A wain bound east met the hearse bound west,
Halted a moment, and paused abreast;
And I verily think a stranger pair
Had never met on a thoroughfare,
Or a dim by-road, or anywhere;
The hearse as slim and glossy and still
As silken thread at a woman's will,
Who watches her work with tears unshed,
Broiders a grief with needle and thread,
Mourns in pansies and cypress the dead;
Spotless the steeds in a satin dress,
That run for two worlds the Lord's Express,-
Long as the route of Arcturus's ray,
Brief as the Publicans trying to pray,
No other steeds by no other way
Could go so far on a single day.
From wagons broad and heavy and rude
A group looking out from a single hood;
Striped with the flirt of a heedless lash,
Dappled and dimmed with many a splash,
"Gathered" behind like an old calash.
It made you think of a schooner's sail
Mildewed with weather, tattered by gale,
Down "by the run
from mizzen and main,
That canvas mapped with stipple and stain
Of western earth and the prairie rain.
The watch-dog walked in his ribs between
The hinder wheels, with sleepy mien ;
A dangling pail to the axle slung;
Astern of the wain a manger hung,—
A schooner's boat by the davits swung.
The white-faced boys sat three in a row,
With eyes of wonder and heads of tow;
Father looked sadly over his brood;
Mother just lifted a flap of the hood;
All saw the hearse,-and two understood.
They thought of the one-eyed cabin small,
Hid like a nest in the grasses tall,
Where plains swept boldly off in the air,
Grooved into heaven everywhere,—
So near the stars' invisible stair
That planets and prairie almost met,—
Just cleared its edges as they set!
They thought of the level worlds "divide,"
And their hearts flowed down its other side
To the grave of the little girl that died.
They thought of childhood's neighborly hills,
With sunshine aprons and ribbons of rills,
That drew so near when the day went down,
Put on a crimson and golden crown,
And sat together in mantles brown ;
The Dawn's red plume in their winter caps,
And Night asleep in their drowsy laps,
Lightening the load of the shouldered wood
By shedding the shadows as they could,
That gathered round where the homestead stood.
They thought, that pair in the rugged wain,
Thinking with bosom rather than brain;
They'll never know till their dying day
That what they thought and never could say,
Their hearts throbbed out in an Alpine lay,
The old Waldensian song again;
Thank God for the mountains, and amen!
The wain gave a lurch, the hearse moved on,—
A moment or two, and both were gone:
The wain bound east, the hearse bound west,
Both going home, both looking for rest.
The Lord save all, and his name be blest!
LAUGH, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
O! a wonderful stream is the River Time,
As it runs through the realm of tears,
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme,
And a broader sweep and a surge sublime,
As it blends with the ocean of Years.
How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow, And the summers, like buds between,
And the year in the sheaf-so they come and they
On the river's breast, with its ebb and its flow,
As it glides in the shadow and sheen.
There's a magical isle up the River Time,
Where the softest of airs are playing;
There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime,
And a song as sweet as a vesper chime,
And the Junes with the roses are staying.
And the name of the isle is the Long Ago,
And we bury our treasures there ;
There are brows of beauty, and bosoms of snow; They are heaps of dust-but we loved them so ! There are trinkets, and tresses of hair.
There are fragments of song that nobody sings,
And a part of an infant's prayer;
There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings;
There are broken vows, and pieces of rings,
And the garments that She used to wear,
There are hands that are waved, when the fairy shore
By the mirage is lifted in air;
And we sometimes hear, through the turbulent
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before,
When the wind down the river is fair.
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