Ichabod

Seven Summers' Suns have set! and earth is once more
sweetly flooded
With fragrance, for the virgin-leaves and violet-banks
have budded:
Heaven claspeth Earth, as round the heart first brood-
eth Love's rich glow;
A blush of Flowers is mantling where the lush green
grasses grow!
All things feel summering sunward, golden tides flood
down the air,
Which burns, as Angel-visitants had left a glory there!
But darkness on my aching spirit shrouds the merry
shine, —
I long to feel a gush of Spring in this poor heart of
mine.

Morn opes Heaven's secret portal, back the golden
gates are drawn,
And all the fields of glory blossom with the crimson
Dawn:

But never comes thy clasping hand, or carol of thy lips,
That made my heart soar like a God, when bursting
Death's eclipse.
Sweet voice! it came like saintly music, quiring angels
make,
When pain sat heavy on my brow, and heart was like
to break:

Methought such love gave wings to climb some starry
throne to win;
Thou didst so lift my life's horizon — letting heaven in.

I'm thinking, darling, of the days when life was all
divine,
And love was aye the silver chord that bound my heart
to thine;
When life bloom'd at thy coming, as the green earth
greets the sun,
And, like two dew-drops in a kiss, our twin souls wed
in one.
Ah! still I feel ye at my heart! and 'mid the stir and
strife,
Ye sometimes lead my feet to walk the angel-side of
Life!

The magic music yearns within, as unto thee I turn,
And those brave eyes, a-blaze with soul, thro' all my
being burn.

Come back, — -come back; I long to clasp thee in these
arms, mine own;
Lavish my heart upon thy lips, and make my love the
Crown
And Arc of Triumph to thy life. Why tarry? Time
hath cast
Strange shadows on my spirit since we met and mingled
last!
Yet there be joys to crown thee with; the sunshine
and the sweet
Are hived, like honey, in my heart, to share them
when we meet:
How I have hoarded up my life! how tenderly I
strove
To make my heart fit home for thee, its nestling Bird
of love!

God bless thee! once the radiant world thy beauty
crown like wore,
But life hath lost the strange sweet feel that cometh
never more!
The flowers will bud again in spring, and happy birds
make love,
With melting hearts a-brooding o'er their passion in
the grove.
But thou wilt never more come back, to clothe my
heart with spring;
Dear God! Love's sweetest chord is turn'd to Pain's
most jarring string!

The Glory hath departed! and my spirit pants to go
Where 'mid Life's troubled waters, 'twill not see the
wreck below.