Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-12-27
TWO LIVES LOST.

There is language of the soul,
That mortal feels, but cannot see,
Which none can fathom or control
Save those who hold the dual key;
And two may touch uplifted hands
And strive to loose that key in vain.
While two that dwell in welded bands
In awful solitude remain.
o hungry hearts that search through years
For something missed, but never found
o lips that smile to hide the tears
OF weary lives in letters bound
To those who fail them in the hour
When soul and eye and lifted palm
Are pleading for some higher power
To guide them to the isles Of calm
They met when life and hope were new,
AS rills beside each other run,
And, gliding on through grass and dew,
Go singing to the golden sun.
They came together in their course
Without dream of coming times,
When, crossed by fate's dividing force,
Their paths should lead 10 separate chimes.
They parted on the rocky crest,
No more to meet in faiths embrace;
She drew the cypress to her breast,
And shadows gathered in her face.
He, like the torrent of the hight,
Poured out his life on thirsty lands;
To darkened lives he brought delight,
And gave new strength to tired hands.
The world upon his pathway smiled,
Yet in its crowds he walked alone
For he was Natures birthright child,
And she baptized him for her own.
To him her ancient hills were young,
He felt her Gains above her storms,
Through him her voiceless wonders sung,
And shapeless things took souls and forms.
The secret of the haunted pine,
The midnight's soft and holy hush,
The distant star, the lowly vine,
The strains of mocking- bird and thrush,
The morning on the mountain slope,
The spirit of the ocean side,
The hidden springs of pain and hope,
Touched by his rhyme, were glorified.
He sang of "home' he never knew,
His bold words made the timid brave,
The rich absorbed his light and dew,
And barely thanked the life that gave.
He lavished all the gifts he had
To cheer his race and make 1t strong,
And wlthered joys grew fresh and glad,
Thrilled by the current of his song.
She CROPPED in shade toward the main,
Where all the streams of time unite,
He watered many a sunburnt plain,
And blessed the world by day and night
And, while he wandered, toiled and sang,
With heart of love and voice in tune,
New hope around his presence sprang,
Like flowers around the feet of June.
They move in lines more wide apart
Than strangers who have never met
One burdened by troubled heart,
One haunted by vain regret.
There stands between their life.ways now
A mountain broad and steep and high
The drifted snow lies on its brow,
And down its glens the low winds sigh.
And just below the high divide
] read this lesson, c0ld as fate:
who wins the wide world for bride,
Should never WOO another mate"
And then l hear an undertone
Come floating from the sunset sea:
10, here each stream shall find its own,
And all be reconciled in me-"
But sweet and clear and pure and far
Above the oceans changing calls,
And gentle as the morning star,
This message from the mountain falls:
1.-THE life that peace immortal seeks
Must rise DER PASSIONS ebb and flow;
For none except the loftiest peaks
Retain their shining crowns of snow
james G. Clark in Christian Register