Emma Alice Browne

O weary heart of mine,
Keep still, and make no sign!
The world hath learned a newer joy-
A sweeter song than thine!
...

We measured the riotous baby
Against the cottage wall:
A lily grew at the threshold,
And the boy was just so tall;
...

While the wild north hills are reddening
In the sunset's fiery glow,
And along the dreary moorlands,
Shine the stormy drifts of snow,
...

Thro' moss, and bracken, and purple bloom,
With a glitter of gorses here and there,
Shoulder deep in the dewy bloom,
...

Purple shafts of sunset fire
Glory-crown the passionate sea,
Throbbing with a fierce desire
For the blue immensity.
...

In Memoriam, 1857.

My Father! Orphan lips unknown
To love's sweet uses sob the word
...

With leagues of wasteful water ringed about,
And wrapped in sheeted foam from base to peak,
A sheer, stupendous monolith, wrought out
...

Last night I walked in happy dreams,
The paths I used to know;
I heard a sound of running streams,
And saw the violets blow;
...

The rain is the loudest and wildest
Of rains that ever fell;
And the winds like an army of chanters
...

I remember the dear little cabin
That stood by the weather-brown mill,
And the beautiful wavelets of sunshine
...

'Coe, Berry-brown! Hie, Thistledown!
Make haste; the milking-time is come!
The bells are ringing in the town,
...

I muse alone in the fading light,
Where the mournful winds forever
Sweep down from the dim old hills of night,
...

Now Cleo, fly round! Father's going to town
With a load o' red russets, to meet Captain Brown;
The mortgage is due, and it's got to be paid,
...

Ben Hafed, when the vernal rain
Warmed the chill heart of earth again,
Tilled the dull plot of sterile ground,
Within the dank and narrow round
...

Sweet, sweet, sweet!
High up in the budding vine
I've woven and hidden a dainty retreat
For this little brown darling of mine!
...

The lone winds creep with a snakish hiss
Among the dwarfish bushes,
And with deep sighing sadly kiss
The wild brook's border rushes;
...

Beneath the solemn stars that light
The dread infinitudes of night,
Mid wintry solitudes that lie
Where lonely Hecla's toweling pyre
...

From heaven's blue walls the splendid light
Of signal-stars gleams far and bright
Down the abyssmal deeps of night.
...

'O life! O, vailed destiny!'
She cried-'within thy hidden hands
What recompense is waiting me
Beyond these naked wintry sands?
...

Thy lay-a sweet sung bridal hymn,
Wedding the Old year to the New,
'Mid starry buds, and silver dew,
...