e essence from tropic to pole,
The promise, the home, and the heaven of Soul.

Hope happifies life, at the altar or bower,
And loosens the fetters of pride and of power;
It comes through our tears, as the soft summer rain,
To beautify, bless, and make joyful again.

The harp of the minstrel, the treasure of time;
A rainbow of rapture, o'erarching, divine;
The God-given mandate that speaks from above,--
No place for earth's idols, but hope thou, and love.

_TO ETTA_

Fair girl, thy rosebud heart rests warm
Within life's summer bowers!
Nor blasts of winter's angry storm,
Nor April's changeful showers,

Its leaves have shed or bowed the stem;
But gracefully it stands--
A gem in beauty's diadem,
Unplucked by ruthless hands.

Thus may it ripen into bloom,
Fresh as the fragrant sod,
And yield its beauty and perfume
An offering pure to God.

Sweet as the poetry of heaven,
Bright as her evening star,
Be all thy life in music given,
While beauty fills each bar.

Lynn, Mass., _December 8, 1866_.

_NEVERMORE_

Are the dear days ever coming again,
As sweetly they came of yore,
Singing the olden and dainty refrain,
Oh, ever and nevermore?

Ever to gladness and never to tears,
Ever the gross world above;
Never to toiling and never to fears,
Ever to Truth and to Love?

Can the forever of happiness be
Outside this ever of pain?
Will the hereafter from suffering free
The weary of body and brain?

Weary of sobbing, like some tired child
Over the tears it has shed;
Weary of sowing the wayside and wild,
Watching the husbandman fled;

Nevermore reaping the harvest we deem,
Evermore gathering in woe--
Say, are the sheaves and the gladness a dream,
Or to the patient who sow?

Lynn, Mass., _September 3, 1871_.

_MEETING OF MY DEPARTED MOTHER AND HUSBAND_

Joy for thee, happy friend! thy bark is past
The dangerous sea, and safely moored at last--
Beyond rough foam.
Soft gales celestial, in sweet music bore--
Spirit emancipate for this far shore--
Thee to thy home.

"You've traveled long, and far from mortal joys,
To Soul's diviner sense, that spurns such toys,
Brave wrestler, lon