elodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

THE TWO STREAMS

BEHOLD the rocky wall
That down its sloping sides
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall,
In rushing river-tides!

Yon stream, whose sources run
Turned by a pebble's edge,
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun
Through the cleft mountain-ledge.

The slender rill had strayed,
But for the slanting stone,
To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid
Of foam-flecked Oregon.

So from the heights of Will
Life's parting stream descends,
And, as a moment turns its slender rill,
Each widening torrent bends,--

From the same cradle's side,
From the same mother's knee,--
One to long darkness and the frozen tide,
One to the Peaceful Sea!

THE PROMISE

NOT charity we ask,
Nor yet thy gift refuse;
Please thy light fancy with the easy task
Only to look and choose.

The little-heeded toy
That wins thy treasured gold
May be the dearest memory, holiest joy,
Of coming years untold.

Heaven rains on every heart,
But there its showers divide,
The drops of mercy choosing, as they part,
The dark or glowing side.

One kindly deed may turn
The fountain of thy soul
To love's sweet day-star, that shall o'er thee burn
Long as its currents roll.

The pleasures thou hast planned,--
Where shall their memory be
When the white angel with the freezing hand
Shall sit and watch by thee?

Living, thou dost not live,
If mercy's spring run dry;
What Heaven has lent thee wilt thou freely give,
Dying, thou shalt not die.

HE promised even so!
To thee his lips repeat,--
Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's woe
Have washed thy Master's feet!

March 20, 1859.

AVIS

I MAY not rightly call thy name,--
Alas! thy forehead never knew
The kiss that happier children claim,
Nor glistened with baptismal dew.

Daughter of want and wrong and woe,
I saw thee with thy sister-band,
Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow
By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand.

"Avis!"--With Saxon eye and cheek,
At once a woman and a child,
The saint uncrowned I came to seek
Drew near to greet us,--spoke, and smiled.

God gave that sweet sad smile she wore
All wrong to shame, all souls to win,--
A heavenly sunbeam sent before
Her footsteps through a world of sin.

"And who is Avis?"--Hear the tale
The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,--
The story known through all the vale
Where Avis and her sisters dwell.

With the lo