My Cousin's Portrait
Just where the early sunbeams fall,
And waken me at dawn,
To hear the lark sing praise because
Another day is born,
There hangs a little portrait, and none know how 'tis stored,
I simply tell my guests it is 'my cousin, gone abroad.'
He lived upon the breezy hills,
And I in London town;
My face was fair, and thin and pale,
And his was fresh and brown,
But oh! what happy times we had, when we were girl and boy,
And had not got a ghost of care to haunt us in our joy!
My earliest thoughts of him are linked
With pleasant flowers and trees,
With gloveless hands, and locks unbound
And freshened in the breeze.
And often since in country towns, I've felt mine eyes grow dim,
Because each homely sight and sound brought memories of him.
When last I saw his country home,
Its hearth was desolate;
And the last country walk we took
Led through the churchyard gate:
And as we faced the sunset there—the new-made grave was nigh
I knew in all the wide green earth his nearest friend was I.
When next we met, we met to part,
Upon the crowded pier;
And through the drizzling mist I saw
The gaunt, black shipping near:
And as he kissed my tear-stained cheek in all the wind and rain,
I could not—did not—dare to hope I'd see his face again.
Yet keenest sorrows very soon
To happiest memories turn;
As sweetest smiles break calmly forth
From lips we fancy stern;
For then how bitterly I wept, to think that he must roam,
And now I'm almost glad he went, for now he's coming home!
A Message From The Sea
The stormy afternoon was past,
And in the dim grey sky,
Between great hoary clouds, the sun
Looked out with lurid eye:
And we, two strangers from the town, the sea breeze yearning for,
Walked down between the fishers' cots, and went toward the shore.
The beach was still enough, but yet
The tempest left its track,
And almost fearfully we passed
Torn nets and heaps of wrack:
There is a mystic mockery about the wind and storm,
They make such rude and simple things so like a human form!
My sister's face was strangely pale,
A thrill was in her tone,
Her brown eyes looked like those who watch
To have some mystery shown:
I only thought, 'Hope wears the heart,—ay, even more than Fear,
And Bessie waits for one she loves,—I would that he were here!'
The lurid sun sank in the sea,
But left a glare behind;
And the slow tide those treasures left
Which loiterers love to find;
My sister turned aside to pick what seemed a glittering shell;
And from some church I could not see, there tolled a solemn knell.
I turned and saw that Bessie knelt
Upon the crunching sand;
'O God, Thy help! ' she said, and kissed
That something in her hand,
And then she held it out to me—a grievous sight to bear—
A locket I had seen before, filled with her own bright hair.
The waves had left it at her feet,
To bid her hope no more;
He whom she waited, watched for her
Upon a calmer shore:
And very soon she went to him: our youngest and our best
Sleeps sweetly by the moaning sea, with its message on her breast.
