The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1868-12-23
WOUNDED AND HEALED !

A woman watched the reaches Of the light,
Steal DER a rivers shade to meet the night,
Aud clasp within its Arm1 the eastern slopes,
As dying mortals cling to earthly hopes,
Great smoking FORCES seem, with brazen sheen,
10 heat huge shields for gho',Iy knights un.
seen,
Which stain with red the winding rivers flow,
A. through the golden gates at last they ~,
And strike the iIntels, and the glowing pOsts,
With dripping blood, to mark the deathless
hosts
Who dwell beyond the rise or set Of sun,
And have the countless years Of God begun,
Fen while the glory fell upon her sense,
Her face grew hard and all its lines were tense,
For over life deadening sorrow hung
And in her face it's wine Of shame was flung.
While csrs and hooking laughs rang 10 her
cars,
So real, her lightful eyes were filled with tears,
She thought Of hopes that proudly crowned her
life
When first she wore the qusenly name of wife,
And wspt to know that they had come to
nSught,
And all her web Of life been strangely wrought.
Proud domes that grew to statelineSss in
dreams,
And cast their shadows over haunted
streams,
Had uded out in earnest life and work
Had ceased 10 lngcr fDndly -and to Turk
Like sunshine, when the day had gone. that
lecAs
The .ty above with red and stains the wrecks
OF cloud that float, and drift before tho breath
OF heaven, to some lonesome fearless death.
Across the tunefUl strings Of Life maniole,
The mellow symphonies of sorrow roll
Aud.aIl the floc Iing dreams awake TO hear
at o me "a tho -
life had not been As she had wished and
dreamed,
Sgr wa. tue vision half of what 1t seemed;
In truth shu thought her womhns lie was
wasted
Tho dreamed Of vino vas yos so lightly tasted,
To tend, and care and love, and care, and tend,
Was notfulfIIing LIES prime aim and end
And dancing spirits mock with songtul din,
And laugh, and sncer sghin, "what might have
BEEN
What sndler song can ever come to cheer
The Lonesome guards about the dying year?
Or who wouli think, when looking on the dead,
Of words that might have bccn-but we're not
said
Nay lay your dead beneath tho cypress tree
Lament them not aud seek what yet may be
Then shaking of the thought as something
wrong,
She seeks her work unchecrcd by psalm or song,
For how can broken hearts e'or chant or sing7
Or how can broken harps be made to ring
Orwho will care to play on broken string
Can blithesome robin fly with wounded wing
Oh no her face had like to marble grown,
A. cold, and hard, as CHASTITY funeral stone!
There is a WEAKNESS in life which rests
80 like the drop of wings on cherries breasts,
And muhlcs all the oars Of life SO still
That every sound is OminOus Of III.
Then palor spreads to blood and cheek and eye,
And all Of thstless life is but TO die.
This paled her handsome face from day to day,
Til slowly faded lonesome youth away,
And all that Indian Summer day TO calm
When clouds hung low, and sweetly dripped
with balm,
With CHASTITY face and pallei look she'd walked,
or Still, IT e'er, with hteIess accent talked.
And now with weary eye she scanned the river,
To see tho yellow ripples wrcathe and culver,
With wish half shapcn, that beneath them she
Might lay her limbs to rest eternalIy.
At length her latest evening tasks were over,
The dew had hung its light undying clover,
And with a strangely chill, and somDrc shiyer,
The stars CLEANED pale within the darksome
river
Tha sun was sleeping in the ports Of rest
Away beyond the tabled, starrd west,
W utntt hAlln hNphINt NV lNN' b'iNSii oN"'t
Whose sailors spread the folded sunset scroll,
And draw the anchor from the dallying sands
To olcaye the seas Of hemisphernI mnda.
She knclt beside her bed, and prayed prayer,
So bitter, in its thoughtful sum Of care;
That when she rose no radiant smiles Of grace,
Strcamcd out from every feature Of her face,
Like one who lightly comes, with feet unshod,
Fresh from the glowing presence Of his God,
But wan and pale with hungry soul unted,
She sought for rest upon her prayerless bed.
As in the course of each Wild mountain stream,
There lie some pools whose waters cease to
freme,-
Enguarded by some messed and gray old pine,
Meath cAlm and restful shadows they recline,
The same mad leaping waters through them
hOW,
Beneath the same impulsion on they go,
But in the folding shadow they have crept,
And nestled down as still as though they slept,
So in esoh life however tott and torn,
And to each heart however waste and worn,
There comes q sleeping time of tasteful rest,
when weary wings lie folded to the breast,
And though the life uubrokcn flows along,
Nor breaks the measured cadence of the song,
1t is q night of holy sumbrous ease
The wine rests clea- on its musty Ices.
Her life had flowed atown the mountain side,
through INthl mus AL u bNl SN'l N'Hcihn "'N''
Till now, at last, within rock shored bay,
Beneath the shadows silence long it lay.
There in the sweet forgetiulness Of dreams,
When life aglad and holy chrism seems,
Sh, wandered off to read her daily thought,
As facc 10 face with self she had been brought,
Oh what is sweeter than to sleep and dream,
When irving thoughts with countless beauties
teen
Io, On some silent stream we dimly loat,
And downward shapes its way the golden boat,
Ger rivers strange, through dreamy arch and
aisle,
Where solemn voice and song resouud the
while
The crcaking rudder Ringing here and there,
As all unweet, with fixed and steady stare,
Down IN the rivers depths watch seePless
eyes,
To catch the fatcful CLEAN Of other skies,
which tvixt the surface and the rounded sands,
Are archcd across the meads Of Dreams own
Lands.
No less the starry censers crowded hung,
No less the mellow light WAS DER them flung,
Than in tho stars which hang oerhead,
And with the vapors Of the skies are fed
Upon one merry winking star, she bent
Her eyes, with wakeful brain and heart sttent,
And there the woman g dream OF the star be-
gan
And thus, and thus the visoned story ran.
\ long and shining path led far away
Until it lost its semblsucc in the spray
OF clouds, that broke their weary waves in
mist,
AZ when some ocean swell the land hath kissed
She saw a woman walk within this way,
And children three her hssty steps delay
To tend, and care, and love- and care, and tend,
And from the dangers Of the path forefend
The little ones who leaned upon her love,
Was given 70 the watcher while above