TO THE RIVER AT MONKS' WALK.

I.

Softened shadows falling fast

Flash and gleam and quiver

Through the willows' drooping boughs

On the running river:

Where the guilty aspen leaves

Shake and moan and shiver,

Near the grassy bank that slopes

To the silent river.

II.

Sweetest hours I ever knew,

Kind and gracious giver,

Came, and died, upon thy breast,
Swiftly-flowing River!

She who robbed me of my heart

(Though she prize it never)

Found it floating on thy tide,

Silver-shining River!

Fortune! give me for my bow
One shaft from thy quiver,

That shall reach her careless heart
Sailing down Life's river.

Life's false stream I cannot trust,

Shifting, changing ever:

Worth its hollow joys one hour
On thy wave, dear River!

III.

Saintly spirit, passing on

Through the deep for ever,

Cheer me with one kindly smile

Toiling on Life's river.'

Hard to pull against its stream,

Harder still to sever

Truth from all the bright hopes dream'd

On Life's fickle river.

In its treacherous bed there sleeps

Many a reckless diver,

Who in search of fancied wealth

Scoured Life's fatal river.

IV.

Placid stream, to thee I turn,
Sick of Life's vain fever:

Folded in thy still embrace
Let me drift for ever.

CONTRAST.

I.

Filled with sweet thoughts of home he passed along,
With rod and fly beside the twisting stream,
A happy man from town and office freed :
And not till twilight draped the fields in dusk
Sought he his lodging near the pleasant wood.

A message for him, flashed along the wire :
His wife flung down by fever moaned his name :
Six hours to pass 'ere he could reach her side.

Pass, wretched hours!

In darkness running out :

Dark hours of inmost misery and doubt,

Oh not so slowly, not so slowly run.

Ah wretched hours, my doubt

May grow to truth still harder to be borne,

Yet not so slowly lest the lamp go out-

The flickering flame die out

Ere I return.