The Death-Wake Part 7

Methought I heard the wolf abroad. Heaven help! I heard aright-- My mantle!--By the Mother Saint! our flock is in the fold?

How think you, love? wake up the hound, I ween the wolf is bold."

"Stay, stay; 'tis past!" "I hear it still; to rest, I pray, to rest."

"Nay, father! hold; thou must not go;" and silently she press'd The old man's arm, and bade him stay, for love of Heaven and her: His danger was too wild a thought, for so fond a girl to bear.

He kiss'd her, and they parted then; but, through the lattice low, She gazed amid the vine-twigs pale, all cradled to and fro; The holy whisper of the wind stole lightly by the eaves,-- A sad dirge, sighing to the fall of the winter-blighted leaves.

He comes not! 'Tis a dreadful thing to hear them as they rave, The savage wolf-train howling, like the near burst of a wave.

She thought it was a father's cry she heard--a father's cry!

And she flung her from the cottage door, in startled agony.

Good Virgin save thee, gentle girl! they are no knightly train That mark thee for their sinless prey--thou wilt not smile again; The blood is streaming on thy cheek; the heart it ceases slow; A father gazes on his child--G.o.d help a father's woe!

HYMN TO ORION

Orion! old Orion! who dost wait Warder at heaven's star-studded gate, On a throne where worlds might meet At thy silver sandal'd feet, All invisible to thee, Gazing through immensity; For thy crowned head is higher Than the ramparts of earth-searching fire, And the comet his blooded banner, there Flings back upon the waveless air.

Old Orion! holy hands Have knit thy everlasting bands, Belted by the King of kings, Under thy azure-sheathed wings, With a zone of living light, Such as bound the Apostate might, When from highest tower of heaven, His vaunting shape was wrathly driven To its wane, woe-wall'd abode, Rended from the eye of G.o.d!

Dost thou, in thy vigils, hail Arcturus on his chariot pale, Leading his sons--a fiery flight-- Over the hollow hill of night?

Or tellest of their watches long, To the sleepless, nameless throng, Shoaling in a wond'rous gleam, Like channel through the azure stream Of life reflected, as it flows, In one broad ocean of repose, Gus.h.i.+ng from thy lips, Orion!

To the holy walls of Zion?