Lays from the West by M. A. Nicholl

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'Twas in a lane like this, at even
My life's peace came to me;
A great, sweet joy to me was given,
A pure, true love, whose hope has riven
Earth's gloom and mystery.

A maiden, lovely as the glow
Of Fancy's soul-land light,
Once vowed to me for weal and woe,
As calm or storm would come or go,
Her love was 'mine by right!'

Twas Spring-time then, ere Autumn's blast
Sighed with its dreary moan,
To shake the brown leaves falling fast,
Her sweet life-tale was told and past,
And I was left alone!

'Twas hard to think that _she_ was dead,
'Twas hard to bear such pain;
'Twas hard to feel all brightness fled,
'Twas hard to count bright days swift sped
That could not come again!

I sought her grave at eve, alone,
And there before me lay
Her tomb, a lily carved on stone,
Meet emblem of my darling one
So early called away.

And, 'neath the lily, words so sweet,
In dreams they haunt my rest;
Oft at their sound I turn to weep
'He giveth His beloved sleep.'
Oh! portion purest, best!

Sleep to the weary body, worn,
On earth, with pain and care,
To meet the ransomed soul, new-born,
On the Great Resurrection Morn,
In God-like beauty fair.

There, at her grave, I bade farewell
To all my heart loved best;
I left our home, I could not dwell
"Mong scenes our love had marked so well,
I felt Grief's wild unrest."

This is my story told to you--
My holiest dream of life;
The blest home-love that once I knew
When she, so good, so fair, so true,
I called my own--my wife!

My sunshine faded when she died,
Such joy I might not know;
God called her early from my side,
And when I lost my gentle bride
The world seemed full of woe!

He knew 'twas best--my stubborn heart
Had need of chastening pain;
To bow beneath the rod's keen smart,
To learn, by grief, the better part,
To feel such loss is gain.

And now no earthly idol smiles,
No pleasant passions lure;
No fleeting phantom now beguiles
My soul from heaven with tempting wiles,
My hope is fixed and sure.

She waits for me--the swift year's flight
I count like miser's gold;
I keep the "watches of the night,"
I wait until the morning light
Its glories snail unfold.

SUNSET.

A burning flood of glory blazing far along the West,
And clouds on clouds aglowing towering o'er the mountains'
crest
Till the shining, burnished columns and the ranks of crimson
vie
In a living trail of splendour, lighting all the evening sky.

The grand October sunset burns above the mountains' brow,
Whose grey old heads shine redly, light-kissed and ruddy now;
There the sunshine loves to linger in a parting glow of
light,
Ere Day his throne resigneth to the dusky reign of Night.

But low and lower sinking, the sun goes down the West
And the dazzling beams are fading along the Ocean's breast
Till, pale and paler growing, the grandeur dies away,
And the wild waves and the breezes seem wailing for the Day!

For the fair Day, that has vanished--the brightness that is
fled,
And for all the sunny hours that are passed away and dead,
The rosy flush of sunrise, the gladsome time of morn,
And bird-songs sweet, that far and near told when the Day was
born!

The tranquil hush of noontide, the mellow evening hours
But ah! the Day's departure left desolate the bowers,
And woodland haunts, and flowery dells, and mountain streams
and glades
Are lonely left in deepening gloom, and mystic twilight
shades!

But through the Night's grim darkness the star-lamps bright
shall burn,
'Till the lone Earth, cheered and hopeful, shall wait for
Day's return,
And gaze with wistful longing, till the dawn the far East
hills,
And the sun in regal beauty smile o'er the grand old hills.

Then life and light and brightness shall be her own again,
And in the new-found gladness she'll forget the night of pain
Forget the hours of darkness when deep in gloom she lay,
And her weeping-time of sadness be "as waters that pass
away!"

Thus, this dreary night of sorrow through which we wander
here
Be only transient darkness the long bright Day is near,
Whose light of peace and glory the ransomed spirit fills,
As it hails the dawn eternal upon the Heavenly Hills!

