UC-NRLF 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 SELECTED FROM THE 
 
 States Sttcrars <8fa?ettr* 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 CUMMINGS, BILLIARD AND COMPANY, 
 AND HARRISON GRAY, 
 
 1826. 
 
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, to wit . 
 
 District Clerk's Office. 
 
 BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the second day of January, 
 A. D. 1826, in the Fiftieth Year of the Independence of the United 
 States of America, CUMMINGS, BILLIARD AND COMPANY, 
 of the said District, have deposited in this Office the Title of a 
 Book, the right whereof they claim as Proprietors in the Words 
 following, to wit : 
 
 "Miscellaneous Poems, selected from the United States Literary 
 Gazette," 
 
 In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, 
 entitled " An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing 
 the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Propri- 
 etors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned;" and al- 
 so to an Act entitled " An Act supplementary to an. Act, entitled, 
 An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies 
 of Maps, Charts and Books to the authors and Proprietors of such 
 copies during the times therein mentioned; and extending the ben- 
 efits thereof to the Arts of Desig ning, Engraving and Etching His- 
 torical and other Prints." 
 
 JNO. W. DAVIS, 
 Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 True & Greene, Printers, 
 Merchants' Hall. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 These poems were originally published in the 
 UNITED STATES LITERARY GAZETTE. In their 
 present form, they constitute a volume of American 
 Poetry, which can hardly fail to be acceptable to that 
 portion of the public, who take a peculiar interest in 
 this department of our literature. As the different 
 pieces are the productions of several authors, and of 
 a very miscellaneous character, it was not thought 
 expedient to attempt any systematic arrangement of 
 them. 
 
 M&31481 
 
CONTENTS OF THE VOLUME. 
 
 NAMES OF PIECES. PAGE. 
 
 To my Mother's Memory ANONYMOUS. 1 
 
 Omnipresence ANONYMOUS. 3 
 
 Hymn of the Waldenses BRYANT. 4 
 To an unknown Flower in a seclud- 
 ed Spot ANONYMOUS. 5 
 To S****, Weeping ANONYMOUS. 7 
 The Murdered Traveller BRYANT. 9 
 The Old Man's Funeral BRYANT. 10 
 
 Dirge over a nameless Grave LONGFELLOW. 12 
 
 A Last Wish ANONYMOUS. 13 
 An Indian at the Buryingplace of 
 
 his Fathers BRYANT. 15 
 
 The Graves of the Patriots PERCIVAL. 18 
 
 Monument Mountain BRYANT. 20 
 
 uines from a Traveller's Port Folio JONE s . 25 
 
 The Rivulet BRYANT. 27 
 
 Morning among the Hills PERCIVAL. 30 
 
 breams JONES. 34 
 
 Dream of the Sea MELLEN. 36 
 
 The Mythology of Greece PERCIVAL. 40 
 
 A Hymn BRYANT. 43 
 
 Thanksgiving LONGFELLOW. 47 
 
 (Spring PERCIVAL. 50 
 
11 
 
 Sonnet BRYANT. 
 
 Sonnet BRYANT. 
 
 Sunrise on the Hills LONGFELLOW. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty DA WES. 
 
 Song DA WES. 
 Song of the Grecian Amazon BRYANT. 
 Hymn of the Moravian Nuns LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Love Asleep ANONYMOUS. 
 
 Song BRYANT. 
 
 The Grecian Partizan BRYANT. 
 
 The Indian Hunter LONGFELLOW. 
 
 An Indian Story BRYANT. 
 
 The Soul of Song PERCIVAL. 
 
 The Desolate City PERCIVAL. 
 
 To Genevieve DA WES. 
 
 The Angler's Song LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Hymn to the North Star BRYANT. 
 
 Song of the Stars BRYANT. 
 
 < l The memory of joys that are past" PERCIVAL. 
 
 The Lapse of Time BRYANT. 
 
 Inscription PERCIVAL. 
 
 Sonnet to BRYANT. 
 
 Sonnet PERCIVAL. 
 
 Dion's Dream JONES. 
 
 The Gladiator JONES. 
 
 True Greatness PERCIVAL. 
 
 March BRYANT. 
 
 An April Day LONGFELLOW. 
 
 The Reign of May PERCIVAL. 
 
Ill 
 
 After a Tempest BRYANT. 98 
 Summer Wind BRYANT. 100 
 Autumn LONGFELLOW. 102 
 Morning Twilight PERCIVAL. 104 
 To a Cloud BRYANT. 105 
 Autumnal Nightfall LONGFELLOW. 106 
 Autumn Woods BRYANT. 108 
 Autumnal Hymn of the Husband- 
 man JONES. 110 
 Woods in Winter LONGFELLOW. Ill 
 A Song of Savoy LONGFELLOW. 113 
 Rebecca to Rowena ANONYMOUS. 114 
 Painting a Personification PERCIVAL. 116 
 Rizpah BRYANT. 121 
 Sonnet PERCIVAL. 124 
 The perpetual Youth of Nature A 
 
 Soliloquy PERCIVAL. 125 
 
 Mount Washington MELLEN. 128 
 
 Sunrise from Mount Washington DA WES. 129 
 
 Sonnet PERCIVAL. 131 
 The last Song of the Greek Patriot PERCIVAL. 132 
 
 Grecian Liberty PERCIVAL. 134 
 
 Time and Beauty ANONYMOUS. 139 
 
 A Vision PERCIVAL. 141 
 
 Italy a Conference PERCIVAL. 143 
 
 Italian Scenery LONGFELLOW. 148 
 
 The Fair Italian PERCIVAL. 151 
 
 The Venetian Gondolier LONGFELLOW. 155 
 
 Euthanasia JONES. 157 
 
A Song over the Grave of a Lover ANONYMOUS. 158 
 Reformed Tom Bell JONES. 160 
 
 A Moor's Curse on Spain JONES. 165 
 
 The Sea Diver LONGFELLOW. 168 
 
 Sardanapalus at the Temple of 
 Belus JONES. 170 
 
POEMS, 
 
 SELECTED FROM THE 
 UNITED STATES LITERARY GAZETTE. 
 
 TO MY MOTHER'S MEMORY. 
 
 My Mother ! weary years have passed, since last 
 I met thy gentle smile ; and sadly then 
 It fell upon my young and joyous heart. 
 There was a mortal paleness on thy cheek, 
 And well I knew, they bore thee far away 
 With a vain hope to mend the broken springs 
 The springs of life. And bitter tears I shed 
 In childhood's short-lived agony of grief, 
 When soothing voices said that thou wert gone, 
 And that I must not weep for thou wert blest. 
 Full many a flower has bloomed upon thy grave, 
 And many a winter's snow has melted there ; 
 Childhood has passed, and youth is passing now, 
 And scatters paler roses on my path ; 
 Dun and more dim my fancy paints thy form, 
 Thy mild blue eye, thy cheek so thin and fair, 
 
Touched, when I saw thee last, with hectic flush, 
 Telling, in solemn beauty, of the grave. 
 Mine ear hath lost the accents of thy voice, 
 And faintly o'er my memory comes at times 
 A glimpse of joys that had their source in thee, 
 Like one brief strain of some forgotton song. 
 And then at times a blessed dream comes down, 
 Missioned, perhaps, by thee from brighter realms ; 
 And wearing all the semblance of thy form, 
 Gives to my heart the joy of days gone by. 
 With gushing tears I wake ; O, art thou not 
 Unseen and bodiless around my path, 
 Watching with brooding love about thy child ? 
 Is it not so, my mother ? I will not 
 Think it a fancy, wild, and vain, and false, 
 That spirits good and pure as thine, descend 
 Like guardian angels round the few they loved, 
 Oft intercepting coming woes, and still 
 Joying on every beam that gilds our paths ; 
 And waving snowy pinions o'er our heads 
 When midnight slumbers close our aching eye?. 
 
3 
 
 OMNIPRESENCE. 
 
 There is an unseen Power around, 
 
 Existing in the silent air ; 
 Where treadeth Man, where space is found, 
 
 Unheard, unknown, that Power is there. 
 
 And not when bright and busy Day 
 Is round us with its crowds and cares, 
 
 And not when Night with solemn sway 
 
 Bids awe-hushed souls breathe forth in prayers- 
 
 Not when on sickness' weary couch 
 
 He writhes with pain's deep, long drawn groan, 
 Not when his steps in freedom touch 
 
 The fresh green turf is man alone* 
 
 In proud Belshazzar's gilded hall, 
 
 'Mid music, lights, and revelry,- 
 That Present Spirit looked on all, 
 
 From crouching slave, to royalty. 
 
 When sinks the pious Christian's soul, 
 And scenes of horror daunt his eye, 
 
 He hears it whispered through the air, 
 " A Power of Mercy still is nigh." 
 
