"VOICES.

"I remember voices
In my early home,
Pleasant and familiar,

Breathed in sweetest tone

"Little manly voices,

Brothers then were near,
Soft and kindly voices ;
Of my sisters dear.
"Grave and tender voices,
Voices now no more,
In the ear of childhood
Whispered golden lore.

"I remember voices,

Tones of later years,
Passionate and tearful,
Full of hopes and fears.

"Eloquent and earnest,

Seeming firm and true,
Trusting to these voices
I've had cause to rue.

"Friendship's voice deceived me,
And the maid I loved,
Vain of wealth and beauty,
False and fickle proved.

"I remember voices,

Now I hear but one,
The silent voice within me
Speaks to me alone-

"Calm amid the tempests,

Live in peace with me,

Thou shalt learn Earth's wisdom

And Heaven's mystery.””

The following poem is probably the last written by my brother. There is no draft or note of it in his rough notebook, and it is written out carefully on a sheet of thin letterpaper which he probably obtained in Para. It was therefore almost certainly written during the two weeks before his fatal illness.

"OUR BETTER MOMENTS.

"Uncalled they come across the mind,
We know not why or how,
And with instinctive reverence
Ignoble feelings bow:

A power strange, yet holy too,

Breathes through our every sense;

Each atom of our being feels

Its subtle influence.

High visions, noble thinkings, flash

Like meteors through the brain,
If Paradise was lost to us,

'Tis surely come again!

Better moments! Better moments! Ye are sunny angels' wings, Sent to shed a holier radiance o'er all dim and worldly things.

"Perchance we love to watch awhile,

In simple child-like mood,
The waving of the summer grass,

The ebbing of the flood,

Or lie upon a mossy bank

In some secluded shade,

When sudden, from before our gaze,
The grass-the waters fade ;

And giving up our being's rein

To unknown guiding hands,
We float in passive confidence

To voiceless spirit lands.

Better moments! Better moments! Ye are sunny angels' wings, Sent to shed a holier radiance o'er all dim and worldly things.

"Or sitting in a leafy wood,

Some still and breathless hour,

The joyous twitter of a bird

Has strange unconscious power;

The power to send through ev'ry nerve
A thrill of soft delight;

A better moment, like the dawn,

Steals in with ambient light;

The soul expands, and lovingly

Takes in its pure embrace,

All life! all nature! high or mean,

Of colour, tongue, or race.

Better moments! Better moments! Ye are sunny angels' wings, Sent to shed a holier radiance o'er all dim and worldly things.

"A thousand various scenes and tones
Awake the better thought,

By which our duller years of life
Become inspired and taught.
In olden times there rudely came
Handwriting on the wall,

And prostrate souls fell horror-struck
At that wild spirit-call;

But now God's momentary gleam

Is sent into the soul

To guide uncertain wavering feet

To Life's high solemn goal.

Better moments! Better moments! Ye are sunny angels' wings,
Sent to shed a holier radiance o'er all dim and worldly things."

Of the numerous versified enigmas he wrote, I print four of the best. They may interest some of my younger readers. They are not difficult to guess, but I give the solutions at the end.

And ye were duller far than me,
Proud gentlemen of Spain,
To only know him as my First,
And never know his name."

66

II.

(Written in 1847.)

Know ye my Second, the green and the beautiful,

Sitting alone by the sea,

Weeping in sadness o'er children undutiful,
Woe-worn and pallid is she.

"For skeleton famine is rapidly striding,
Blasting the fruits of the earth,

Many a hovel his victims have died in,
Cursing the hour of their birth.

"Ah! my First from the heavens has darkly descended, Wrapping the earth in its gloom;

The dying lie helpless by corpses extended,

Sullenly waiting their doom.

"And the living watch hopeless the dead and the dying,

All gentler feelings have fled;

They know not-an hour and they may be lying
Outstretched, and cold with the dead.

"To see their blank features so set and despairing,
To gaze on those dark, tearless eyes
Which look into vacancy listlessly staring,

Might humble the great and the wise.

"Ah! the great and the wise! can no way be suggested

By the mighty in power and in soul,

To banish the curse that too long has rested

A shade and a fear on my Whole?"

III.

"There stood by the stake a sable form,
His grimy arms were bare,

A heavy sledge on his shoulder swung
That had fashioned many a share,
And his dark eyes shone like fiery sparks
From the red-hot iron's glare.

"Open the way! Fall back! Fall back! And let the victim through,

To the mocking chant of the bigot priest

And the muffled drums tattoo ;

They have tortured him long, but his spirit strong, Ne'er cowed 'neath rack or screw.

"My First stepped forth and grasped his arm

(He felt no muscle shake),

And led him within the fatal ring;

Nor then did his victim quake, When a chain was riveted to his waist, And round the fatal stake.

"He had seen my Second red with blood
Of friend and foe and steed,

He had looked on death in every form,
He had seen a father bleed;

The flames of my Whole were a terrible goal,
But he could not renounce his creed."

IV.

(August, 1849.)

"She stood upon the scaffold

With a firm, undaunted mien,
Condemned to die a shameful death,

But yesterday a Queen!
Ill-fated Jane, how brief thy reign!
How dark thy closing scenel

"She fearless gazes on my First
With sable trappings hung,
And to the bright and glittering axe
She speaks with jesting tongue:
'Fear not to fall, my neck is small,
Thy work is quickly done.'

"Where are the eyes that fearless gazed?
Their lustre now is fled.

Where is the tongue where hung the jest?
Inanimate and dead.

The snowy neck she used to deck,

The axe has left it red.