"CONSIDER THE LILIES."

Not gold nor diamond flash of dazzling brightness,
No costly thing of earth Thou givest for thought;
But these sweet simple flowers, beside whose whiteness
The great king's glory all would seem as nought.

Thou knewest how soon must fade all earth's poor splendour,
Worthless its wealth to Thine all-seeing eye;
The short-lived glimmer of its pomp and grandeur
Fleeting and transient only born to die.

Thou would'st not point our love to earth's frail treasure,
But to these lilies, beautiful and pure;
They toil nor spin not, yet their life's full measure
Thou metest, and their day is kept secure.

Oh, lilies! well I love your snowy pureness!
That once the Master deigned while here to trace,
Pledges of His dear love, whose truth and serene
Are faintly shadowed in your beauty's grace.

Meek teachers! could I learn that lesson given!
If God so clothe the grass with beauty rare,
Shall He not guide us on our way to heaven,
And guard our pathway till we enter there?

Oh give me, Lord, a soul of lily whiteness,
Washed in the blood that Thou hast shed for me,
Thy Spirit's light to pierce earth's gloom with brightness
And show the way thro' mist and cloud to Thee

Give me a heart whose treasure is in heaven,
Not for to-morrow feeling anxious thought;
Even as my day, so shall my strength be given,
And grace sufficient--can I want for aught?

Oh, give me faith, that on Thy love relying,
From doubt's dark thrall I may be ever free;
And clothe me, Lord, that in the hour of dying,
Thy righteousness, blest robe, may cover me!

Thus may I walk, by Thee, my Guide, befriended,
'Joyous with joy that knows no sad decay;
That when earth's sun has set her brief day ended
My morn may break and shine to "perfect day'"

SONGS OF THE SEA.

"My soul is full of longing
For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a restless pulse through me."--LONGFELLOW

In the grey light of the morning, ere the sun has lit the sky
When the winds rave loud and wildly, to the angry waters
How the mighty, foaming billows thunder forth, in ceaseless
roar,
Songs majestic, wild with anguish, woeful waitings evermore.
In the dawn light, in the gloaming, beating, breaking, o'er
and o'er,
Telling out the ocean stories, to the wide, encircling shore;
And I listen, till the legends of the past, a shadowy host,
Seem to gather round, and people storied Antrim's rock-bound
coast.

Where the grandeur of the Causeway smiles in scorn at Art's
weak hand,
Seem the wild waves ever singing of the high schemes Nature
plann'd,
When she hurled the giant columns, by some mighty earthquake
shock,
Till they stand, huge pillar-wonders, by the paved,
mysterious rock;
And the dark caves, weird and frowning, echoing the sea's
wild strife,
Seem to hold some spell unearthly, of the ocean's secret
life.

Where th'Atlantic rolls sublimely, lashing round Port
Ballintrae,
Language cannot paint the grandeur of the waves, in awful
play!
Beating, breaking, wildly seething, whilst in restless,
fitful roar,
Deep to far-off deep is calling, answering round from shore
to shore.
And the spirit of the ocean seems to fill its heaving breast
With ten thousand prison'd longings, wailing out in wild
unrest.

Softening down to calmer music, round the White Rocks and the
caves,
With a tender, nameless pathos, softly sing the curling waves
To the battlements and turrets, and the old towers, grim and
hoary.
Where the stern Macquillan chieftains reigned in once
unconquered glory.
There Dunluce, in lonely grandeur, frowns in wild, and
deathless pride,
Sentinel of bygone ages, Time-tried warder by the tide.

Grey Dunluce, in concert blending, winds, and waves, and
sounding sea,
Seem to sing a dirge of sorrow for the glory fled from thee,
Rolling onward to the Skerries, wailing far in requiem moan
Till they catch the surf's bold thunder round toe rock at
Innishone,
Where the foam-girt shore re-echoes with the burthen of the
song,
And the angry dashing billows wide and far the cry prolong.

