Madge Morris Wagner

“ No love-welcomed greeted The sweet baby face, In the life that gave his life There was not a place. No place for the baby, There's none for him here, No heart that may give him A smile or a tear. Off to the refuge, For such, he must go, He's only a foundling— Poor little Joe. Deserted, forsaken, Thrust out in the strife, Adrift on the pitiless Ocean of life. What will become of him, Who may decide If good or if evil His life shall betide. No tender caresses Ever to know, Nor guidance, nor blessing— Poor little Joe. ”

“ We do not know from whence the life Imbued in crystal drop of rain, Nor why, when torn and trampled on, The rose's fragrance will remain. Nor know we why the tender tone Will linger when love's dream is fled, Now why the smile we loved will live, Although the face it wreathed will be dead. Some strangely fascinating spell Steals o'er the heart in ethic's hour; We know not what, nor how, nor why, Still must we own we feel its power— A power that wakens slumbering dreams, Intangible emotion swells, That penetrates the soul's deep fount, And greets the tide that from it wells. ”

“ There's a voice of hope, a promise, In the sound of thy refrain, And as bright the hours and as fair the flowers That will come to thee again. And yet in our lives, though knowing That we hold a scepter's sway, How oft we turn with the thoughts that burn, To weep on Autumn day. Turn from the hopeful future To weep in grief and pain, For the vanished hours and the faded flowers That never can come again.
I LOVE HIM FOR HIS EYES. They praised the baby's dimpled hands, His brow so broad and fair, They kiss the dainty rose-bud mouth, Caress the sunny hair. ”

“ I hear her rocking the baby, Slower and slower now, And I know she is leaving her good-night kiss On its eyes, and cheek, and brow From her rocking, rocking, rocking, I wonder would she start, Could she know, through the wall between us, She is rocking on a heart. While my empty arms are aching For a form they may not press And my emptier heart is breaking In its desolate loneliness I list to the rocking, rocking, In the room just next to mine, And breathe a prayer in silence, At a mother's broken shrine, For the woman who rocks her baby In the room just next to mine. ”

“ TO REVENITA When to the font, this morn, my lips I pressed, A fairy's gift my fingers trembled o'er; A sweeter prayer ne'er smile of angel blessed, Nor gemmed a tiar that the priesthood wore. The secret of they grief I may not know, Since that thy lips refuse the tale to tell; Methinks, dear child, it was the sound of woe That woke an echo in my heart's deep well. The wail of a spirit that a-yearning gropes In darkness for the sunlight that is fled; A broken idol in secret wept, and hopes— Crushed hopes—that are to thee as are the dead. ”

“ I'll never more despair; Who could, with such sweet comforting as yours? How, like the voice that stilled the tempest air, Your mild philosophy its reasoning pours. Go you and build a temple to the skies, and make Your soul an alter-offering on the pile; Then, from its lightning-riven ruin, take Your crushed and bleeding self, and calmly smile. When loud, and fierce, and wild, a storm sweeps o'er your rest, Say that it soothes you—brings you peace again; Laugh while the hot steel quivers in your breast, And "make believe" you love the scorching pain. ”

“ How many and many a youth, brave-hearted and true, answers with eager haste the war call of his native land all heedless of the home he is leaving, and the loving arms that sheltered him there. But when his soldier's blood is crimsoning the sands beneath a foreign sky, the thoughts that go with his ebbing life are of home—all of home.
Who rushes from his home out into the world, blind devotee of fortune's phantom goddess, to realize a phantom indeed, sits down in his despondency and his despair, to dream of "dear old home". ”

“ Each midnight, since have seventy years Begun their cycle around the spheres, Two faces have looked from that window there. One is a woman's, young and fair, With tender eyes and floating hair. Love, and regret, and dumb despair, Are told in each tint of the fair sweet face. The other is crowned with a courtly grace, Gazing, with all a lover's pride, On the beautiful woman by his side. Anon! a change flits o'er his mien, And baffled rage in his glance is seen. Paler they grow as the hours go by, With the pallor that comes with the summons to die. ”

