Where languid lilies deck the rim
Of some land-circled lake.

Far in the East like low-hung clouds The waving woodlands lie;

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IN the dewy depths of the graveyard
I lie in the tangled grass,
And watch in the sea of azure,

The white cloud-islands pass.

The birds in the rustling branches
Sing gaily overhead;
Gray stones like sentinel spectres
Are guarding the silent dead.

The early flowers sleep shaded

In the cool green noonday glooms; The broken light falls shuddering

On the cold white face of the tombs.

Without, the world is smiling

In the infinite love of God, But the sunlight fails and falters When it falls on the churchyard sod.

On me the joyous rapture

Of a heart's first love is shed, But it falls on my heart as coldly As sunlight on the dead.

REMORSE.

SAD is the thought of sunniest days
Of love and rapture perished,
And shine through memory's tearful
haze

The eyes once fondliest cherished. Reproachful is the ghost of toys

That charmed while life was
wasted.

But saddest is the thought of joys
That never yet were tasted.

Sad is the vague and tender dream
Of dead love's lingering kisses,
To crushed hearts haloed by the
gleam

Of unreturning blisses;

Deep mourns the soul in anguished pride

For the pitiless death that won them,

But the saddest wail is for lips that died

With the virgin dew upon them.

ON THE BLUFF.

O GRANDLY flowing River!
O silver-gliding River!
Thy springing willows shiver
In the sunset as of old;
They shiver in the silence
Of the willow-whitened islands,
While the sun-bars and the sand-bars
Fill air and wave with gold.

O gay, oblivious River!
O sunset-kindled River!
Do you remember ever

The eyes and skies so blue
On a summer day that shone here,
When we were all alone here,
And the blue eyes were too wise
To speak the love they knew?

O stern impassive River!
O still unanswering River!
The shivering willows quiver

As the night-winds moan and rave.
From the past a voice is calling,
From heaven a star is falling,
And dew swells in the bluebells
Above her hillside grave.

A WOMAN'S LOVE.

A SENTINEL angel sitting high in glory

Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:

"Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

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A SUMMER mood.

АH me! for evermore, for evermore These human hearts of ours must yearn and sigh,

While down the dells and up the murmurous shore

Nature renews her immortality.

The heavens of June stretch calm and bland above,

June roses blush with tints of orient skies,

But we, by graves of joy, desire, and love,

Mourn in a world which breathes of Paradise!

The sunshine mocks the tears it may not dry,

The breezes-tricksy couriers of the

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Child-roisterers winged, and lightly fluttering by

Blow their gay trumpets in the face of care;

And bolder winds, the deep sky's passionate speech,

Woven into rhythmic raptures of desire,

Or fugues of mystic victory, sadly reach

Our humbled souls, to rack, not raise them higher!

The field-birds seem to twit us as they pass

With their small blisses, piped so clear and loud;

The cricket triumphs o'er us in the

grass,

And the lark, glancing beamlike up

the cloud,

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