When the moonlight, pale and faintly, gleams on Malin Head's
blue crest,
And its silvery pathway shimmers far across the ocean's
breast;
When the yeasty breakers glisten softly in the shadowy light,
When the rocks seem mystic castles, looming grimly thro' the
night;
Then the solemn songs of Ocean, fraught with precious, new-
found lore
Bring for Fancy unknown treasure, priceless gems for
Thought's great store!

Grand old Ocean! how my spirit longs to catch thy melody
Do thine heart's great pulses quicken with a secret life, oh,
Sea?
Far adown the blue waves, hidden by the hearings of your
breast,
Is there soul to tune your singing, to its ceaseless, wild
unrest?
Oh! thou dread and wondrous ocean, tell these mystic songs to
me
For their cadence, grand and changeful, haunts my path with
mystery.

THE MOONLIGHT.

Silvery moonlight, clear and bright,
Shining down on our earth to-night,
Soft as the touch of an angels' wing,
Tender, beautiful, holy thing!

Seeking the glen where the cool waters flow--
Lighting the bank where the violets grow;
Gilding the crest of the foamy rill;
Falling in silence upon the hill;
Piercing the depths of the forest glade,
Glancing down thro' the leafy shade,
Till the loneliest haunts of the wild wood seem
To rejoice in the light of thy radiant beam!

Glistening out on the trackless deep,
Where the spirits of ocean their revels keep;
Lighting the path over the billows' foam,
As the mermaid glides from her gem-built home,
And the peri's song o'er the heaving sea
Sounds in fitful, plaintive melody!

Pouring down on the mountain pass,
Where, tripping light o'er the dewy grass,
The fairies join in their wild, weird dance,
And the mystic forms thro' the moonbeams glance,
While far and wide on the wind is borne
Through answering echoes, the elfin horn.

Flooding with glory the prairie's breast,
Till, all transformed, in the radiance drest,
The shanty, south of the poplar wood,
Seems a sylvian lodge in the solitude;
And the settler dreams, with a moistened eye,
Of the moonlights and loves of the times gone by.

Gleaming fair on the city towers
Where the clocks, thro' the night, chime the passing hours,
On the city's heart that no longer beats,
With the ebb and flow of its noisy streets,
And their living pulse-throbs that come and go,
To the smile of joy, and the throb of woe!

Smiling down from a cloudless sky,
On the village homes, that all peaceful lie;
Where simple hearts, in a happier life,
Know nought of the city's cares and strife,--
The hardy sons of honest toil,
Pensioners free of their parent soil!

To hopeful hearts in the morn of youth,
The dream-land of Love, and the type of Truth,
Where the future shows 'neath its veil of light
An Eden of blissful, untold delight

In the stern, hard struggle of manhood's days
When tired feet stumble o'er life's rough ways,
And in age's twilight of shadowy gloom,
A dream of the rest that is yet to come.

Shine on, silvery moonlight, shine!
Gladden earth with your beams benign;
On restless ocean, on tranquil lake,
Through forest alleys, by fern and brake;
By quiet village, and crowded town,
By mountain, prairie, and breezy down;
O'er sights of gladness, o'er scenes of woe,
Let the tender light of thy pure beams glow,
And the weary and hopeless shall bless your light.
And the child of joy have more pure delight.

"GOODNIGHT."

"Until the day break, and the shadows flee away."
Cant. 2.17

Goodnight, beloved! see the sun descending,
Behind the woodlands of the far, bright West,
And in the glory of the daylights ending,
The "light at eventide" brings dreams of rest.

Goodnight, beloved! now the grey-eyed gloaming
Glides through the valleys with an unheard tread,
And haunts the woodlands, where the wild winds moaning
Wails o'er the leaves of Autumn, sere and dead.

Goodnight, beloved! see the pale stars peeping
Through the blue curtain of the shadowy skies;--
The lamps the angels hold, their night-watch keeping,
O'er souls who wait their call to Paradise!

Goodnight, beloved! a faint, lingering glory,
Of dying daylight glows in parting smile;
Its last kiss lighting all the hill-tops hoary,
As though the hour with brightness to beguile.

