Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/579

 CAROLINE MYER. One of the schoolmistresses of Ohio, who should hold a creditable place among the poets of the West, is Caroline Myer, of Waynesville, Warren county. She was born near Waynesville, on the seventh of January, 1827. Her father, in early life a school-teacher, but in middle age a farmer, lives now at the old homestead. With- out opportunities for education higher or more hberal than could be afforded her at a district school, Miss Myer determined to become a teacher. Indefatigable industry, the outgrowth of an intelligent, healthful and resolute spirit, has enabled her to acquire a valuable reputation as a schoolmistress, and, meantime, to contribute poems to the leading literary papers and periodicals of the West, which have made her name agreeably familiar in many hundreds of homes. THE SHADOW-LAND OF THE HEART. Out-looking to the " great To Be," Upon a care-wrought wall we stand ; Yet oft we leave Reality To wander in this Shadow-Land. Sweet fays and specters grim abide — Here ever dwells a mystic band ; And ! what mocking phantoms glide Above the heart's weird Shadow-Land ! The shadows strange ! some burn or freeze The blasted soul with deadly blight — Some soothe like pleasant shade of trees, When noonday beams are fiercely bright. We rove throughout the lengthened range, And many a seraph form upstarts ; Like lightning swift their places change. Yet not one shadow e'er departs. Here — there — the same ! they fall again When Iilorning's lily lids are wet With tears the Night has wept — and when Younsr Even's robe with gems is set. Love waves o'er all his magic wand — Hate holds a cursed dominion here — And Sorrow stalks with mufiied band Upon the hurried steps of Fear. Each youthful Hope is imaged fair, Each dark-browed Doubt in sullen guise, And darker still, each mute Despair That ever closed dull, leaden eyes. Cold mists around this Shadow-Land Are rank with Guilt's own poison breath. And sweetest airs that ever fanned A saintly brow in joyous death, Blow over green ambrosial isles ; And hoarse, sepulchral voices shake The mounts where golden sunshine smiles. And music-tones wild raptures wake ! And noble deeds and lofty thought Are burning here on azure scroll ; The hero sees what once he wrought, While I repass the distant goal. Which steady chained my ardent gaze. When pure, unmingled joy was mine ! ( 5C3 )