And love ne’er dies but when some hand
    Too careless of their mimic strife,
  Slow cleaves its tendrils from their hold,
    And hurls them down bereft of life. 
  And love once fled can ne’er return,
    Nor in its stead can friendship stand,
  Nor twine again the tendrils frail,
    Nor e’er unites the broken band.

Athenoeum, 1875.

THE MYSTIC

“TROUBADOUR”

An early memory of my earliest youth.

  There came into the village I called home
  A traveller, worn and faint.  His garments held
  The alien dust of many a weary march;
  None but a child would e’er have thought the man
  A thing to look at twice, much less adore. 
  But unto me, child that I was, the look
  In his large pleading eyes seemed so divine,
  The massive brow so free from thought of earth,
  The curves of his sad mouth so tremulous
  With more than woman’s love and tenderness,
  And in each word and act such gentleness,
  That the quaint thought possessed and held my mind,
  That by some strange hap an angel soul,
  As penance for some small offense in heaven
  Had been compelled to traverse in this wise
  Our darkened world.  And not alone his look
  Which made his rusty vesture fine, nor yet
  Alone the birds which fluttered round him as
  He were a friend, led to the same belief—­
  But he with other men had naught in common. 
  They called him fool and idiot, jibed at him
  And at his rags, and mocked his lofty air
  So far above his low condition. 
  And yet unto their jeers he never word
  Replied, nor ever seemed to know that they
  About him crawled; but fixing his great eyes
  Upon the sunset slopes, while mirrored in
  His face was seen the battle in his heart
  Of hopes and fears, he rather breathed than spoke
  Such words as these, except that his had soul: 
  “At length, O weary heart, it seemeth me
  The rest is near.  The air seems full of promise;
  My eyes are fixed on what they cannot see;
  My ears are filled with whispers not quite heard. 
  All things seem waiting as to hear good news. 
  The western breeze hath messages for me;
  The western hills lean down and beckon me. 
  It must be, sure, because, it must be so,
  That just beyond those hills, O heart, there doth
  Await us both the rest we long have sought.” 
  They told him that the world was round, and so
  It could not be that all this journeying
  Should e’er do more than bring him back to us,
  If he through weary years should persevere. 
  “I know,” he quick replied, “the world is round
  To railroads and canals, and yet I do
  Believe,” and, voicing o’er his hopeful creed,
  And striding on, he soon was lost to view.