So now, I dream, a tender love-light lingers
O'er all the bygone, in a charmed glow,--
That hides the marks of Time's relentless fingers
And gilds the cherished dreams of long ago.

How fair it shines! but ah! the West grows dimmer,
The crimson radiance melts to sober grey,
And so earth's dream-light fades in fitful glimmer,
Its meteor brightness swiftly dies away.

Goodnight, beloved! for the shadows darken
In gloom around me, and I cannot see;
Come nearer, nearer still; beloved, hearken;
I hear a far-off voice that calls for me.

Goodnight, beloved! a new light is breaking
As earth's light fades to brighten nevermore;
Goodnight, beloved! till that glad awaking
When morning shines upon the other shore.

LOST.

The sunset burns on roof and spire,
And streets with busy passers rife;
But ah! it lacks the dream-world fire,
That once 'twas wont to call to life.

That once it kindled in the days
Of woodland haunt and country lane,
Before I knew the city's ways,
Before I learned that life has pain.

Oh! present, with your armed host
Of anxious cares, barbed sharp, and keen
Fade! for the light of pleasures lost
Shines forth from days that once have been.

A fairer sunset charms the West
A mellower radiance fills the air;
A scene with old-time beauty drest,
Lies stretched before me, smiling fair.

A rustic range-wall, gnarled and old,
A wooden bridge that spans a stream;
The glory of the sunset's gold.
The sweetness of my first love-dream!

Two hearts that meet in passion'd thrill,
Whose perfect bliss no words can tell;
But once in life that joy we feel,
And feeling, prize, alas! too well!

Oh! Time and Doubt! ye fill the heart
With sepulchres of Love and Truth;
Our hopes lie dead but memory's part
Must still be played till life shall cease.

Oh! swift years ever drifting fleet
Adown life's current, tempest toss'd,
Roll on! till on Time's brink we meet
And hail the life where nought is lost!

GOOD WISHES

TO ------ ON HIS MARRIAGE.

My friend, on this your wedding-day,
Where Love and Hope unite,
To yield with Hymenal ray
The bridal morning bright.--
When hands are clasped
And cups are quaffed,
When round go wishes true,
This song of mine
For Auld Lang Syne
I send to her and you.
An echo of the bygone times
To mingle with your wedding chimes!

"Good luck," on this your wedding morn,
"God speed" for years to be;
Good wishes, of old friendship born
For days ye both shall see.
When in your bowers,
Bloom promise-flowers,
Ah! ne'er may sorrow's gloom
Bring shadow there,
May sunlight fair
Your hearth and home illume!
All good, all joy, all blessing true,
I wish to your fair bride and you!

May Heaven its choicest riches send
To bless your life's long way;
May Love its lasting beauty lend
That age can't steal away.
Oh! may your sky
As swift years fly
Be cloudless, bright and fair;
May joys' own glow
Dispel all woe,
And chase away grim care!
May every good that God can send
Be yours through all your life, my friend!

"ONLY FRIENDS."

We said "good-bye" in a quiet lane,
the gloaming, years ago;
few were our words about "parting pain"--
we were "only friends" you know.

Good friends had we been in the dear, dead hours,
that still in our hearts would live,
At morn we had wandered the wild-wood bowers,
We had roamed through the lanes at eve.

We had gathered the sweets of the summer glades,
The rose, and the violet blue;
We had talked of Love in the twilight shades,
And of hearts that were tried and true.

But of our heart's hopes, or our own love-dreams,
Ah! never a word said we,
For Fate had forbidden our lips such themes,
And "friends" we could only be.

And our farewell came, like a boding gloom,
That darkened life's morning ray,
And joy's glad glow, and Hope's tender bloom
Died out of one heart that day.

How we thought in that hour of the bygone days,
Of the golden summer prime,
Of the mountains wild, and the woodland ways,
And the spell of the gloaming time!