 The Power that watches, guides, defends, 
 
 Till man becomes a lifeless sod, 
 Till earth is nought, nought, earthly friends, 
 
 That omnipresent Power is God, 
 
HYMN OF THE WALDENSE& 
 
 Hear, father, hear thy faint afflicted flock 
 Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock ; 
 While those, who seek to slay thy children, hold 
 Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold ; 
 And the broad goodly lands, with pleasant airs 
 That nurse the fruit and wave the grain, are theirs. 
 
 Yet better were this mountain wilderness, 
 And this \vild life of danger and distress 
 Watchings by night and perilous flight by day, 
 And meetings in the depths of earth to pray, 
 Better, far better, than to kneel with them, 
 And pay the impious rite thy laws condemn. 
 
 Thou, Lord, dost hold the thunder ; the firm land 
 Tosses in billows when it feels thy hand ; 
 Thou dashest nation against nation, then 
 Stillest the angry world to peace again. 
 Oh touch their stony hearts who hunt thy sons 
 The murderers of our wives and little ones. 
 
 Yet, mighty God, yet shall thy frown look forth 
 Unveiled, and terribly shall shake the earth. 
 Then the foul power of priestly sin and all 
 Its long upheld idolatries shall fall. 
 Thou shalt raise up the trampled and opprest, 
 And thy delivered saints shall dwell in rest. 
 
TO AN UNKNOWN FLOWER IN A SECLUDED SPOT. 
 
 Sweet little flower, so gaily drest, 
 With nature's charms so richly blest, 
 
 Thou giv'st me pleasure. 
 Although thy name I know it not, 
 I'll meditate upon thy lot, 
 
 Now I'm at leisure. 
 
 On beauty's bosom thou may'st lie, 
 There lose thy perfume, and there die ; 
 
 A happy death ! 
 
 Or, battered by the tempest storm, 
 Bow down thy weak and slender form 
 
 Before its breath, 
 
 Or, torn away by whirlwind's blast, 
 Borne high in air, at length be cast 
 
 Upon the ground. 
 
 Or, parched by drought, may'st droop away, 
 Return again to humble clay, 
 
 Nor more be found. 
 
 Or, taken from thy native place 
 
 By pious children's hands, may'st grace 
 
 A parent's grave ; 
 Or, severed from thy taper stem 
 To deck the vernal diadem, 
 
 O'er beauty wave. 
 
 A3 
 
Or, o'er the seas in safety borne, 
 With glowing colours may'st adorn 
 
 A foreign land ; 
 
 Or, in some regal hot-house placed, 
 Although by other flowers it's graced, 
 
 A wonder stand. 
 
 Or, 'scaped from tempests, drought, and men, 
 Unhurt thy petals, leaves, or stem, 
 
 Thou here may'st stay ; 
 And, having spread thy odours round, 
 And strown thy leaves upon the ground, 
 
 Then pass away. 
 
 Sweet little flower, in thee I see 
 An emblem of mortality 
 
 And man's sad fate. 
 Like thine, thus dubious is his lot, 
 Not sure to live in any spot, 
 
 Or any state : 
 
 Sometimes he's tost on trouble's billow ; 
 Sometimes he rests on fortune's pillow ; 
 
 A varied lot ! 
 
 And having passed through hope and fear, 
 A short but turbulent career, 
 
 He's soon forgot. 
 
TO S****, WEEPING. 
 
 Why shouldst thou weep ? no cause hast thou 
 
 For one desponding sigh ; 
 No care has marked that polished brow, 
 
 Nor dimmed thy radiant eye. 
 
 Why shouldst thou weep ? around thee glows 
 
 The purple light of youth, 
 And all thy looks the calm disclose 
 
 Of innocence and truth. 
 
 Nay, weep not while thy sun shines bright, 
 
 And cloudless is thy day, 
 While past and present joys unite 
 
 To cheer thee on thy way ; 
 
 While fond companions round thee move 
 
 To youth and nature true, 
 And friends whose looks of anxious love 
 
 Thy every step pursue. 
 
 Nay, weep not now reserve thy tears, 
 
 For that approaching hour, 
 When o'er the scenes of other years 
 
 The clouds of time shall lower. 
 
 When thou, alas ! no more canst see, 
 
 But in the realms above, 
 The friends who ever looked on thee 
 
 Unutterable love ! 
 
8 
 
 When some, thy fond companions now 
 
 And constant to thy side, 
 View thee with anger-darkening brow, 
 
 Or cold repulsive pride. 
 
 Or some, the faithful of that band, 
 Bless thee with faltering breath, 
 
 While from their lips thy trembling hand 
 Wipes the chill dews of death. 
 
 Nay, weep not now reserve thy tears 
 
 For that approaching day, 
 When through the gradual lapse of years 
 
 All joys have stolen away ; 
 
 When Memory a wavering light 
 
 Sheds dimly o'er the past, 
 And Hope no longer veils from sight 
 
 The horrors of the last. 
 
 Nay, weep not then let but the ray 
 
 Of heavenly peace be thine, 
 Glorious shall be thy summer's day, 
 
 Unclouded its decline. 
 
 Then Memory's light, though dim, shall show 
 
 How pure thy former years, 
 While hope her holiest ray shall throw, 
 
 On realms beyond the spheres. 
 
THE MURDERED TRAVELLER. 
 
 When Spring to woods and wastes around, 
 
 Brought bloom and joy again ; 
 The murdered traveller's bones were found. 
 
 Far down a narrow glen. 
 
 The fragrant birch, above him, hung 
 
 Her tassels in the sky ; 
 And many a vernal blossom sprung, 
 
 And nodded, careless, by. 
 
 The red-bird warbled, as he wrought 
 
 His hanging nest o'erhead, 
 And fearless near the fatal spot, 
 
 Her young the partridge led. 
 
 But there was weeping far away, 
 
 And gentle eyes, for him, 
 With watching many an anxious day, 
 
 Grew sorrowful and dim. 
 
 They little knew, who loved him so, 
 
 The fearful death he met, 
 When shouting o'er the desert snow, 
 
 Unarmed, and hard beset. 
 
 Nor how when round the frosty pole 
 
 The northern dawn was red, 
 The mountain wolf and wild-cat stole 
 
 To banquet on the dead. 
 
10 
 
 Nor how, when strangers found his bones, 
 
 They dressed the hasty bier, 
 And marked his grave with nameless stones, 
 
 Unmoistened by a tear. 
 
 But long they looked, and feared, and wept, 
 
 Within his distant home ; 
 And dreamed, and started as they slept, 
 
 For joy that he was come. 
 
 So long they looked but never spied 
 
 His welcome step again, 
 Nor knew the fearful death he died 
 
 Far down that narrow glen. 
 
 THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL. 
 
 I saw an aged man upon his bier, 
 
 His hair was thin and white, and on his brow 
 A record of the cares of many a year ; 
 
 Cares, that were ended and forgotten now. 
 And there was sadness round, and faces bowed, 
 And woman's tears fell fast and children wailed aloud. 
 
 Then rose another hoary man and said, 
 In faltering accents, to that weeping train, 
 
 Why mourn ye, that our aged friend is dead ? 
 Ye are not sad to see the gathered grain, 
 
11 
 
 Nor when their mellow fruit the orchards cast, 
 Nor when the yellow woods shake down the ripened 
 mast. 
 
 Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled, 
 His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky, 
 
 In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled, 
 Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie, 
 
 And leaves the smile of his departure, spread 
 
 O'er the warm-coloured heaven and ruddy mountain 
 head. 
 
 Why weep ye then for him, who, having run 
 The bound of man's appointed years, at last, 
 
 Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labours done, 
 Serenely to his final rest has past ; 
 
 While the soft memory of his virtues, yet 
 
 Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set. 
 
 His youth was innocent ; his riper age, 
 
 Marked with some act of goodness, every day ; 
 
 And watched by eyes that loved him, calm, and sage, 
 Faded his late declining years away. 
 
 Cheerful he gave his being up, and went 
 
 To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent. 
 
 That life was happy ; every day he gave 
 Thanks for the fair existence that was his ; 
 
 For a sick fancy made him not her slave, 
 To mock him with her phantom miseries. 
 
12 
 
 No chronic tortures racked his aged limb, 
 
 For luxury and sloth had nourished none for him. 
 
 And I am glad, that he has lived thus long, 
 And glad, that he has gone to his reward ; 
 
 Nor deem, that kindly nature did him wrong, 
 Softly to disengage the vital cord. 
 
 When his weak hand grew palsied, and his eye 
 
 Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die. 
 
 DIRGE OVER A NAMELESS GRAVE. 
 
 By yon still river, where the wave 
 Is winding slow at evening's close, 
 
 The beech, upon a nameless grave, 
 Its sadly-moving shadow throws. 
 
 O'er the fair woods the sun looks down 
 Upon the many twinkling leaves, 
 
 And twilight's mellow shades are brown, 
 Where darkly the green turf upheaves. 
 
