Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/435

1810-50.] BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR. 419 Are valanced with crimson, and netted The sky was all blushes, the earth was all with gold. bliss ; "Where now are the vesper and vow — And the prayer of your heart, "Be my Those spirit-Hke breatliings of sadness and ending like this." song, So my beautiful May passed away from That brought not a cloud o'er the brow. life's even ; Bedimmed not a beam of the bright sum- So the blush of her young being was mer morn? blended with heaven ; Not wafted away, for the aspen is still ; So the bird of my bosom fluttered up to Not fled on the wings of the hours ; the dawn — Not hiding the heaven — lo ! the stars in A window was open — my darling was the clear ; gone ! — Not pei-ished, but here on the flowers — For the angel on watch took the wanderer Those smiles of Divinity lighting the in! world, But when I shall hear the new song that Whose breath is forever a prayer ; she sings. Who blush without sinning, and blanch I shall know her again, notwithstanding without fear; her wings, Oh ! where should they be, if not there ? By those eyes full of heaven, by the light on her hair, And the smile she wore here, she will surely wear there ! SHALL I KNOW HER AGAIN? Oh, have you not seen, on some morning in June, GOD BLESS OUR STARS. When the flowers were in tears, and the forests in tune, " God bless our Stars for ever!" When the billows of dawn broke bright Thus the Angels sang sublime. on the air. When round God's forges fluttered fast, On the breast of the brightest some star The sparks of starry Time ! clinging there ? When they fanned them with their pinions. Some sentinel star, not yet ready to Till they kindled into day, set — And revealed Creation's bosom, Forgetting to wane, and watching there Where the infant Eden lay. yet?— How you gazed on that vision of beauty " God bless our stars for ever ! " awhile ; Thus they sang — the seers of old. How it wavered till won by the light of When they beckoned to the Morning, God's smile ; Through the Future's misty fold, How it passed through the portals of pearl When they waved the wand of wonder — like a bride ; When they breathed the magic word. How it paled as it passed, and the morn- And the pulses' golden glimmer. ing star died ! Showed the waking granite heard.