And home in land where erst the Muses taught
They hand its skill, did so thy theme inspire,
That to thy shrine our willing hearts have brought
Their incense offerings for its Vestal fire !

Oh, Minstrel, lend thy touch to my frail harp,
That fain to land we love would breathe a lay ;
Thy hazel wand beside the rock's rude scarp
Shall cause some feet to linger by the way ,
Wherein my heart has wandered all the day.

Dream of continued days,
Of empire changeless in its emerald dye
Of heraldry-dream in the mellow haze,
Under the cloudless sky !

Dream while the elfin hands,
By night, her thin shroud weave ; so frail, so fair,
Her warm breath meeting melts its fragile bands
In morning's joyous air !

Sleeping until at last,
Through her thin robe she feels the chilling breath
And touch relentless of November's blast,
Premonitor of death !

Then on lone eminence the while she lingers,
Where firs and ferns still hold allegiance true ;
Her finished shroud falls from the elfin fingers,
her startled eyes rest on the wondrous view.

Silent upon the hills the gray doves cooing,
All the sweet songsters from the fields have fled,
Gone the white tents that hid their home renewing
The valleys in their happy welcome spread.

Gone with the dream, but still that dream recalling,
In pristine form the hills, the mountains rise,
A breath of June that lifts the thin mist falling
Fans the wan cheek and wakes the drooping eyes.

To see the realm she nursed and deemed had perished,
Crowned with a glory it had never known,
Had Autumn's hand not crushed the hope she cherished
And death proclaimed her abdicated throne.

The closing eyes turn where the sun descending
Floods with soft light the far untrammeled view-
A sea transfixed, its magic colors blending,
Its faintest outline lost in fainter blue.

Not thine the relentless frost, the glaciers home ;
The avalanche, the desolation wide !
Thou hast no paths thy lovers may not roam,
No glen so bleak where 'Summer may not bide' !

In contrast lo, the long defiant line,*
Clad still in armor of the days of yore,
Where battle wrecks thick strewn betray the sign ^†
Of long-waged conflict now forever o'er !

Still grazing west-ward toward the receding shore
Whose baffled waves, abandoning the strife,
From the worn elements with ages hoar
Made new creations redolent with life :

______

* The Pacific Coast Range.

^† Geologic

Oh barren mountains !  Not unlike your fate
Had been the fortune of our native land,
When war's arbitrament laid low her State
And Might had bound her unresisting hand :

If wrapped like ye in sullen robes of pride,
Nursing old memories of a bitter wrong,
In attitude again to battle bide
That safer lives in history and in song-

But as her plains in Time's remoted Past
From Ocean depths in Earth's convulsive throe
Rose to these heights all verdure crowned at last
So to their heights, from vall[ey]s black with woe.

Her sons-their broken swords and shivered spears
Laid down and buried, came by ways untried ;
Wrestling from dire defeat, through peaceful years,
Achievement Fate had to their Arms denied.

As still defies the rude Atlantic's swell ;
And with untiring zeal restored the spoil
Of island forays, 'til each plain and dell
Are lasting monuments of patient toil-

Could such a land, for war, for peaceful art,
Give birth to sons unworthy, daughters weak !
Our lips are silent ; Fame's historic chart
To distant times their deeds enrolled shall speak-

Time may run back and bring our childhood's lore
Rich with its tales of wealth in boundless store,
Aladdin's lamp revealed in days of yore ;
But Mother mine, no other pearls outshine
Those thou dost wear, twined in thy radiant hair !
No flashing gem, no diadem

* The out-lying islands of the North Carolina Coast.

Wild flowers in simple wreath thy locks withhold,
Simple tunic o'er thy heart of gold ;
Thy face unveiled, its vision free to all,
The ungloved hand restrains the drapery's fall
That still would leave thy sandaled feet unseen,
But should we seek thee in the copse-wood green,
On the brown heath or in the silver sheen
Of upland forest when the south winds blow,
On silent peaks of rest beneath the snow,
In tangled wood where whip-poor-will's lone cry
Vexes the ear of night till dawn is nigh ;

But not a linger on the noontide rest-
The simple fare with hunger for its zest  ;

Mine are thy heights where lonely lichens brave
The north wind's breath when all his bugles blare,
And moss green rocks where rhododendrons wave
Their crimson colors in the sunlit air.

Louder his laughter as the brook hies on,
The red bird's call, the thrush's note more clear,
Bolder the wren proclaims the winter gone,
The blue bird plainly utters "Spring is here."

Thy morning mists, the fleecy clouds at noon
That listless brood upon a summer's day,
The evening shades, the gloaming that too soon
The sombre wings of night shall chase away ;

The vesper songs of birds, the breath of flowers-
The leaves, the grass, with countless jewels bright-
The stars that mark the weary march of hours-
All these of thine are mine by filial right.

