I feel it is over! over! 
  For the winds and the waters surcease;
Ah, few were the days of the rover
  That smiled in the beauty of peace,
And distant and dim was the omen
That hinted redress or release! 
From the ravage of life, and its riot,
What marvel I yearn for the quiet
  Which bides in the harbor at last,—­
For the lights, with their welcoming quiver
That throb through the sanctified river,
  Which girdle the harbor at last,
  This heavenly harbor at last?

I know it is over, over,
  I know it is over at last! 
Down sail! the sheathed anchor uncover,
For the stress of the voyage has passed: 
Life, like a tempest of ocean,
  Hath outbreathed its ultimate blast: 
There’s but a faint sobbing seaward,
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward;
And behold! like the welcoming quiver
Of heart-pulses throbbed through the river,
  Those lights in the harbor at last,
  The heavenly harbor at last!

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

HUSH!

Oh, hush thee, Earth!  Fold thou thy weary palms! 
  The sunset glory fadeth in the west;
  The purple splendor leaves the mountain’s crest;
Gray twilight comes as one who beareth alms,
Darkness and silence and delicious calms. 
  Take thou the gift, O Earth!  On Night’s soft breast
  Lay thy tired head and sink to dreamless rest,
Lulled by the music of her evening psalms. 
  Cool darkness, silence, and the holy stars,
  Long shadows when the pale moon soars on high,
    One far lone night-bird singing from the hill,
And utter rest from Day’s discordant jars;
  O soul of mine! when the long night draws nigh
    Will such deep peace thine inmost being fill?

JULIA C.R.  DORR.

LIFE.

     “Animula, vagula, blandula.”

  Life!  I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met
I own to me’s a secret yet. 
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where’er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be,
As all that then remains of me. 
O, whither, whither dost thou fly,
Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
  And in this strange divorce,
Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I?

To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,
  From whence thy essence came,
  Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
  From matter’s base uncumbering weed? 
    Or dost thou, hid from sight,
    Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank, oblivious years the appointed hour
To break thy trance and reassume thy power? 
Yet canst thou, without thought or feeling be? 
O, say what art thou, when no more thou’rt thee?

Life! we’ve been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
  ’Tis hard to part when friends are dear,—­
  Perhaps ’twill cost a sigh, a tear: 
  Then steal away, give little warning,
    Choose thine own time;
Say not Good Night,—­but in some brighter clime
    Bid me Good Morning.