Category: poetry

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

The soft June sunshine floods the hills,
And loitering breezes fan my brow;
Sweet-throated birds, insane with joy,
Pour melody from every bough;
While in the valley at my feet
I hear the reapers’ cheerful shout,
And see the sickles gleam and flash,
Cast by the sinewy hands about.

The ripe grain falls before the blow,
And prone upon the earth is cast;
But other hands soon fashioned it
Into firm, golden sheaves at last.
‘Tis thus our simplest words may fall
In other hearts and lodgment gain;
Young minds receive what we cast by,
And bind in sheaves of living grain.

And let us now a lesson learn,
If work we can and work we must:
Look up, be glad, toil cheerfully,
Grovel no more in grief and dust;
Sing while we work all cheerily;
Let songs and laughter cheer the day,
While shines the sun and sing the birds
And fragrant flowers bloom by the way.

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

(From a novelette, “Bought with a Price,” by Mrs. Stephens.)

She stands receiving, like a beauteous queen,
Beneath the glitter of the chandelier,
With rich robes trailing from her dainty feet,
And perfume floating from her jeweled hair;
On neck and arms rare diamonds blaze,
Like glimmering fires, on fields of ice;
Yet all this splendor mocks her soul.
‘Tis bought, O Heaven, with a fearful price,
And naught but sorrow o’er thy heart shall brood
Through all thy future years, Gertrude.

Men wonder, and admire the being bright,
And women envy her the witching grace
Of every movement, and the beauty rare
Which glows in every lineament of her fair face,
And in their praise are eloquent and loud
Of her palatial home, for all that art
Or wealth can bring are there; all senses gratified,
But not the craving of her woman’s heart.
Amid the joyous throng she stands in solitude;
Wrecked are thy hopes, Gertrude.

She hears the murmur of the river low;
She hears the whisper of the larch trees yet,
And feels sweep o’er her heart, like ocean’s flow,
The love she slighted, but cannot forget.
Her glittering, gilded chains now clank with rust;
They eat, like canker, in her soul and brain.
Their glamor gone, she fain would yield her heart
To the sweet witchery of Love again;
But all too late, this sad, repentant mood;
Thy chains are riveted, Gertrude.

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

When memory, by her magic wand,
Brings back the scenes of bygone years,
How sad the pleasure, sweet the pain,
To gaze on them with smiles and tears!
Round one sweet spot I linger long,
None other can its station fill,
‘Mid all the shifting scenes of life,
My childhood’s home—I love it still.

There brightly shone the summer sun,
And gently sighed the summer breeze;
While birds sung gayly all day long
In the o’erhanging trees.
A thousand flowers perfumed the wind
That swept around that hallowed hill.
Yes, ‘mid the shifting scenes of life,
Sweet childhood’s home—I love it still.

But love’s soft whisper on my ear
Soon fell, and O, so strangely sweet
The whisper grew, until it won
My heart, and led my willing feet
Another home and other loves
My life and heart and hands now fill;
Yet backward, backward flies the mind.
Dear childhood’s home—I love it still.