The winds that sob and sigh and sink to sleep,
And wake to moan, like heart that pines for rest-
Sleeping to dream of hope and wake to weep,
Have proved companionship through years unblest.

Telling the hour and place of fond retreat,
All undisturbed to quaff love's ruby wine ;
Heaven's stars above, earth's billows at the feet-
Fit types of passion, human and divine.

Her's were the stars too high for me to reach,
Too oft obscured by doubt's remorseless reign ;
The waters mine, that flung upon the beach
Their restless energies all spent in vain

With tireless step beside the tireless wave
That lit our path with phosphorescent light,
And sought, and sought again out feet to lave,
Or try our courage with its threatening height-

The wave unheeding, on the beaten strand,
The way unnoted, guided but by chance,
How oft we wandered silent, hand in hand,
Lost in the maze's of love's mystic trance.

Where is she now-the maid of thoughtful mein ?
And he-the friend who sometime shared those hours !

That hope depicted while fond love believed,
Despite war's ominous cloud that swiftly sped ;
Despite prophetic doom of land bereaved
And sorrow's tears o'er valor's bright wine shed !

Are still the returning waves that bay caressing
Whose fondling arms then took them to its breast,
Like truant love their wanderings confessing
To love that chided not their errant quest?

Bow yet the winds whence fancy then descried
The bay and myrtle overhang their shore,
To lovers waiting in the evening tide
To catch the mystic messages they bore.

Falls yet the light from out the western skies
In tranquil glory on the land and sea !
Lingers the light yet in her constant eyes-
The starlight of my young heart's destiny !

To those same sands whereby the sea gulls sweep
On tireless wings above the tireless waves,
The stars, the same, their constant vigil keep,
But beaten strand I tread lies low mid graves.

Yet thou, oh fairest land !  far from each scene
Whereon Time folds in vain the veil of years,
With thee the heart's waste fields again grow green,
And life's sad chalice is sublimed of tears.

The sounding waves sweep on, with passion white ;
Destruction waiting where their vall[ey]s seethe ;
Thy silent summits stand in azure light
Guarding the sheltered vales that sleep beneath.

Laurels we wreathe and flowers of fadeless bloom
For fortune's favorites, but when evil hour
Crawls to the bidding of the stroke of doom,
Our fickle souls take refuge in the tower

Science and art and wealth in concert vie
To raise the temple and adorn the shrine,
But blend such forms before the wandering eye
As blinds its vision to the light divine !

Upon thy heights-His footstool-we may kneel,
All human sights and sounds below our feet,
Nor one distracting qualm the bosom feel
To break the spell, accomplished and complete

Of cloud-girt stillness, rocks to earth all prone,
The aspiring firs, in awe-struck attitude,
While from the far off depths, in pauses blown,
Rise the low symphony and interlude

Of falling waters and of rocking pines ;
And over all, the faultless arch is thrown
Whence rise the stars to where the sun declines-
Fain for the heart's high homage-silent-lone !

The spreading light that on the horizon glows
Is but the herald of the sun's advance,
The embattled height no haughty banner shows
The plum ed knights salute with peaceful lance.

Yon darkling march along the mountain side-
The east wind's swoop upon the sable firs ;
The wreathing smoke upon the distant tide-
But mist on the fields of corn the west wind stirs.

The quick'ning beat from hills and vales around,
Like answering echoes of the startles drum,
Is but the rustic flail's familiar sound
Of bloodless victory o'er the harvest home.

Along the valley at this hour of noon,
The calm that broods is not the spell of dread,
When hearts beat low, and hearts beat high that soon
May cease their beating, numbered with the dead.

The bells' melodious tongues in music blend ;
And milkmaid's call floats on the evening breeze,
While lengthening shadows from the hills descend
Till night shall set her stars upon the frieze

Above the low horizon's fading glow,
Where late the entablature of golden bands
With purple fringe above and flame below,
Upheld the mysterious arch "not made with hands"-

Then rest we here ; the day draws to its close,
The cottage there beyond the limpid stream
Half hid in vines, invites to calm repose ;
And if to broken sleep comes vexing dream

Of sounds confused-of straggling lines of light-
'Tis but the brook complaining in its flow-
'Tis but the autumnal fires that mimic show
Of weary ranks at rest from march or fight,

              *         *         *          *

Ah minstrel, all in vain thy touch,
On harps whose strings the winds alone,
From fields forgotten, move for such
As love hath tried and grief hath known !

But if perchance its numbers swell
A chord in heart that sad recalls
Some twilight hour whose 'witching spell
The song birds sang in madrigals-

And if my song might lure to leave
Some beaten strand beside the sea,-
Some spot where lone heart loves to grieve-
To know these heights as known by me ;

[Furman's Print, Asheville, N. C.]