IN THE VALLEY OF WATERS.


In the valley of waters we wept o'er the day
When the host of the stranger made Salem his prey,
And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay,
And our hearts were so full of the land far away.

The song they demanded in vain--it lay still
In our souls as the wind that hath died on the hill;
They call'd for the harp--but our blood they shall spill
Ere our right hand shall teach them one tone of their skill.

All stringlessly hung on the willow's sad tree,
As dead as her dead leaf those mute harps must be.
Our hands may be fettered--our tears still are free,
For our God and our glory--and Sion!--Oh thee.


THEY SAY THAT HOPE IS HAPPINESS.

"_Felix qui potuit ferum cognoscere causas_."--Virgil.


They say that Hope is happiness;
But genuine Love must prize the past,
And mem'ry wakes the thoughts that bless:
They rose the first--they set the last;
And all that mem'ry loves the most
Was once our only hope to be,