I took her up and once more
I felt the clinging hold,
And heard the ceaseless wailing

That wearied me of old.

I wandered, and I wandered,
With my burden on my breast,
Till I saw a church-door open,
And entered in to rest.

In the dim, dying daylight,
Set in a flowery shrine,

I saw the Virgin Mother
Holding her Child divine.

I knelt down there in silence,
And on the Altar-stone

I laid my wailing burden,
And came away-alone.

And now that little spirit,

That sobbed so all day long,

Is grown a shining Angel,

With wings both wide and strong.

She watches me from Heaven

With loving tender care, And one day she has promised

That I shall find her there.

DISCOURAGED.

HERE the little babbling streamlet
First springs forth to light,

Trickling through soft velvet mosses,

Almost hid from sight;

Vowed I with delight,—

"River, I will follow thee,

Through thy wanderings to the Sea!"

Gleaming 'mid the purple heather,

Downward then it sped,

Glancing through the mountain gorges,

Like a silver thread,

As it quicker fled,

Louder music in its flow,

Dashing to the Vale below.

Then its voice grew lower, gentler,

And its pace less fleet,

Just as though it loved to linger

Round the rushes' feet,

As they stooped to meet Their clear images below,

Broken by the ripples' flow.

Purple Willow-herb bent over

To her shadow fair;

Meadow-sweet, in feathery clusters,

Perfumed all the air;

Silver-weed was there,

And in one calm, grassy spot,

Starry, blue Forget-me-not.

Tangled weeds, below the waters,
Still seemed drawn away;
Yet the current, floating onward,
Was less strong than they ;-
Sunbeams watched their play,
With a flickering light and shade,
Through the screen the Alders made.

Broader grew the flowing River
To its grassy brink;

Slowly, in the slanting sun-rays,
Cattle trooped to drink:

The blue sky, I think,

Was no bluer than that stream,

Slipping onward, like a dream.

Quicker, deeper then it hurried,
Rushing fierce and free;

But I said, "It should grow calmer

Ere it meets the Sea,

The wide purple Sea,

Which I weary for in vain,

Wasting all my toil and pain."

But it rushed still quicker, fiercer,

In its rocky bed,

Hard and stony was the pathway

To my tired tread;

"I despair," I said,

"Of that wide and glorious Sea That was promised unto me."

So I turned aside, and wandered
Through green meadows near,