I would that thus, when I shall see
     The hour of death draw near to me,
     Hope, blossoming within my heart,
     May look to heaven as I depart.

     D. Appleton and Company, New York.

     THE FUTURE LIFE

     How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
       The disembodied spirits of the dead,
     When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
       And perishes among the dust we tread?

     For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
       If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
     Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
       In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

     Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? 
       That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given? 
     My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
       And wilt thou never utter it in heaven?

     In meadows fanned by heaven’s life-breathing wind,
       In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
     And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
       Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

     The love that lived through all the stormy past,
       And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
     And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
       Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

     A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
       Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
     In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
       And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

     For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell
       Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll;
     And wrath has left its scar—­that fire of hell
       Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

     Yet though thou wear’st the glory of the sky,
       Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
     The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
       Lovelier in heaven’s sweet climate, yet the same?

     Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
       The wisdom that I learned so ill in this—­
     The wisdom which is love—­till I become
       Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?

D. Appleton and Company, New York.

TO THE PAST

Thou unrelenting Past! 
Stern are the fetters round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone
Lie deep within the shadows of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth,
Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground,
And last, Man’s Life on earth,
Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years,
Thou hast my earlier friends—­the good, the kind—­
Yielded to thee with tears—­
The venerable form, the exalted mind.