“ Yes, many a heart, little rosebud, Loving, and tender, and true, For water has faded and withered, And died in its beauty like you, Not because there was dearth of life's fountain, Nor the blessing to all might not pass, But because the strong hand which it clung to Forgot to put some in its glass.
MY SHIPS HAVE COME FROM SEA. You are watching a ship, O, maiden fair, With parted lips and wistful air, The ship that out from the sheltered bay With white sails spread moves slow away; And I know, my girl, the thoughts that burn In your heart are of ship's return. ”

“ Yet who had thought a brow so fair, From guile so seeming free, A voice so sweet, so winning rare, So treacherous could be? Who would have dreamed a form that seemed Proud Honor's templed shrine, Could hold within an urn of sin A soul so false as thine? Nor strange 'twould be, if ne'er again, Till age had wasted youth, That heart betrayed by such as thou, Could trust in human truth. But go! and though thy wiles no more Will move my heart to strife, Canst glad thy vain soul with the thought That thou hast wrecked a life. ”

“ Only a kiss, a love caress, Tender and trustful given, Banished a cloud from brow of care, Made home a woman's Heaven. Only a secret, chance disclosed, Whence secret should be never, A doubt crept into the heart that loved And its light went out forever. Only a prayer, a wrong confessed, By suppliant lowly kneeling, Opened the gate where the angels wait, Life's Eden field revealing. Careful then scatter the little things, They make life drear and lonely, Or strew its way with flowers gay,— We live by trifles only. ”

“ A VALENTINE I love thee for the soul that shines Within thine eyes' soft beaming, From out whose depths the prisoned fires Of intellect are gleaming. I love thee for the mind that soars Beyond earth's narrow keeping, That measures suns, and stars, and worlds, Through boundless limits sweeping. I love thee for the voice whose power Can in my heart awaken To passioned life each slumbering chord The ruder tones have shaken. Thou ne'er, perchance, mayst feel the chain With which this love has bound thee, Nor dream thee of the hand that flung Its glittering links around thee. ”

“ Where flowers ne'er fade and skies ne'er cloud, And voiceless music charms— And save as see we in our dreams The dear ones gone before, The friends that here we knew and loved, We'll know and love no more. An endless and unbroken rest, Nor change, nor night, nor day, Where aimless, as in sleep, we'll dream Eternity away. Sweet friend of mine, that Heaven of thine Methinks if overblest; We could not work on earth enough To need so long a rest. ”

“ Yes, too, and the wretch—so seemingly depraved that nothing beautiful or pure of soul is left—who flings from him his life in mad suicide, goes out into that trackless eternity with home upon the lips of death. Then if the patter of baby's feet, the glad ring of children's voices echo within the walls of your home, if father and mother; and brothers and sisters brighten it with the sunshine of love, enjoy it while you may, make it your heaven, and be not in over-haste to break the ties that bind you there.
You may never weep, perchance, over a home made desolate by death ”

“ If one to whom home was only a poet's dream, could portray its charms by only imagination, until a million hearts thrilled with responsive echo, how deeper, how more intense must be his longings and recollections who treasures, deep down in his heart the sweet delights and pure associations that he has known, but never may know again. We do not appreciate our blessings until they have passed. We do not try to gather the sunbeams until the clouds have obscured them. ”

“ I may not kneel to thee as others kneel, And tell my heart-aches with the suppliant's air, But fiercer burns the fire I must conceal. My soul is groping in the mists of doubt, The sunlight and the shadows all are gone, Only a cold, gray cloud my life's about, Nor ever vision of a fairer dawn. A father ne'er my brow in loving smoothed, Nor taught my baby tongue to lisp his name ”

“ UNSPOKEN WORDS. Unspoken words may thrill the heart, Their meaning be more deeply felt Than all the glowing oratory Poured at the shrine where reason knelt. The fairest pictures art conceives, The noblest sentiments of mind, The loveliest, purest gems of thought Are those which never are defined. The hand that paints the rainbow dyes Ne'er leaves a trace its skill to show— The art that gilds the sunset skies And tints the flower, we may not know. Nor may we know the wizard power Which o'er our being wields control, Nor how, when silence seals the lips, Heart speaks to heart and soul to soul. ”