 The river glides in silence there, 
 And hardly waves the sapling tree : 
 
 Sweet flowers are springing, and the air 
 Is full of balm, but where is she ! 
 
 They bade her wed a son of pride, 
 
 And leave the hopes she cherished long : 
 
13 
 
 She loved but one, and would not hide 
 A love which knew no wrong-. 
 
 And months went sadly on, and years : 
 And she was wasting day by day : 
 
 At length she died, and many tears 
 Were shed that she should pass away. 
 
 Then came a gray old man, and knelt 
 With bitter weeping by her tomb : 
 
 And others mourned for him, who felt 
 That he had sealed a daughter's doom. 
 
 The funeral train has long past on, 
 And time wiped dry a father's tear ! 
 
 Farewell, lost maiden ! there is one 
 That mourns thee yet, and he is here. 
 
 A LAST WISH. 
 
 When breath and sense have left this clay, 
 
 In yon damp vault, oh ! lay me not ! 
 
 But kindly bear my bones away 
 
 To some lone, green, and sunny spot ; 
 
 Where few shall be the feet that tread 
 
 With reckless haste upon my grave ; 
 
 And gently o'er my last, still bed 
 
 To whispering winds the grass shall wave. 
 
14 
 
 The wild flowers too, I loved so well, 
 Shall blow and breathe their sweetness there, 
 And all around my grave shall tell, 
 " She felt that nature's face was fair." 
 And those that come because they loved 
 The mouldering frame that lies below, 
 Shall find their anguish half removed, 
 While that sweet spot shall soothe their wo. 
 The notes of happy birds alone 
 Shall there disturb the silent air ; 
 And when the cheerful sun goes down, 
 His beams shall linger longest there. 
 And if, when soft night breezes wake, 
 Roving among the sleeping flowers, 
 When dews their airy home forsake, 
 To rest till morn in earthly bowers, 
 If then some dearer friend than all 
 Steal to my grave to weep awhile, 
 And happier hours awhile recall, 
 And bid fond Memory beguile 
 The tediousness of cherished grief 
 Faintly descried a fading ray 
 My passing ghost shall breathe relief, 
 And whisper " Lingerer ! come away !'* 
 
- 15 
 
 AN INDIAN AT THE BURYING-PLACE OF HIS FATHERS. 
 
 It is the spot I came to seek, 
 
 My fathers' ancient burial-place, 
 Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak, 
 
 Withdrew our wasted race. 
 It is the spot, I know it well 
 Of which our old traditions tell. 
 
 For here the upland bank sends out 
 
 A ridge toward the river side ; 
 I know the shaggy hills about, 
 
 The meadow smooth and wide ; 
 The plains, that, toward the southern sky, 
 Fenced east and west by mountains lie. 
 
 A white man, gazing on the scene, 
 
 Would say a lovely spot was here, 
 And praise the lawns so fresh arid green 
 
 Between the hills so sheer. 
 I like it not I would the plain 
 Lay in its tall old groves again.. 
 
 The sheep are on the slopes around, 
 
 The cattle in the meadows feed, 
 And labourers turn the crumbling ground: 
 
 Or drop the yellow seed, 
 And prancing steeds, in trappings gay. 
 Whirl the bright chariot o'er the way. 
 
16 
 
 Methinks it were a nobler sight 
 
 To see these vales in woods arrayed, 
 
 Their summits in the golden light, 
 Their trunks in grateful shade, 
 
 And herds of deer, that bounding go 
 
 O'er rills and prostrate trees below. 
 
 And then to mark the lord of all, 
 The forest hero, trained to wars, 
 
 Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall, 
 And seamed with glorious scars, 
 
 Walk forth, amid his reign, to dare 
 
 The wolf, and grapple with the bear. 
 
 This bank, in which the dead were laid, 
 Was sacred when its soil was ours ; 
 
 Hither the artless Indian maid 
 
 Brought wreaths of beads and flowers, 
 
 And the gray chief and gifted seer 
 
 Worshipped the God of thunders here. 
 
 But now the wheat is green and high 
 On clods that hid the warrior's breast, 
 
 And scattered in the furrows lie 
 The weapons of his rest, 
 
 And there, in the loose sand, is thrown 
 
 Of his large arm the mouldering bone. 
 
 Ah little thought the strong and brave, 
 
 Who bore their lifeless chieftain forth ; 
 Or the young wife, that weeping gave 
 
17 
 
 Her first-born to the earth, 
 That the pale race, who waste us now, 
 Among their bones should guide the plough. 
 
 They waste us aye like April snow 
 In the warm noon, we shrink away ; 
 
 And fast they follow, as we go 
 Towards the setting day, 
 
 Till they shall fill the land, and we 
 
 Are driven into the western sea. 
 
 But I behold a fearful sign, 
 
 To which the white men's eyes are blind ; 
 Their race may vanish hence, like mine, 
 
 And leave no trace behind, 
 Save ruins o'er the region spread, 
 And the white stones above the dead. 
 
 Before these fields were shorn and tilled, 
 Full to the brim our rivers flowed ; 
 
 The melody of waters filled 
 The fresh and boundless wood ; 
 
 And torrents dashed, and rivulets played, 
 
 And fountains spouted in the shade. 
 
 Those grateful sounds are heard no more, 
 The springs are silent in the sun, 
 
 The rivers, by the blackening shore, 
 With lessening current run ; 
 
 The realm our tribes are crushed to get 
 
 May be a barren desert yet. 
 B2 
 
18 
 
 THE GRAVES OF THE PATRIOTS. 
 
 Here rest the great and good here they repose 
 
 After their generous toil. A sacred band, 
 
 They take their sleep together, while the year 
 
 Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves, 
 
 And gathers them again, as Winter frowns. 
 
 Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre green sods 
 
 Are all their monument, and yet it tells 
 
 A nobler history, than pillared piles, 
 
 Or the eternal pyramids. They need 
 
 No statue nor inscription to reveal 
 
 Their greatness. It is round them, and the joy 
 
 With which their children tread the hallowed ground 
 
 That holds their venerated bones, the peace 
 
 That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth 
 
 That clothes the land they rescued, these, though 
 
 mute, 
 
 As feeling ever is when deepest, these 
 Are monuments more lasting, than the fanes 
 Reared to the kings and demigods of old. 
 
 Touch not the ancient elms, that bend their shade 
 Over their lowly graves ; beneath their boughs 
 There is a solemn darkness, even at noon, 
 Suited to such as visit at the shrine 
 Of serious liberty. No factious voice 
 Called them unto the field of generous fame. 
 But the pure consecrated love of home. 
 
19 
 
 No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakes 
 In all its greatness. It has told itself 
 To the astonished gaze of awe-struck kings, 
 At Marathon, at Bannockburn, and here, 
 Where first our patriots sent the invader back 
 Broken and cowed. Let these green elms be all 
 To tell us where they fought, and where they lie. 
 Their feelings were all nature, and they need 
 No art to make them known. They live in us, 
 While we are like them, simple, hardy, bold, 
 Worshipping nothing but our own pure hearts, 
 And the one universal Lord. They need 
 No column pointing to the heaven they sought, 
 To tell us of their home. The heart itself, 
 Left to its own free purpose, hastens there, 
 And there alone reposes. Let these elms 
 Bend their protecting shadow o'er their graves, 
 And build with their green roof the only fane, 
 Where we may gather on the hallowed day, 
 That rose to them in blood, and set in glory. 
 Here let us meet, and while our motionless lips 
 Give not a sound, and all around is mute 
 In the deep sabbath of a heart too full 
 For words or tears here let us strew the sod 
 With the first flowers of spring, and make to them 
 An offering of the plenty, Nature gives, 
 And they have rendered ours -perpetually. 
 
MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. 
 
 Thou who would'st see the lovely and the wild 
 
 Mingled in harmony on Nature's face, 
 
 Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot 
 
 Fail not with weariness, for on their tops 
 
 The beauty and the majesty of earth 
 
 Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget 
 
 The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'sf 
 
 The haunts of men below thee, and above 
 
 The mountain summits, thy expanding heart 
 
 Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world 
 
 To which thou art translated, and partake 
 
 The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look 
 
 Upon the green and rolling forest tops, 
 
 And down into the secrets of the glens, 
 
 And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive 
 
 To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once, 
 
 Here on white villages and tilth and herds 
 
 And swarming roads, and there on solitudes 
 
 That only hear the torrent and the wind 
 
 And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice 
 
 That seems a fragment of some mighty wall 
 
 Built by the hand that fashioned the old world 
 
 To separate its nations, and thrown down 
 
 When the flood drowned them. To the north a path 
 
 Conducts you up the narrow battlement. 
 
 Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild 
 
 With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint, 
 
And many a hanging crag. But, to the east, 
 
 Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs, 
 
 Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear 
 
 Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark 
 
 With the thick moss of centuries, and there 
 
 Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt 
 
 Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing 
 
 To stand upon the beetling verge, and see 
 
 Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall r 
 
 Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base 
 
 Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear 
 
 Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound 
 
 Of winds, that struggle with the woods below, 
 
 Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene 
 
 Is lovely round ; a beautiful river there 
 
 Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads, 
 
 The paradise he made unto himself, 
 
 Mining the soil for ages. On each side 
 
 The fields swell upward to the hills ; beyond, 
 
 Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise 
 
 The mighty columns with which earth props heaven. 
 
 There is a tale about these gray old rocks, 
 A sad tradition of unhappy love 
 And sorrows borne and ended, long ago, 
 When over these fair vales the savage sought 
 His game in the thick woods. There was a maid, 
 The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed, 
 With wealth of raven tresses, a light form, 
 And a gay heart. About her cabin door 
 
The wide old woods resounded with her song 
 And fairy laughter all the summer day. 
 She loved her cousin ; such a love was deemed 
 By the morality of those stern tribes, 
 Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long 
 Against her love, and reasoned with her heart 
 As simple Indian maiden might. In vain. 
 Then her eye lost its lustre and her step 
 Its lightness, and the gray old men that passed 
 Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more 
 The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks 
 Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said, 
 Upon the Winter of their age. She went 
 To weep where no eye saw, and was not found 
 When all the merry girls were met to dance, 
 And all the hunters of the tribe were out ; 
 Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk 
 The shining ear ; nor when, by the river side, 
 They pulled the grape and startled the wild shades 
 With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames 
 Would whisper to each other, as they saw 
 Her wasting form, and say, The girl will die. 
 
 One day into the bosom of a friend, 
 A playmate of her young and innocent years, 
 She poured her griefs. Thou know'st, and thou alone, 
 She said, for I have told thee, all my love 
 And guilt and sorrow. I am sick of life. 
 All night I weep in darkness, and the morn 
 Glares on me, as upon a thing accurst, 
 That has no business on the earth. I hate 
 
23 
 
 The pastimes and the pleasant toils that oncE 
 I loved ; the cheerful voices of my friends 
 Have an unnatural horror in mine ear. 
 In dreams, my mother, from the land of souls, 
 Calls me and chides me. All that look on me 
 Do seem to know my shame ; I cannot bear 
 Their eyes ; I cannot from my heart root out 
 The love that wrings it so, and I must die. 
 
 It was a Summer morning and they went 
 To this old precipice. About the cliffs, 
 Lay garlands, ears of maize, and skins of wolf 
 And shaggy bear, the offerings of the tribe 
 Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed r 
 Like worshippers of the elder time, that God 
 Doth walk on the high places and affect 
 The earth-o'erlooking mountains. She had on 
 The ornaments with which the father loved 
 To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl, 
 And bade her wear when stranger warriors came 
 To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down,. 
 And sung, all day, old songs of love and death, 
 And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers, 
 And prayed that safe and swift might be her way 
 To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief 
 Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red. 
 Beautiful lay the region of her tribe 
 Below her waters resting in the embrace 
 Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades 
 Opening amid the leafy wilderness. 
 She gazed upon it long, and at the sight 
 
24 
 
 Of her own village peeping through the trees, 
 
 And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof 
 
 Of him she loved with an unlawful love, 
 
 And came to die for, a warm gush of tears 
 
 Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low 
 
 And the hill shadows long, she threw herself 
 
 From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped 
 
 Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave ; 
 
 And there they laid her, in the very garb 
 
 With which the maiden decked herself for death, 
 
 With the same withering wild flowers in her hair. 
 
 And o'er the mould that covered her, the tribe 
 
 Built up a simple monument, a cone 
 
 Of small loose stones. Thence forward, all who passed, 
 
 Hunter and dame and virgin, laid a stone 
 
 In silence on the pile. It stands there yet. 
 
 And Indians from the distant West, that come 
 
 To visit where their fathers' bones are laid, 
 
 Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day 
 
 The mountain where the hapless maiden died 
 
 Is called the Mountain of the Monument. 
 
LINES FROM A TRAVELLER'S PORT FOLIO. 
 
 I stood upon the lofty Alleghany. 
 It was a summer morning the bright sun 
 Shone o'er the mountain tops on the fair vales, 
 Which lay stretched out beneath his gladdening beam. 
 Calm, peaceful vales, such as the aged love 
 To rest their wearied limbs upon when life 
 Draws near its close such as young lovers seek. 
 And there I stood upon that mountain's brow y 
 And looked upon the morning ; far away 
 On either hand, and where the Ohio glides 
 Serenely to the bed of other waters, 
 Lay fields of brightly shining summer grain, 
 Where lusty arms plied nimble reaping hooks, 
 And bright-eyed virgins, as of olden time, 
 Them followed, and the yellow sheaf upreared. 
 And there were pastures fair beneath mine eye, 
 And o'er them grazed innumerous herds and flocks, 
 The wealth of the strong man, who years ago 
 Built his rude cabin by the beetling brow 
 Of these eternal mountains, and sat down, 
 And lopt the sycamore, and felled the oak, 
 And had him sons and daughters born amidst 
 The shouts and battle-songs of savage tribes. 
 And still I stood upon that mountain's brow, 
 And still it was the morning. O'er me past 
 A breath from out the deep and fearful glen, 
 Which lay beside me, fringed with meagre pines 
 
26 
 
 The shrubbery of the bleak mountain top. 
 Within me was a voice which bade me look 
 Upon the ages which had passed away ; 
 Upon the time when those far-spreading- vales 
 Were peopled by another race of men ; 
 The builders of the proud sepulchral pile 
 And architects of works of use unknown. 
 'Tis thus the potent finger of decay 
 Saps the foundation of all earthly things, 
 And there will pass a very few brief years 
 Ere all who people this fair land shall lie 
 In the same grave which holds her earliest sons. 
 The oak shall grow upon the well ploughed glebe 
 The wild vine leap upon the nectarine's trunk, 
 And strangle it with a too close embrace 
 The thistle shall o'errun the beautiful mead 
 The bison feed upon the cities' site 
 The adder coil him in the lady's bower 
 And hiss upon the mastodon, as he 
 Comes from his exile of a thousand years. 
 x And these shall be because such things have been, 
 For nature is immutable and keeps 
 No chanceful course. 
 
THE RIVULET. 
 
 This little rill that, from the springs 
 Of yonder grove, its current brings, 
 Plays on the slope awhile, and then 
 Goes prattling into groves again, 
 Oft to its warbling waters drew 
 My little feet when life was new. 
 When woods in early green were drest. 
 And from the chambers of the west 
 The warmer breezes, travelling out, 
 Breathed the new scent of flowers about, 
 My truant steps from home would stray, 
 Upon its grassy side to play ; 
 To crop the violet on its brim, 
 And listen to the throstle's hymn, 
 With blooming cheek and open brow, 
 As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou. 
 
 And when the days of boyhood came, 
 And I had grown in love with fame, 
 Duly I sought thy banks, and tried 
 My first rude numbers by thy side. 
 Words cannot tell how glad and gay 
 The scenes of life before me lay. 
 High visions then, and lofty schemes 
 Glorious and bright as fairy dreams, 
 And daring hopes, that now to speak 
 Would bring the blood into my cheek, 
 
28 
 
 Passed o'er me ; and I wrote on high 
 A name I deemed should never die. 
 
 Years change thee not. Upon yon hill 
 The tall old maples, verdant still, 
 Yet tell, in proud and grand decay, 
 How swift the years have passed away, 
 Since first, a child, and half afraid, 
 I wandered in the forest shade. 
 But thou, gay, merry rivulet, 
 Dost dimple, play, and prattle yet ; 
 And sporting with the sands that pave 
 The windings of thy silver wave, 
 And dancing to thy own wild chime, 
 Thou laughest at the lapse of time. 
 The same sweet sounds are in my ear 
 My early childhood loved to hear ; 
 As pure thy limpid waters run, 
 As bright they sparkle to the sun ; 
 As fresh the herbs that crowd to drink 
 The moisture of thy oozy brink ; 
 The violet there, in soft May dew, 
 Comes up, as modest and as blue ; 
 As green amid thy current's stress, 
 Floats the scarce-rooted water cress ; 
 And the brown ground bird, in thy glen, 
 Still chirps as merrily as then. 
 
 Thou changest not but I am changed, 
 Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged ; 
 
29 
 
 And the grave stranger, come to see 
 The play-place of his infancy, 
 Has scarce a single trace of him 
 Who sported once upon thy brim. 
 The visions of my youth are past 
 Too bright, too beautiful to last. 
 Pve tried the world it wears no more 
 The colouring of romance it wore. 
 Yet well has nature kept the truth 
 She promised to my earliest youth ; 
 The radiant beauty, shed abroad 
 On all the glorious works of God, 
 Shows freshly, to my sobered eye, 
 Each charm it wore in days gone by. 
 
