When I hear on the hills
    The shout of the storm,
In the valley the roar of the river;
    I shiver and shake,
    On the hearth stone warm,
As I think of his cold “forever.”

    His white hands are folded,
    And never again,
With the song of the robin or plover,
    When the Summer has come,
    With her bees and her grain,
Will he play in the meadow clover.

    Oh, dear little brother,
    My sweet little brother,
In the palace above the sun,
    Oh, pray the good angels,
    The glorious evangels,
To take me—­when life is done.

MY FATHER.

IN MEMORIAM, 1857.

The late George D. Prentice in speaking of this poem used the following language:  “To our minds there is nothing in all the In Memoriam of Tennyson more beautiful than the following holy tribute to a dead father from our young correspondent at Pleasant Grove.”  The poem was first published in the “Louisville Journal” of which Mr. Prentice was the editor.

    [Transcriber’s note:  The original text referred to the “Louirville
    Journal” (clearly an erratum).]

My Father!  Orphan lips unknown
  To love’s sweet uses sob the word
  My father! dim with anguish, heard
In Heaven between a storm of moan
And the white calm that faith hath fixed
  For solace, far beyond the world,
  Where, all our starry dreams unfurled,
We drink the wine of peace unmixed.

Mine! folded in the awful trust
  That draws the world’s face down in awe,
  Holding her breath, as if she saw
God’s secret written in the dust—­
My father! oh, the dreary years
  The dreary winds have wailed across
  Since his path, from the hills of loss,
Wound, shining, o’er the golden spheres.

What time the Angel at our door
  Said soft, between our orphan-moan—­
  Arise! oh, soul! the night is done
And day hath bloomed forevermore! 
I locked my icy hand across
  My sobbing heart and sadly cried—­
  I lose thee in the glorified—­
The world is darkened with my loss!

Oh, Angel! cried I—­wrath complete! 
  With awful brows and eyes intense! 
  (For faith’s white robe of reverence
Slid noiseless to my sorrow’s feet)
Oh, Angel, help me out of strife! 
  I could have borne all mortal pain—­
  I could have lived my life in vain—­
But this hath touched my inner life!

And eighteen hundred fifty-seven
  Hath filled a decade of slow years
  Since first my orphan cries and tears
Broke wild across the walls of Heaven. 
This eve his grave is winter-white! 
  And ’twixt the snow-wind’s stormy thrills
  I hear across the Northern hills
The solemn footsteps of the night!

Blow wind!  Oh, wind, blow wild and high! 
  Blow o’er the dismal space of woods—­
  Blow down the roaring Northern floods
And let the dreary day go by! 
Blow, wind, from out the shining West,
  And wrap the hazy world in glow—­
  Blow wind and drift about my snow
The summer of his endless rest!