And, it may be, the memory of whispered words
Came o'er us with subtle power,
Awaking, unbidden, our full hearts' chords
In the pain of that parting hour.

For our hands were clasped, and our lips once met,
The first time, and the last;
Ah me! 'twere well could we all forget,
Some scenes in our buried past;--

For the blue outline of the mountains high,
The lake, and the woodland green,
The quiet lane, and the twilight sky,
Too oft in my dreams are seen!

And still, tho' the summers are bright and fair,
And the summer woods are gay,
To me there is something wanting there
That has passed from my life away!

ODE TO SUMMER.

Beauteous Queen! with crown of flowers,
On your tresses sunny sheen;
Welcome! to the "Lone-Land" bowers,
To our prairies, wild and green!
In your path spring flowers to meet you,
Nature's choicest glories greet you,
Fair Enchantress! I entreat you,
Listen to my lay!

Smiling Summer, down the ages,
Still your praises have been sung,
And the poets and the sages,
Who have spoke with gifted tongue,--
In our legends, old and hoary,
Thrilling song, and 'trancing story,
Live to-day in deathless glory,
Thrill our souls anew!

Still their songs our breasts inspire,
Still is theirs undying fame;
Theirs the untaught poet-fire,
That I may not hope to claim;--
Louder than the war-host dashing,
Brighter than their bright spears clashing,
Shine their souls, like lightning flashing
Through their thunder-words!

Radiant Queen! Their songs combining
Yield to thee their highest praise,
Round thy brows of beauty twining,
Fadeless garlands of their lays;--
Lays whose light our gloom has rifted,
And our yearnings heavenward lifted,
As we soar with them, the gifted,
Far from earth away.

Queen of Beauty! Still we sing thee,
Worthy of the poets' song;
Willing homage still we bring thee
As the ages roll along.
Songs of birds, and breath of flowers,
Wind-notes, charming woodland bowers,
Morn's fresh glories, gloaming hours,
Yield their sweets to thee!

Now the prairie-lands are smiling
With the wealth thy reign bestows,
Brightness golden days beguiling,
O'er smooth sands life's river flows.
Through the air glad sounds are ringing,
Nature summer idylls singing,
I, my simple off'ring bringing,
Kneel at Summer's feet!

CHANGED.

It seems the same as it used to be, when I watched the sunset
glow,
In the days of beauty and gladness, the times of long ago;
Like a light that is dim and far-off, for dark years, full of
pain,
Lie, rolled between me and the beautiful past, that never can
come again!

Yet Ireland's hills are as verdant now, and the sun, as he
sinks to rest,
As then pours his parting glory, o'er Slieve Gallion's purple
crest,
A glory that brightens and lingers, as though it were fain to
stay,
Till the twilight shadows darken, and daylight dies away.

On Mullaboy the darkness looms weird on the lonely hill,
The cattle have ceased their lowing, and the song-birds'
notes are still;
And here, in the gloom and silence, 'neath the stars and the
quiet sky,
Old memories throng around me, of days long, long gone by.

Two scenes are ever fairest, and first in this heart of mine,
And with clearer light and brighter, 'mong the dimmer
phantoms shine,
And perfect in light and shadow, in tracing true and grand
Are the pictures as memory paints them, with firm and master-
hand.

The first is a cloudless moonlight, in calm and silvery
sheen,
And the range of the Morne Mountains in the dim background is
seen;
Beneath them the sea is rolling, all fair in the gentle
light,
And beauty and peace are blending in the hush of the summer
night.

I gaze, till again in fancy, I hear the waves' soft roar,
As they break in wild sweet music along Rostrevor's shore;
And a voice with their song is blending telling the old sweet
tale,
Of a fond, true love, that through life's long years would
never change or fail.

That picture fades before me and the second comes in view--
A walk 'neath o'er-arching beeches, with the sunlight
glinting through
Leaves that rustle and whisper on branches that wave above,
A silent, tearful parting, the death of a deathless love!