 A few brief years shall pass away, 
 And I, all trembling, weak, and grey, 
 Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold 
 My ashes in the embracing mould, 
 (If haply the dark will of fate 
 Indulge my life so long a date) 
 May come for the last time to look 
 Upon my childhood's favourite brook. 
 Then dimly on my eye shall gleam 
 The sparkle of thy dancing stream ; 
 And faintly on my ear shall fall 
 Thy prattling current's merry call ; 
 Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright 
 As when thou met'st my tnfant sisrht 
 
30 
 
 And I shall sleep and on thy side, 
 As ages after ages glide, 
 Children their early sports shall try, 
 And pass to hoary age and die. 
 But tliou, unchanged from year to year, 
 Gaily shalt play and glitter here ; 
 Amid young flowers and tender grass 
 Thy endless infancy shalt pass ; 
 And, singing down thy narrow glen, 
 Shalt mock the fading race of men. 
 
 MORNING AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 A night had passed away among the hills, 
 And now the first faint tokens of the dawn 
 Showed in the cast. The bright and dewy star, 
 Whose mission is to usher in the morn, 
 Looked through the cool air, like a blessed thing 
 In a far purer world. Below there lay 
 Wrapped round a woody mountain tranquilly 
 A misty cloud. Its edges caught the light, 
 That now came up from out the unseen depth 
 Of the full fount of day, and they were laced 
 With colours ever-brightening. I had waked 
 From a long sleep of many changing dreams, 
 And now in the fresh forest air I stood 
 Nerved to another day of wandering. 
 
81 
 
 Before me rose a pinnacle of rock, 
 
 Lifted above the wood that heftimed it in, 
 
 And now already glowing". There the beanii 
 
 Came from the far horizon, and they wrapped it 
 
 In light and glory. Round its vapoury cone 
 
 A crown of far-diverging rays shot out, 
 
 And gave to it the semblance of an altar 
 
 Lit for the worship of the undying flame, 
 
 That centred in the circle of the sun, 
 
 Now coming from the ocean's fathomless caves, 
 
 Anon would stand in solitary pomp 
 
 Above the loftiest peaks, and cover them 
 
 With splendour as a garment. Thitherward 
 
 I bent my eager steps ; and through the grove 
 
 Now dark as deepest night, and thickets hung 
 
 With a rich harvest of unnumbered gem?, 
 
 Waiting the clearer dawn to catch the hues 
 
 Shed from the starry fringes of its veil 
 
 On cloud and mist and dew, and backward thrown 
 
 With undiminished beauty, on I went 
 
 Mounting with hasty foot, and thence emerging 
 
 I scaled that rocky steep, and there awaited 
 
 Silent the full appearing of the sun. 
 
 Below there lay a far extended sea 
 Rolling in feathery waves. The wind blew o'er it, 
 And tossed it round the high ascending racks, 
 And swept it through the half hidden forest tope, 
 Till, like an ocean waking into storm, 
 It heaved and weltered. Gloriously the light 
 Crested its billows, and those craggy islands 
 
32 
 
 Shone on it like to palaces of spar 
 
 Built on a sea of pearl. Far overhead 
 
 The sky without a vapour or a stain, 
 
 Intensely blue, even deepened into purple, 
 
 Where nearer the horizon it received 
 
 A tincture from the mist that there dissolved 
 
 Into the viewless air, the sky bent round 
 
 The awful dome of a most mighty temple 
 
 Built by omnipotent hands for nothing less 
 
 Than infinite worship. There I stood in silence* 
 
 I had no words to tell the mingled thoughts 
 
 Of wonder and of joy, that then came o'er me, 
 
 Even with a whirlwind's rush. So beautiful, 
 
 So bright, so glorious ! Such a majesty 
 
 In yon pure vault ! So many dazzling tints 
 
 In yonder waste of waves, so like the ocean 
 
 With its unnumbered islands there incircled 
 
 By foaming surges, that the mounting eagle, 
 
 Lifting his fearless pinion through the clouds 
 
 To bathe in purest sunbeams, seemed an ospray 
 
 Hovering above his prey, and yon tall pines, 
 
 Their tops half mantled in a snowy veil, 
 
 A frigate with full convass, bearing on 
 
 To conquest and to glory. But even these, 
 
 Had round them something of the lofty air 
 
 In which they moved ; not like to things of earth, 
 
 But heightened, and made glorious, as became 
 
 Such pomp and splendour. 
 
 Who can tell the brightness, 
 That every moment caught a newer glow ; 
 
38 
 
 That circle, with its centre like the heart 
 Of elemental fire, and spreading out 
 In floods of liquid gold on the blue sky 
 And on the opaline waves, crowned with a rainbow 
 Bright as the arch that bent above the throne 
 Seen in a vision by the holy man 
 In Patmos ! Who can tell how it ascended, 
 And flowed more widely o'er that lifted ocean 
 Till instantly the unobstructed sun 
 Rolled up his sphere of fire, floating away- 
 Away in a pure ether, far from earth, 
 And all its clouds, and pouring forth unbounded 
 His arrowy brightness ! From that burning centre 
 At once there ran along the level line 
 Of that imagined sea, a stream of gold 
 Liquid and flowing gold, that seemed to tremble 
 Even with a furnace heat, on to the point, 
 Whereon I stood. At once that sea of vapour 
 Parted away, and melting into air 
 Rose round me, and I stood involved in light, 
 As if a flame had kindled up, and wrapped me 
 In its innocuous blaze. Away it rolled, 
 Wave after wave. Then climbed the highest rocks, 
 Poured over them in surges, and then rushed 
 Down glens and valleys, like a wintry torrent 
 Dashed instant to the plain. It seemed a moment, 
 And they were gone, as if the touch of fire 
 At once dissolved them. Then I found myself 
 Midway in air ; ridge after ridge below, 
 Descended with their opulence of woods 
 
84 
 
 Even to the dim seen level, where a lake 
 Flashed in the sun, and from it wound a line, 
 Now silvery bright even to the farthest verge 
 Of the encircling hills. A waste of rocks 
 Was round me but below how beautiful, 
 IIow ricii the plain a wilderness of groves 
 And ripening harvests ; while the sky of June- 
 The soft blue sky of June, and the cool air, 
 That makes it then a luxury to live, 
 Only to breathe it, and the busy echo 
 Of cascades, and the voice of mountain brooks, 
 Stole with such gentle meanings to my heart. 
 That where I stood seemed Heaven. 
 
 DREAMS. 
 
 Oh that dreams were not dreams, for mine have been 
 The shadows of my hopes. Thence have I grown 
 In love witli ideal forms. In youth I saw 
 Most beauteous beings in mine hours of sleep 
 Fair maidens with their bright and sunny locks 
 Falling o'er necks whose hue was of the snow, 
 O'er bosoms whose soft throbbings not the veil 
 Of gossamer could hide from the tranced eye. 
 I saw r , when that my cheek had lost its down, 
 And T wrote MAN, a world of glittering words 
 Writ by the hand of health upon that leaf 
 
35 
 
 Of human life. I saw bright swords, brave plumes, 
 
 And staves of office robes of honour all 
 
 That speak of high employment, and awards 
 
 Of national emprises. Other thoughts 
 
 That were by day, hopes, and in slumber, dreams, 
 
 Came to me, of my line continued in 
 
 Illustrious heirs. The boy upon my knee 
 
 Became a Socrates, and he who played 
 
 With the dark ringlets on his mother's brow, 
 
 The saviour of a realm. The little maid 
 
 Who, lost in mimic tenderness, caressed 
 
 A pasteboard emblem of our helpless state, 
 
 I wedded to a warrior, sworn and pledged 
 
 To die as had his fathers, at the call 
 
 Of liberty. 
 
 Time flew, and I am now 
 An aged man with hoary hair, and step 
 All trembling ; yet I entertain a crowd 
 Of dreams, but they are of the world whereto 
 Age, and hopes crushed are hurrying me. I see 
 In slumber an offended God, begirt 
 With Cherubim around his hidden throne, 
 And angels of his attributes, the guards 
 Of his dominions. They who represent 
 Truth, Peace, and Justice ask the darker doom 
 Upon my head, for I had wildly erred ; 
 But Mercy, darling child of the Most High, 
 Pleads for me, and prevails. I hear a voice 
 Ring through the spheres of heaven a voice of love 
 Pronouncing pardon, and I join the choir 
 That worships, and shall worship him eternally. 
 
DREAM OF THE SEA, 
 
 1 dreamt that I went down into the seal 
 
 Unpained amid the waters and a world 
 
 Of splendid wrecks, formless and numberless^ 
 
 Broke on my vision. It did seem the skies 
 
 Were o'er me pure as infancy yet waves 
 
 Did rattle round my head, and fill mine ears 
 
 Like the measureless roar of the far fight 
 
 When battle has set up her trumpet shout ! 
 
 I seemed to breathe the air ; and yet the sea 
 
 Kept dallying with my life as I sunk down. 
 
