A fair young mother, pure as fair,
  A matron heart and virgin soul! 
The flickering light that crowns her hair
  Seems like a saintly aureole. 
A tender sense upon me falls
  That joy unmerited is mine,
  And in this pleasant twilight shine
My perfect bliss myself appalls.

Come back! my darling, strayed so far
  Into the realm of fantasy,—­
Let thy dear face shine like a star
  In love-light beaming over me. 
My melting soul is jealous, sweet,
  Of thy long silence’ drear eclipse,
  O kiss me back with living lips
To life, love, lying at thy feet!

In a Graveyard

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 gayly 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.

The Prairie

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 whirring 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 dream of 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.