Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/564

HORATIO N. POWERS. Horatio Nelson Powers was born at Amenia, Duchess county, New York, on the thirtieth day of April, 1826. He laid the foundation for a liberal education at Amenia Seminary, in his native State, and graduated at Union College, Schenec- tady. Having determined to enter the Christian Ministry, he then passed through the course of study at the General Theological Seminary of New York City. In 1857 he was married, at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to a daughter of Francis Fauvel Gouraud, formerly a Professor in the University of France. Mr. Powers is a contributor to the New York Evening Post, GrahairCs Magazine, and the Ladies^ Repository of Cincinnati, and he was one of the writers for Putnam's Magazine. Several of his poems have been copied into LitteWs Living Age, and other periodicals of wide circulation. Mr. Powers is a clergyman in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is stationed at Davenport, Iowa. THE RIVER OF TEARS. In the ghastly dusk of cypress shade O'er the beaten sands of a dismal glade, The River of Tears, with ceaseless flow. Rolled its bitter waves of human woe. The herbless mountains that gird the vale In an endless dawn, stand cold and pale ; And the lusterless clouds droop down so low, They touch the face of the stream below. No honeyed blossoms breathe balm around In the funeral gloom that shrouds the ground ; But dark, rank weeds reach greedily o'er To sip the surge on the level shore. Wild shrieks oft startle the dusky air. And the smothered howl of mad despair, — While the pleading wail of love's last cry Floats o'er the waves to the leaden sky. In aimless courses deep footprints go, Of the suffering ones of long ago — As the sad procession, with clasped hands. Went wandering over the barren sands. In the sullen shadows brooding here, Stalk pallid sorrow and shivering fear, Frail youth, bent age, and the bad and bold. And the gentle and good whose lives grew cold. In hopeless anguish some hide their eyes. And with pale, wan looks some watch the skies. Some beat their bosoms with frenzied stare, And some feel round in the empty air. Thus in mournful groups they come and go. None tells to another his weight of woe ! And the swollen stream, 'neath the dusky shroud. Goes down to its sea of noiseless cloud. ( 548 )