 'T was in the fitful fashion of a dream 
 
 Water and air walking, and yet no earth. 
 
 The deep seemed bare and dry and yet I went 
 
 With a rude dashing round my reeking face, 
 
 Until my outstretched and trembling feet 
 
 Stood still upon a bed of glittering pearls ! 
 
 The hot sun was right over me, at noon 
 
 Sudden it withered up the ocean till 
 
 I seemed amidst a waste of shapeless clay. 
 
 A thousand bones were whitening in his ray, 
 
 Mass upon mass, confused and without end. 
 
 I walked on the parched wilderness, and saw 
 
 The hopeless beauty of a lifeless world ! 
 
 Wealth that once made some poor vain heart grow light 
 
 And leap with it into the flood, was there 
 
 Clutched in the last mad agony. And gold 
 
 That makes of life a happiness and curse 
 
37 
 
 That vaunts on earth its brilliancy, lay here- 
 An outcast tyrant in his loneliness 
 Beggared by jewels that ne'er shone through blood 
 Upon the brow of kings ! Here there were all 
 The bright beginnings and the costly ends, 
 Which envied man enjoys and expiates, 
 Splendour, and death silence, and human hopes 
 Gems, and smooth bones life's pageantry ! the cross 
 That thought to save some wretch in his late need 
 Hugged in its last idolatry all, all 
 Lay here in deathly brotherhood no breath 
 No sympathy no sound no motion and no hope ! 
 I stood and listened, 
 
 The eternal flood rushed to its desolate grave ! 
 And I could hear above me all the waves 
 Go bellowing to their bounds ! Still I strode on, 
 Journeying amid the brightest of earth's things 
 Where yet was never life, nor hope, nor joy ! 
 My eye could not but look, and my ear hear ; 
 For now strange sights, and beautiful, and rare, 
 Seemed ordered from the deep through the rich prism 
 Above me and sounds undulated through 
 The surges, till my soul grew mad with visions ! 
 Beneath the canopy of waters I could see 
 Palaces and cities crumbled and the ships 
 Sunk in the engorging whirlpool, while the laugh 
 Of revelry went wild along their decks, and ere 
 The oath was strangled in their swollen throats ; 
 For there they lay, just hurried to one grave 
 With horrible contortions and fixed eyes 
 D 
 
38 
 
 Waving among the cannon, as the surge 
 
 Would slowly lift them and their streaming hair 
 
 Twining around the blades that were their pride. 
 
 And there were two locked in each others arms, 
 
 And they were lovers ! 
 
 Oh God, how beautiful ! cheek to cheek 
 
 And heart to heart upon that splendid deep, 
 
 A bridal bed of pearls ! a burial 
 
 Worthy of two so young and innocent. 
 
 And they did seem to lie there, like two gems 
 
 The fairest in the halls of ocean both 
 
 Sepulchred in love a tearless death one look, 
 
 One wish, one smile, one mantle for their shroud, 
 
 One hope, one kiss and that not yet quite cold ! 
 
 How beautiful to die in such fidelity ! 
 
 E'er yet the curse has ripened, or the heart 
 
 Begins to hope for death as for a joy, 
 
 And feels its streams grow thicker, till they cloy 
 
 With wishes that have sickened and grown old. 
 
 I saw their cheeks were pure and passionless, 
 
 And all their love had passed into a smile. 
 
 And in that smile they died ! 
 
 Sudden a battle rolled above my head, 
 And there came down a flash into the deep 
 Illumining its dim chambers and it past ; 
 The waters shuddered and a thousand sounds 
 Sung hellish echoes through the caverned waste. 
 The blast was screaming on the upper wave, 
 
39 
 
 And as I looked above me I could see 
 The ships go booming- through the murky storm, 
 Sails rent masts staggering and a spectre crew, 
 Blood mingled with the foam bathing their bows, 
 And I could hear their shrieks as they went on 
 Crying of murder to their bloody foes ! 
 
 A form shot downward close at my feet ; 
 
 His hand still grasped the steel and his red eye 
 
 Was full of curses even in his death ; 
 
 For he had been flung into the abyss 
 
 By fellow men before his heart was cold ! 
 
 Again I stood beside the lovely pair ; 
 
 The storm and conflict were as they'd not been. 
 
 I stood and shrieked and laughed, and yet no voice, 
 
 That I could hear, came in my madness ; 
 
 It hardly seemed that they were dead so calm, 
 
 So beautiful ! the sea-stars round them shone, 
 
 Like emblems of their souls so cold and pure ! 
 
 The bending grass wept silent over them, 
 
 Truer than any friend on earth their tomb 
 
 The jewelry of the ocean, and their dirge 
 
 The everlasting music of its roar, 
 
 I seemed to stand wretched in dreamy thought, 
 Cursing the constancy of human hearts 
 And vanity of human hopes and felt 
 As I have felt on earth in my sick hours ; 
 How thankless was this legacy of breath 
 
40 
 
 To those who knew the wo of a scathed brain! 
 Oh ocean ocean! if thou coverest up 
 The ruins of a proud and broken soul 
 And giv'st such peace and solitude as this, 
 Thy depths are heaven to man's ingratitude ! 
 
 I seemed to struggle in an agony ; 
 
 My streaming tears gushed out to meet the wave : 
 
 I woke in terror, and the beaded sweat 
 
 Coursed down my temples like a very rain 
 
 As though I had just issued from the sea ! 
 
 THE MYTHOLOGY; OF GREECE. 
 
 There was a time, when the o'erhanging sky, 
 And the fair earth with its variety, 
 Mountain and valley, continent and sea, 
 Were not alone the unmoving things that lie 
 Slumbering beneath the sun's unclouded eye ; 
 But every fountain had its spirit then, 
 That held communion oft with holy men, 
 And frequent from the heavenward mountain came 
 Bright creatures, hovering round on wings of flame. 
 And some mysterious sybil darkly gave 
 Responses from the dim and hidden cave : 
 Voices were heard waking the silent air, 
 A solemn music echoed from the wood, 
 
41 
 
 And often from the bosom of the flood 
 
 Came forth a sportive Naiad passing fair, 
 
 The clear drops twinkling in her braided hair ; 
 
 And as the hunter through the forest strayed, 
 
 Quick-glancing beauty shot across the glade, 
 
 Her polished arrow levelled on her bow, 
 
 Ready to meet the fawn or bounding roe ; 
 
 And often on the mountain tops the horn 
 
 Rang round the rocky pinnacles, and played 
 
 In lighter echoes from the chequered shade, 
 
 Where through the silvery leaves at early morn 
 
 Stole the slant sunbeams, shedding on the grass 
 
 Brightness, that quivered with the quivering mass 
 
 Of thickly arching foliage ; often there 
 
 Dian and all her troop of girls were seen 
 
 Dancing by moonlight on the dewy green, 
 
 When the cool night- wind through the forest blew, 
 
 And every leaf in tremulous glances flew ; 
 
 And in the cloudless fields of upper air, 
 
 With coldly pale and melancholy smile 
 
 The moon looked down on that bright spot, the while, 
 
 Which in the depth of darkness shone as fair, 
 
 As in lone southern seas a palmy isle ; 
 
 And when a hunter-boy, who far away 
 
 Had wandered through the wild-wood from his home, 
 
 Led by the eagerness of youth to roam, 
 
 Buried in deep unbroken slumber lay, 
 
 Then as the full moon poured her mellow light 
 
 Full on the mossy pillow where he slept, 
 
 One more than nymph, in sylvan armour dight, 
 
Bent fondly over him, and smiled, and wept. 
 
 Each lonely spot was hallowed then the oak 
 
 That o'er the village altar hung, would tell 
 
 Strange hidden things ; the old remembered well, 
 
 How from its gloom a spirit often spoke. 
 
 There was not then a fountain or a cave, 
 
 But had its reverend oracle, and gave 
 
 Responses to the fearful crowd, who came 
 
 And called the indwelling Deity by name ; 
 
 Then every snowy peak, that lifted high 
 
 Its shadowy cone to meet the bending sky, 
 
 Stood like a heaven of loveliness and light ; 
 
 And as the gilt cloud rolled its glory by, 
 
 Chariots and steeds of flame stood harnessed there, 
 
 And gods came forth and seized the golden reins, 
 
 Shook the bright scourge, and through the boundless air 
 
 Rode over starry fields and azure plains. 
 
 It was a beautiful and glorious dream, 
 
 Such as would kindle high the soul of song ; 
 
 The bard, who struck his harp to such a theme, 
 
 Gathered new beauty as he moved along 
 
 His way was now through wilds and beds of flowers ; 
 
 Rough mountains met him now, and then again 
 
 Gay valleys hung with vines in woven bowers 
 
 Led to the bright waves of the purple main. 
 
