She had ever walked in quiet ways,
  Not over beds of flowery ease,
But Sundays in the village choir
  She sweetly sang of “ways of peace,”
Of “ways of peace and pleasantness,”
  She trod such paths as these.

No sweeter voice in all the choir
  Praised God in innocence and truth,
The Deacon in his straight-backed pew
  Had dreams of her he lost in youth,
And thought of fair-faced Hebrew maids—­
  Of Rachel, and of Ruth.

But she had faded, day by day,
  Growing more mild, and pure, and sweet,
As nearer to her ear there came
  A distant sea’s mysterious beat,
Till now this summer afternoon,
  Its waters touched her feet.

Upon the painted porch without
  Two women stood, and whispered low,
They thought “she’d go out with the day,”
  They said, “the Deacon’s wife went so.” 
And then they gently pitied him—­
  “It was a dreadful blow.”

“But she was good, she was prepared,
  She would be better off than here,”
And then they thought “’twas strange that he,
  Her father, had not shed a tear,”
And then they talked of news, and all
  The promise of the year.

Her father sat beside the bed,
  Holding her cold hands tenderly,
And to the everlasting hills
  He mutely turned his eyes away: 
“My God, my Shelter, and my Rock,
  Oh shadow me to-day!”

He knew not when she crossed the stream,
  And passed into the land unseen,
So gently did she go from him
  Into its pastures still and green;
Into the land of pure delight,
  And Jordan rolled between.

Then knelt he down beside his dead,
  His white locks lit with sunset’s flame: 
“My God! oh leave me not alone—­
  But blessed be Thy holy name.” 
The golden gates were lifted up
  The King of Glory came.

SONGS OF THE SWALLOW.

SPRING.

The sides of the hill were brown, but violet buds had started
  In gray and hidden nooks o’erhung by feathery ferns and heather,
And a bird in an April morn was never lighter-hearted
  Than the pilot swallow we saw convoying sunny weather,
And sunshine golden, and gay-voiced singing-birds into the land;
  And this was the song—­the clear, shrill song of the swallow,
That it carolled back to the southern sun, and his brown
        winged band,
  Clear it arose, “Oh, follow me—­come and follow—­and follow.”

A tender story was in his eyes, he wished to tell me I knew,
  As he stood in the happy morn by my side at the garden-gate;
But I fancy the tall rose branches that bent and touched his brow,
  Were whispering to him, “Wait, impatient heart, oh, wait,
Before the bloom of the rose is the tender green of the leaf;
  Not rash is he who wisely followeth patient Nature’s ways,
The lily-bud of love should be swathed in a silken sheaf,
  Unfolding at will to summer bloom in the warm and perfect days.”