Elizabeth Oakes Smith

O RIVER! gently as a wayward child
I saw thee mid the moonlight hills at rest;
Capricious thing, with thine own beauty wild,
How didst thou still the throbbings of thy breast!
...

Mothers, out of the mother-heart,
Fashion a song both soft and low,
Always the same dear mother art,
Rocking the baby to and fro,
...

The Sabbath morning from the night awoke
All sunshine crowned: rough men disdaining toil
Had cleared their brows from work-day's hardening moil
And by the fountain left the cove'd yoke.
...

AN acorn fell from an old oak tree,
And lay on the frosty ground
'O, what shall the fate of the acorn be!'
Was whispered all around,
...

And is this life? and are we born for this?
To follow phantoms that elude the grasp,
Or whatso'er's secured, within our clasp,
...

As years passed on, no wonder, each
An inward grace revealed;
For where the soul is peace and love,
It may not be concealed.
...

'Tis the summer prime, when the noiseless air
In perfumed chalice lies,
And the bee goes by with a lazy hum,
Beneath the sleeping skies:
...

Sweet Eva! Shall I send thee forth
With other hearts to speak?
With all thy timidness and love,
Companionship to seek?
...

Whilom ago, in lowly life,
Young Eva lived and smiled,
A fair-haired girl, of wondrous truth,
And blameless from a child.
...

'Twas night—bright beamed the silver moon,
And all the stars were dim;
The widow heard within the dell
Sweet voices of a hymn,
...

Thou poet-painter, preacher of great truth,
Far more suggestive thine than written tome
Lo, we return with thee to that vast dome,
Dim cavern of the past. Visions uncouth,
...

The loud winds rattled at the door—
The shutters creaked and shook,
While Eva, by the cottage hearth,
Sat with abstracted look.
...

Thou art not of earth, thou beautiful thing,
With thy changeless form and hue-
For thou in thy heart hast ever borne
A drop of that living dew
...

Alone we stand to solve the doubt,
Alone to work salvation out,
Casting our helpless hands about
...

With no fond, sickly thirst for fame, I kneel,
Oh, goddess, of the high-born art to thee;
Not unto thee with semblance of a zeal
I come, oh, pure and heaven-eyed Poesy!
...

I dreamed last night, that I myself did lay
Within the grave, and after stood and wept,
My spirit sorrowed where its ashes slept!
'Twas a strange dream, and yet methinks it may
...

It cannot be, the baffled heart, in vain,
May seek, amid the crowd, its throbs to hide;
Ten thousand others kindred pangs may bide,
Yet not the less will our own griefs complain.
...

A MARINER sat on the shrouds one night;
The wind was piping free;
Now bright, now dimmed was the moon-light pale,
And the phosphor gleamed in the wake of the whale,
...

Hope on, hope on, O restless heart!
Though dark the hour may be-
For e'en in all thy struggles know
...

Thy mission is accomplished— painter— sage,
Look to thy crown of glory— for thy brow
Is circled with its radiant halo now.
...