 All seemed one bright enchantment then ; but now, 
 
 Since the long sought for goal of truth is won, 
 
 Nature stands forth unveiled with cloudless brow, 
 
 On earth ONE SPIRIT OF LIFE, in heaven ONE SUN. 
 
43 
 
 A HYMN. 
 
 The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
 
 To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, 
 
 And spread the roof above them, ere he framed 
 
 The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
 
 The sound of anthems ; in th e darkling wood, 
 
 Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down 
 
 And offered to the Mightiest, solemn thanks 
 
 And supplication. For his simple heart 
 
 Might not resist the sacred influences, 
 
 That, from the stilly twilight of the place, 
 
 And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven 
 
 Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound 
 
 Of the invisible breath that swayed at once 
 
 All their green tops, stole o'er him, and bowed 
 
 His spirit with the thought of boundless power 
 
 And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why 
 
 Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect 
 
 God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore 
 
 Only among the crowd, and under roofs 
 
 That our frail hands have raised. Let me, at least, 
 
 Here, in the shadow of this aged wood, 
 
 Offer one hymn thrice happy, if it find 
 
 Acceptance in his ear. 
 
 Father, thy hand 
 
 Hath reared these venerable columns, thou 
 Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down 
 
44 
 
 Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose 
 
 All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, 
 
 Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, 
 
 And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow 
 
 Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died 
 
 Among their branches, till, at last, they stood, 
 
 As now they stand, massy and tall and dark, 
 
 Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold 
 
 Communion with his Maker. Here are seen 
 
 No traces of man's pomp or pride ; no silks 
 
 Rustle, no jewels shine, nor envious eyes 
 
 Encounter ; no fantastic carvings show 
 
 The boast of our vain race to change the form 
 
 Of thy fair works. But thou art here thou filPst 
 
 The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds 
 
 That run along the summits of these trees 
 
 In music ; thou art in the cooler breath, 
 
 That, from the inmost darkness of the place, 
 
 Comes, scarcely felt ; the barky trunks, the ground, 
 
 The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee. 
 
 Here is continual worship ; nature, here, 
 
 In the tranquillity that thou dost love, 
 
 Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around, 
 
 From perch to perch, the solitary bird 
 
 Passes ; and yon clear spring, that, 'midst its herbs, 
 
 Wells softly forth and visits the strong roots 
 
 Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale 
 
 Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left 
 
 Thyself without a witness, in these shades, 
 
 Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace 
 
45 
 
 Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak 
 
 By whose immoveable stem I stand and seem 
 
 Almost annihilated not a prince, 
 
 In all the proud old world beyond the deep, 
 
 E'er wore his crown as loftily as he 
 
 Wears the green coronal of leaves with which 
 
 Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root 
 
 Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare 
 
 Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,, 
 
 With scented breath, and look so like a smile, 
 
 Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, 
 
 An emanation of the indwelling Life, 
 
 A visible token of the upholding Love, 
 
 That are the soul of this wide universe. 
 
 My heart is awed within me, when I think 
 Of the great miracle that still goes on, 
 In silence, round me the perpetual work 
 Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed 
 Forever. Written on thy works I read 
 The lesson of thy own eternity. 
 Lo ! all grow old and die but see, again, 
 How on the faltering footsteps of decay 
 Youth possess ever gay and beautiful youth 
 In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees 
 Wave not less proudly that their ancestors 
 Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost 
 One of earth's charms : upon her bosom yet, 
 After the flight of untold centuries, 
 The freshness of her far beginning lies 
 
46 
 
 And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate 
 Of his arch enemy Death yea seats himself 
 Upon the sepulchre, and blooms and smiles, 
 And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe 
 Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth 
 From thine own bosom, and shall have no end. 
 
 There have been holy men who hid themselves 
 Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave 
 Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived 
 The generation born with them, nor seemed 
 Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks 
 Around them ; and there have been holy men 
 Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. 
 But let me often to these solitudes 
 Retire, and in thy presence reassure 
 My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, 
 The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink 
 And tremble and are still. Oh God ! when thou 
 Dost scare the world with tempests, sett'st on fire 
 The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or filPst 
 With all the waters of the firmament 
 The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods 
 And drowns the villages ; when, at thy call, 
 Uprises the great deep and throws himself 
 Upon the continent and overwhelms 
 Its cities who forgets not, at the sight 
 Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, 
 His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by ? 
 Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face 
 
47 
 
 Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wratfo 
 Of the mad unchained elements to teach 
 Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate 
 In these calm shades thy milder majesty, 
 And, to the beautiful order of thy works, 
 Learn to conform the order of our lives. 
 
 THANKSGIVING. 
 
 When first in ancient time, from Jubal's tongue 
 
 The tuneful anthem filled the morning air, 
 
 To sacred hymnings and elysian song 
 
 His music-breathing shell the minstrel woke. 
 
 Devotion breathed aloud from every chord : 
 
 The voice of praise was heard in every tone, 
 
 And prayer, and thanks to Him, the eternal one, 
 
 To Him, that with bright inspiration touched 
 
 The high and gifted lyre of heavenly song, 
 
 And warmed the soul with new vitality. 
 
 A stirring energy through nature breathed : 
 
 The voice of adoration from her broke 
 
 Swelling aloud in every breeze, and heard 
 
 Long in the sullen waterfall, what time 
 
 Soft Spring or hoary Autumn threw on earth 
 
 Its bloom or blighting, when the Summer smiled, 
 
 Or Winter o'er the year's sepulchre mourned. 
 
 The Deity was there ! a nameless spirit 
 
48 
 
 Moved in the hearts of men to do him homage ; 
 And when the morning smiled, or evening pale 
 Hung weeping o'er the melancholy urn, 
 They came beneath the broad o'erarching trees, 
 And in their tremulous shadow worshipped oft, 
 Where the pale vine clung round their simple altars, 
 And gray moss mantling hung. Above was heard 
 The melody of winds, breathed out as the green trees 
 Bowed to their quivering touch in living beauty, 
 And birds sang forth their cheerful hymns. Below, 
 The bright and widely wandering rivulet 
 Struggled and gushed amongst the tangled roots, 
 That choked its reedy fountain and dark rocks 
 Worn smooth by the constant current. Even there 
 The listless wave, that stole with mellow voice 
 Where reeds grew rank upon the rushy brink, 
 And to the wandering wind the green sedge bent, 
 Sang a sweet song of fixed tranquillity. 
 Men felt the heavenly influence and it stole 
 Like balm into their hearts, till all was peace ; 
 And even the air they breathed, the light they saw, 
 Became religion ; for the etherial spirit, 
 That to soft music wakes the chords of feeling 
 And mellows every thing to beauty, moved 
 With cheering energy within their breasts, 
 And made all holy there for all was love. 
 The morning stars, that sweetly sang together 
 The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky 
 Dayspring and eventide and all the fair 
 And beautiful forms of nature, had a 
 
49 
 
 Of eloquent worship. Ocean with its tides 
 
 Swelling and deep, where low the infant storm 
 
 Hung on his dun, dark cloud, and heavily beat 
 
 The pulses of the sea, sent forth a voice 
 
 Of awful adoration to the spirit, 
 
 That, wrapt in darkness, moved upon its face. 
 
 And when the bow of evening arched the east, 
 
 Or, in the moonlight pale, the gentle wave 
 
 Kissed with a sweet embrace the sea-worn beach, 
 
 And the wild song of winds came o'er the waters, 
 
 The mingled melody of wind and wave 
 
 Touched like a heavenly anthem on the ear ; 
 
 For it arose a tuneful hymn of worship. 
 
 And have our hearts grown cold ? Are there on earth 
 
 No pure reflections caught from heavenly love ? 
 
 Have our mute lips no hymn our souls no song ? 
 
 Let him, that in the summer-day of youth 
 
 Keeps pure the holy fount of youthful feeling, 
 
 And him, that in the nightfall of his years 
 
 Lies down in his last sleep, and shuts in peace 
 
 His weary eyes on life's short wayfaring, 
 
 Praise Him, that rules the destiny of man. 
 
50 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 Again the infant flowers of Spring 
 
 Call thee to sport on thy rainbow wing 
 
 Spirit of Beauty ! the air is bright 
 
 With the boundless flow of thy mellow light ; 
 
 The woods are ready to bud and bloom, 
 
 And are weaving for Summer their quiet gloom : 
 
 The tufted brook reflects, as it flows, 
 
 The tips of the half-unopened rose, 
 
 And the early bird, as he carols free, 
 
 Sings to his little love and thee. 
 
 See how the clouds, as they fleetly pass, 
 
 Throw their shadowy veil on the darkening grass : 
 
 And the pattering showers and stealing dews, 
 
 With their starry gems and skyey hues, 
 
 From the oozy meadow, that drinks the tide, 
 
 To the sheltered vale on the mountain side, 
 
 Wake to a new and fresher birth 
 
 The tenderest tribes of teeming earth, 
 
 And scatter with light and dallying play 
 
 Their earliest flowers on the Zephyr's way. 
 
