The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1861-09-11
MYLITTLE sWEET-nEART.

All sad are they of whom no poet writes,
Nor ever any story teller hears
The childess mothers who on lonesome nights
sitby their fires and weep, having their chores
Done for the day, and time enough to see
All the wide floors
Swept clean ofplaythings, they, as needs must
Have time enough for tears. be,
But there are gliefs more sad
Than ever any childless mother had
You know them, who do smother natures cries
Under poor masks
OF smiling, slow despair
who pdt your white and unadorning hair
Out of your way, and keep at homely tasks
Unblest with any praises of mems eyes,
Till death comes to you with his piteous care
And to unmarriageabie beds you go,
Saying. at is not much-'tis well if so
We only be made fair,
And looks Of love await us when we lise."
Nv cross is not as hard as theirs to bear,
And yet alike to me are storms or calms:
My life's young joy,
The brown-cheeked farmer boy,
Who led the daisies with him like his lambs
Carved his sweet picture on my milking pail,
And cut my name upon his threshins fail,
One day stopped singing at his plow-alasl
Before that summer time was gone, the grass
Had choked the path which to the sheep-feld
Wttre had watched him tread He'd,
Sc oft on evenings trail
A shining oat-sheaf balanced On his head.
And nodding to the gale.
Rough, wintry weather came, andwhen itsped,
The emerald wave
Swelling above my little sweet-heart's grave,
With such bright, ,bubbly flowers was sci about,
thought he blew them out,
And so took comfort that he was not dead.
For was of rude and ignorant crew,
And hence believed whatever things l saw
We're the expression of a hidden law;
And with a wisdom wiser than l knew
Evoked the simple meaning out things
By childlike questionings.
And he they named with shudderings Of fear
Had never in his life, been half so near
As when sat all day with cheeks unkissed,
And listened to the whisper, very low,
That said our love, above deaths waye Of woe,
Was joined together like a seamlsss mist.
Gods yea and nay
Are not so far away,
| said but can hear them when please;
Nor could ] under stand
Their doubling faith, who only touch h's hand
Across the blind bewildeling centuries.
And often yet, upon the shining track
Of the old faith, come back
Ny childish faneies, never quite subdued,
And when the sunset shuts up in the wood
The whspery sw1e etness of uncertainty,
And night, with misty locks that loosely drop
About his eals, bringing rest, a welcome boon
Playing his pipe with many starry stop
That makes golden snarling in his tune;
l see my little lad
Under the leafy shelter of the boughs,
Driving his noiseless, visionary COWS,
Clad in a beauty alone can see:
Laugh, you, who never had
Your dead come back, but do not take from me
The harmless comfort of my foolish dream,
That these, our mortal eyes.
Which outwardly reflect the earth and skies,
Do introvert upon eternity:
And that the shapes you deem
Imaginations, just as clearly fall
Each from its own divine original,
And through some subtle element Of light,
Upon the inward, spiritual eye,
AS do the things which round about them lie,
Gross and material on the external sight.
SEPTEN BIER.
The burning heats of Summer are Civ
ing place to the cool bracing air of Au-
tumu. The summer harVests are gath
cred, the barns are full of hay and grain,
and the overlooking abundance stands In