Kate Seymour Maclean

A little white soul went up to God, Out of the mire of the city street; It grew like a flower in the highway broad,

Down the steep west unrolled, I watch the river of the sunset flow, With all its crimson lights, and gleaming gold,

The lily-bells ring underground, Their music small I hear When globes of dew that shine pearl round

On the early and lamented death of George and Maggie Rosseaux, brother and sister, who died within one week of each other in the autumn of 1875. Young, beautiful and beloved, they were indeed lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. Pace slowly, black horses, step stately and solemn-- One by one--two by two--stretches out the long column;

Dead leaves are deep in all our forest walks; Their brightest tints not all extinguished yet, Shine redly glimmering through the dewy wet;

The poet's song, and the bird's, And the waters' that chant as they run And the waves' that kiss the beach,

At last, dear love, the day is gone, The doors are barred--the lamps are lit, The couch beside the fire is drawn,

All night a slow soft rain, A shadowy stranger from a cloudy land, Sighing and sobbing, with unsteady hand

In the beautiful May weather, Lapsing soon into June; On a golden, golden day

The rowan tree grows by the tower foot, (Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, Can the dead feel joy or pain?)

Cloudy argosies are drifting down into the purple dark, And the long low amber reaches, lying on the horizon's mark, Shape themselves into the gateways, dim and wonderful unfurled,

Art thou not sweet, Oh world, and glad to the inmost heart of thee! All creatures rejoice

Oh lapping waves!--oh gnawing waves!-- That rest not day nor night,-- I hear ye when the light

The birth day of the Christ child dawneth slow Out of the opal east in rosy flame, As if a luminous picture in its frame--

Break over the waiting hill-tops, White dawn of the Christmas morn! For the angels have sung through the midnight,

Oh bells of Easter morn, oh solemn sounding bells, Which fill the hollow cells Of the blue April air with a most sweet refrain,

A little bird woke singing in the night, Dreaming of coming day, And piped, for very fulness of delight,

"O Life, O Beyond, Thou art strange, thou art sweet!" --Mrs. Browning.

There is a splendid tropic flower which flings Its fiery disc wide open to the core-- One pulse of subtlest fragrance--once a life

O Leader fallen by the wayside prone,-- O strong great soul gone forth For thee the wide inhospitable north,

Here the sunshine, filtering down, Through leaves of emerald, dun and brown, Is green instead of golden

I lift my spirit to your cloudy thrones, And feel it broaden to your vast expanse, Oh! mountains, so immeasurably old,

Into the west the day goes down, Smiling and fading into the night, Is it a cross, or is it a crown

Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! Thy sleep is sound, and still and sweet, Framed in the pale gold of thy hair,

Thou comest to the year, And bringest all things beautiful and sweet; Thy lovely miracles themselves repeat

"And Jesu called a little child unto him." MATT. xviii. 2. Oh, my blossom, my darling, whose dimpled hands are    cold!

Be pitiful, oh God! the night is long, My soul is faint with watching for the light, And still the gloom and doubt of seven-fold night

Only the commonest flowers Grow in my garden small, Like buttercups, and bouncing-bets,

Cradled in ice, and swathed in snows, And shining like a Christmas rose, Wreathed round with white chrysanthemums;

Night! the horrible wizard Night! The dumb and terrible Night Hath drawn his circle of magic, round

Out of the dread eternities, The vast abyss of night, A glorious pageant rose and shone,

Where shall we write your names, ye brave! Where build for you a monument, Who lie in many a sylvan grave,

When the earliest south winds softly blow Over the brown earth, and the waning snow In the last days of the discrowned March,--

The wind croons under the icicled eaves-- Croons and mutters a wordless song, And the old elm chafes its skeleton leaves

I touch but the things which are near; The heavens are too high for my reach: In shadow and symbol and creed,

If Thou who seest this heart of mine To earthly idols prone, Should'st all those clinging cords untwine,

Into the darkness and the deeps My thoughts have strayed, where silence dwells, Where the old world encrypted sleeps,--

Swift and silent and strong Under the low-browed arches, Through culverts, and under bridges,

"Oh! spare dual idols of the past, Whose lips are dumb, whose eyes are dim; Truth's diadem is not for him

Dimly and dumbly under the ground, Groping the walls of their prison round, The roots of the aged and garrulous trees

O rain, Summer Rain! forever, Out of the crystal spheres, And cool from my brain the fever,

Along the floors of heaven the music rolls, Fills the vast dome, and lifts our fainting souls: Praise God! Oh praise Him all created things,

The Autumn hills are golden at the top, And rounded as a poet's silver rhyme; The mellow days are ruby ripe, that drop

Under the orchard boughs, That drop red leaves like coals into the grass. The golden arrows of the sunset fall;

O not with arms reversed, And the slow beating of the muffled drum, And funeral marches, bring our hero home

Out of the west a voice--a shudder of horror and pity; Quivers along the pulses of all the winds that blow;-- Woe for the fallen queen, for the proud and beautiful city.

"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy atones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children." Isaiah, liv. 11-13. As the sand of the desert is smitten By hoof-beats that strike out a light,

I. Break dull November skies, and make Sunshine over wood and lake,

Discrowned and desolate, And wandering with dim eyes and faded hair, Singing sad songs to comfort her despair,

Inscribed to OUR FATHER AND MOTHER, and read on that Anniversary, FEBRUARY 15TH, 1876. A half a century of time,

Love and Obedience--these the Higher Law From which Thy worlds have swerved not, singing still Their primal hymn rejoicing, as at first

In those dark mornings, deep in June, When brooding birds stir in the nest, And heavy dews slip down the leaves,

I dreamed, and lo, I saw in my dream a beautiful gateway, Arched at the top, and crowned with turrets lance-windowed and olden, And sculptured in arabesque, all knotted and woven and spangled;

From out the dark of death, before the gates Flung wide, that open into paradise-- More radiant than the white gates of the morn--

Under the bare brown rafters, In his garret bed he lay, And dreamed of the bright hereafters.

Moss-grown, and venerable it stands, From the way-side dust and noise aloof, And the great elms stretch their sheltering hands

I wonder what he is thinking In the ploughing field all day. He watches the heads of his oxen,

I have been where the roses blow, Where the orange ripens its gold, And the mountains stand with their peaks of snow,

Sundown--and silence--and deep peace,-- Night's benediction and release;-- The tints of day die out and cease.

Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,-- Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning

Above the roofs and chimney-tops, And through the slow November rain, A light from some far attic pane,

In the sleep-haunted gloom Born of the slumbrous twilight in these shades, These vast and venerable collonades,

Through many-winding valleys far inland, A maze among the convoluted hills, Of rocks up-piled, and pines on either hand,

I never looked upon thy face; I never saw thy dwelling-place; My home is by Lake Erie's shore,

I. One looks into the sun lawn, and the steep Curved slopes of hills, set sharp against the sky,

In your beautiful book, dear Mary, With pages so white and fair, I pause ere I trace the first sentence,

It is the hither side, O Hope, And afternoon; our shadows slope Backward along the mountain cope.

The moon went under a ragged cloud, The owl cried out of the ruined wall, Slow and solemn, distinct and loud,

(In an Album.) In the spring-time, out of the dew, From my garden, sweet friend, I gather,

Stay yet awhile, oh flowers!--oh wandering grasses, And creeping ferns, and climbing, clinging vines;-- Bend down and cover with lush odorous masses