“ Some are loving, childish faces, Knowing naught of grief or care. Some are blooming, youthful faces, Victory confident to win, Some are from the contest shrinking, Wearied with the strife and din. Some are aged, wrinkled faces, Time life's sands has nearly run; Not a leaflet spared of Springtime, Not a furrow left undone. Other faces, sweet, sad faces, Wafted o'er the Lethean sea, Radiant smile in twilight shadows, But they came not back to me. ”

“ Great Nature's hand, in every plan, Had laid in wise design, But what design, or use, is in This theory of thine? If, when our earth-career is done, All conscious life must cease, And we drift on, and on, and on, In endless, dreamy peace— If Heaven is but a mystic spell, Whose glowing visions thrall, Why should we have a life beyond? Why have a Heaven at all? ”

“ A tender memory ling'ring yet of when Each bounding pulse beat faster with its joy; A something that allured, and won, and then With waking fled, and years may not destroy The impress which it left upon thy brain But seek thee, child, grief's ravaging to stay? Thy tears might fall as falls the show'ring rain, They could not wash the heart's deep scars away. Repine thee not; shroud not they faith in gloom; Shrink not to meet a disappointment's frown ”

“ Once pledged we fondly o'er and o'er That nought should cloud our love's bright sky; Once thought we that we could not stay Apart and live. But oh! For us Fate willed it not to linger thus. To-day earth's wintry poles apart Are further not that we in heart, Nor colder than our sunless way. Passion and pride can do no more, And you and I can only say Good-bye! ”

“ Would some magic power lend me Aid to stay the witching tone, Art to pain the beauteous picture Ere its impress swift has flown. While I dreamed the day has faded, Stars are shining overhead, Evening winds have ceased to whisper, Twilight's shadows all have fled. Thus, too oft, our life-work seemeth, And we, when disowned its sway, Find we are pursuing phantoms, Shadows in the twilight gray. ”

“ My head is so strangely vision thrilled With plans to evade the demon's stay, But all the plots that my brain have filled Only have served to augment his sway, And on my feet, at the sunset's door, Is spreading a troublesome grievous sore. I'm growing ill I can plainly see, And many prescribe my pain to ease, But somehow each medicine proves to be "A remedy worse than the disease." Though strong as ever, should once my strength Give way, I must fall a fearful length. ”

“ Deepest wrongs are sometime righted, Never yield you to despair. Has the slanderer's tongue unsparing Ruthless tarnished with its stain; Was your good name worth the wearing— Go and win it back again. Would you rest where sunshine lingers; You must toil the darkness through; Only work with willing fingers, Only live you brave and true. Never care or trouble borrow, "Trouble's real if it seems"— Ever see a bright to-morrow, Though you see it but in dreams. ”

“ It ne'er was set in band of fold Some dainty hand to grace, Ne'er shone in diadem to deck A brow of kingly race. For me alone, a wizard spell Lies prisoned in its beams, Hours of enchanted ecstacy And days of Eden dreams. Wouldst know the precious gift with which For worlds I would not part? The priceless jewel is they love, Its setting is my heart. REVENITA.
TO REVENITA Oh, in the hush of midnight's hour, When darkness sleeps on land and sea, How oft in dreams, sweet fragile flower, Thou'st come to bless and comfort me. ”

“ In the twilight, dreamy twilight, When the sultry day is gone, Quietly o'er vale and hillside, Tenderly as blush of dawn, Come the timid evening breezes, Sighing through the Summer leaves, Transient as thought's pencil-paintings, Sweet as weft that fancy weaves. And as shadows in the twilight Shapeful forms of faces wear, So these dainty, light-winged zephyrs, To my hearing, voices are. Voices whose sad intonations Seemingly, as flit they past, Bring to memory hopes long shattered, Blissful dreams too bright to last. ”

“ WATCHING THE SHADOWS. Watching the shadows, the fire-light shadows, That gather and play on the wall; Dark, flitting shadows, fanciful shadows, That gather and rise and fall. Reading the fire shadows' language of shadows, Pages of darkness and light— Watching, watching, Watching the shadows to-night. Watching the shadows, the fire-light shadows, That over the wall fitful play; Dreaming of shadows, dreaming of shadows, Deep darker shadows than they. Heart-shading shadows, soul-darkening shadows, Flitting in memory's light— Dreaming, dreaming, Watching the shadows to-night. ”