Dead, and yet unforgotten, worn, but never estranged,
The glory and brightness of morning to the darkness of
midnight changed!
And life is dull and dreary, and joy from earth is fled,
For the love that was light and beauty, and joy and peace, is
dead.

SABBATH ON THE PRAIRIE.

The year's first, blushing roses,
Were decking the prairie's breast;
And the summer garb of beauty
Made fair the wild North-West.
It flashed in the sedgy hollows,
And smiled in the woodland dell;
It whispered in low, soft zephyrs
That breathed o'er the lake and fell.
How it glowed in the mystic star-shine
Of the clear blue Northern sky;
How it crmison'd and flushed in grandeur
In the sunset's sweet good-bye!
And gaudy birds from the South-land
Made brilliant the poplar grove,
And plaintiff calls came sounding,
From the haunts where the plovers rove.

With dream-notes in the gloaming
The wind-lutes swept the boughs,--
Sweet songs of the distant stretches,
Where the moose and bison browse.
And we lay in our camp, and listened,
And thought of the wilds untrod;
Of the misty, lonely future,
And the homes on the stranger sod.

And still o'er the wide, wide ocean,
Our eager thoughts would stray,
To the homes and scenes, to the loves and hopes
Of the youth-time, far away.
Then we slept, to dream of the morrow,
"'Twill be Sunday at home," we said;
"But our church must be the prairie,
With the blue sky overhead."

The Sabbath dawned in beauty,
With a calm whose breath of peace,
Made a solemn grand cathedral
Of the wild vast wilderness.
The woods were the soft-toned organs,
And the winds, thro' their alleys dim,
Now raised some high, glad anthem,
Now chanted some low, sweet hymn.

We came from our tents together,
And stood on the lone hill-side,
To join in the songs of Nature,
That Sabbath morning-tide.
"With one consent let all the earth,"
Swelled on' the sunny air.
And then, how each home-sick, heart went forth
In that strange hour of prayer!
And the text the preacher gave us
Was, "Rejoice in the Lord always,"
Alike in the summer sunshine,
And the gloom of winter days.
And the clouds of our gloom were banished
Like the mists from the morning air;
We had strength for the untried future
For God is everywhere.

AT EVENING.

Slowly along the darkening sky
The twilight comes with stealthy tread;
Far out to west great cloud-ranks lie,
By sunset flushed a rosy red.
Oh! shadows of the gloaming time,
Gather, and loom, and darkly fall,
The winding path to Fancy's clime,
Lies hidden 'neath your dusky pall.

Pent in the city, now I dream
Of country scenes, of lanes and flowers,
Of woodland glen, and woodland stream,
Pictures of bygone sunset hours!
Oh, bygone! mighty claims you own,
That summon me to seek your shrine,
I hear the call and wait alone,
Until the charmed light shall shine.

'Tis breaking! Glistening near and far
A radiance floats, of dazzling light
Untouched by Time, or Tempest-scar
I view my past again to-night!
Oh! fair, false hope, your fruit is pain,
Oh, Love! when life's spring leaves were green,
Sweet, e'en in thought to see again
Th' Elysian called "what might have been."

"What might have been," we scan it o'er
And charmed we live the dreams in thought,
But wake to find that mist-world shore,
Like cloudy vapor melt to nought--
The brightness fades, the sweet rays die,
Deep darkness falls and night is come;
A wan new moon looks down the sky,
And stars are trembling in the gloom.

Morning, and noon, and evening grey,
And mystic twilight, all are flown;
And e'en my dreams are pass'd away,--
Again I find myself alone!
Young love's sweet morn, when hope was nigh.
Stern noonday toiling, which is best?
Ah! me, they all must fade and die,--
'Tis but the end can give us rest.

IN PEACE.

The name, the age, and a sentence written
On a marble cross o'er a grassy mound,
Where, calmly beneath sleeps the tired heart smitten,
Cruelly pierced by a dastard wound,
At peace in the heart of the restless city.
She slumbers well in her lowly bed,
With never a tear of love or pity
By kindly mourner above her shed.

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