Page 299 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

W atched his ghost-like fingers flitting,
Likened to the music weeping.

From its tears he sought to borrow
Solace for his bitter angu'sh,
l ’eace for all tilings doomed to languish
In the bleeding breast of sorrow.

And as rises from the ocean,
Bright and beautiful, the morn'ng,
Hill and mead and stream adoi ..mg—
Rose the past to his emotion.

On its wings the music bore him
Straight from city, street and alley,
Bore him to his own loved valley,
Set the lordly Rhine before him.

Home lie saw, familiar places,
Vine-clad hills and shining meadows;
And from out the deepening shadows
Crowded long-forgotten faces.

And he heard the low of cattle,
And the goat-beils tinkling faintly,
And the brown bees murmuring quaintly
To the brooklet’s merry prattle.

A nd the sound of falling water
With it brought a vision holy,
For where turned the mill-wheel slowly,
Smiled the miner’s gentle daughter.

And in accents soft and tender
Spake he as in times long vanished,
Ere by ruthless fortune banished
From the presence of her splendor.