 He comes from the mountain's piny steep, 
 For the long boughs bend with a silent sweep. 
 And his rapid steps have hurried o'er 
 The grassy hills to the pebbly shore ; 
 And now, on the breast of the lonely lake, 
 
51 
 
 The waves in silvery glances break, 
 Like a short and quickly rolling sea, 
 When the gale first feels its liberty, 
 And the flakes of foam, like coursers, run, 
 Rejoicing beneath the vertical sun. 
 
 He has crossed the lake, and the forest heaves, 
 To the sway of his wings, its billowy leaves, 
 And the downy tufts of the meadow fly 
 In snowy clouds, as he passes by, 
 And softly beneath his noiseless tread 
 The odorous spring-grass bends its head ; 
 And now he reaches the woven bower, 
 Where he meets his own beloved flower, 
 And gladly his wearied limbs repose, 
 In the shade of the newly-opening rose. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 They talk of short-lived pleasure be it so 
 
 Pain dies as quickly : stern hard-featured pain 
 Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. 
 
 The fiercest agonies have shortest reign ; 
 
 And, after dreams of horror, comes again 
 The welcome morning with its rays of peace. 
 
 Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain, 
 Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease : 
 
52 
 
 Remorse is virtue's root ; its fair increase 
 Are fruits of innocence and blessedness : 
 
 Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release, 
 His young limbs from the chains that round him press. 
 
 Weep not that the world changes did it keep 
 
 A stable changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Yet one smile more, departing distant sun ! 
 
 One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air, 
 Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, 
 
 Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare. 
 One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, 
 
 And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast, 
 And the blue Gentian flower, that, in the breeze, 
 
 Nods lonely, of her beautious race the last. 
 Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee 
 
 Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way, 
 The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, 
 
 And man delight to linger in thy ray. 
 Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear 
 The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air. 
 
53 
 
 SUNRISfi ON THE HILLS. 
 
 I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arcli 
 Was glorious with the sun's returning march, 
 
 And woods were brightened, and soft gales 
 
 Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales. 
 The clouds were far beneath me : bathed in light 
 They gathered mid-way round the wooded height, 
 
 And in their fading glory shone 
 
 Like hosts in battle overthrown, 
 As many a pinnacle with shifting glance, 
 Through the gray mist thrust up its shattered lance, 
 
 And rocking on the cliff was left 
 
 The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft. 
 The veil of cloud was lifted, and below 
 Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow 
 
 Was darkened by the forest's shade, 
 
 Or glistened in the white cascade, 
 Where upward in the mellow blush of day 
 The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way. 
 
 I heard the distant waters dash 
 
 I saw the current whirl and flash 
 And richly by the blue lake's silver beach 
 The woods were bending with a silent reach. 
 
 Then o'er the vale with gentle swell 
 
 The music of the village bell 
 Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills, 
 
 And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills, 
 E2 
 
54 
 
 Was ringing to the merry shout 
 That faint and far the glen sent out, 
 Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke 
 Through thick-leaved branches from the dingle broke. 
 
 If thou art worn and hard beset 
 With sorrows that thou wouldst forget, 
 If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep 
 Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, 
 Go to the woods and hills ! no tears 
 Dim the sweet look that nature wears. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light, 
 And wheels her course in a joyous flight : 
 I know her track through the balmy air, 
 By the blossoms that cluster and whiten there ; 
 She leaves the tops of the mountains green, 
 And gems the valley with crystal sheen. 
 
 At morn, I know where she rested at night, 
 For the roses are gushing with dewy delight ; 
 Then she mounts again, and around her flings 
 A shower of light from her purple wings, 
 Till the spirit is drunk with the music on high-, 
 That silently fills it with ecstacy ! 
 
At noon, she hies to a cool retreat, 
 
 Where bowering elms over waters meet ; 
 
 She dimples the wave, where the green leaves dip, 
 
 That smiles, as it curls, like a maiden's lip, 
 
 When her tremulous bosom would hide, in vain, 
 
 From her lover, the hope that she loves again. 
 
 At eve, she hangs o'er the western sky - 
 Dark clouds for a glorious canopy ; 
 And round the skirts of each sweeping fold, 
 She paints a border of crimson and gold, 
 Where the lingering sunbeams love to stay, 
 When their god in his glory has passed away. 
 
 She hovers around us at twilight hour, 
 
 When her presence is felt with the deepest power ; 
 
 She mellows the landscape, and crowds the stream 
 
 With shadows that flit like a fairy dream : 
 
 Still wheeling her flight through the gladsome air, 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty is every where ! 
 
 SONG. 
 
 7 Tis the season of tender delight, 
 The season of fresh-springing flower* ; 
 
 Young Spring in the joy of her beauty jg bright. 
 And leads on the rapturous hours ; 
 
56 
 
 Fair nature is loud in her transport of pleasure, 
 The woods and the valleys re-echo herlay ; 
 
 The robin now warbles his love-breathing measure, 
 And scatters the blossoms while tilting the spray ; 
 
 One impulse of tenderness thrills through the groves, 
 
 While the birds carol sweetly their innocent loves. 
 
 How mild is the Zephyr that blows ! 
 
 What fragrance his balmy wings bear 
 He breaths as if fearful to brush from the rose 
 
 The dew-drops so tremulous there ! 
 The stream flowing gently beside the green cresses 
 
 So lightsomely dashes their tendrils away 
 It seems some fond mother, who while she caresses, 
 
 Would sportfully chide her young children at play. 
 Hear the minstrel-bee lulling the blossoms to rest, 
 For the nectar he sips as the wild-flowers' guest ! 
 
 Look out then on Nature awhile, 
 
 Observe her inviting thee now, 
 Benevolence beams in her sunshiny smile, 
 
 And blandishment sits on her brow : 
 Come stray with me, love, where the fountains are 
 flowing, 
 
 And wild-flowers clustre to drink of the stream ; 
 While watching the lily and daffodil blowing, 
 
 No moment of bliss shall so exquisite seem ; 
 When nature invites thee, oh ! why then delay ; 
 While Joy is still waking, away ! love, away ! 
 
57 
 
 SONG OF THE GRECIAN AMAZON. 
 
 I buckle to my slender side 
 
 The pistol and the scimetar, 
 And in my maiden flower and pride 
 
 Am come to share the tasks of war. 
 And yonder stands my fiery steed, 
 
 That paws the ground and neighs to go,. 
 My charger of the Arab breed, 
 
 I took him from the routed foe. 
 
 My mirror is the mountain spring, 
 
 At which I dress my ruffled hair ; 
 My dimmed and dusty arms I bring, 
 
 And wash away the blood-stain there. 
 Why should I guard, from wind and sun, 
 
 This cheek, whose virgin rose is fled, 
 It was for one oh, only one 
 
 I kept its bloom, and he is dead. 
 
 But they who slew him unaware 
 
 Of coward murderers lurking nigh 
 And left him to the fowls of air, 
 
 Are yet alive and they must die. 
 They slew him and my virgin years 
 
 Are vowed to Greece and vengeance now ; 
 And many an Othman dame, in tears, 
 
 Shall rue the Grecian maiden's vow. 
 
58 
 
 I touched the lute in better days, 
 
 I led in dance the joyous band ; 
 Ah ! they may move to mirthful lays 
 
 Whose hands can touch a lover's hand. 
 The march of hosts that haste to meet 
 
 Seems gayer than the dance to me ; 
 The lute's sweet tones are not so sweet 
 
 As the fierce shout of victory. 
 
 fcYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS 
 AT THE CONSECRATION OF PULASKl's BANNER. 
 
 The standard of Count Pulaski, the noble Pole who fell in the attack 
 upon Savannah, during the American Revolution, was of crimson silk- 
 embroidered by the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. 
 
 When the dying flame of day 
 
 Through the chancel shot its ray, 
 
 Far the glimmering tapers shed 
 
 Faint light on the cowled head, 
 
 And the censer burning swung, 
 
 Where before the altar hung 
 
 That proud banner, which with prayer 
 
 Had been consecrated there. 
 And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, 
 Sung low in the dim mysterious aisle. 
 
59 
 
 Take thy banner ! may it wave 
 Proudly o'er the good and brave, 
 When the battle's distant wail 
 Breaks the sabbath of our vale, 
 When the clarion's music thrills 
 To the hearts of these lone hills, 
 When the spear in conflict shakes, 
 And the strong lance shivering breaks. 
 
 Take thy banner ! and beneath 
 The war-cloud's encircling wreath, 
 Guard it till our homes are free 
 Guard it God will prosper thee I 
 In the dark and trying hour, 
 In the breaking forth of power, 
 In the rush of steeds and men, 
 His right hand will shield thee then. 
 
 Take thy banner! But when night 
 
 Closes round the ghastly fight, 
 
 If the vanquished warrior bow, 
 
 Spare him ! by our holy vow, 
 
 By our prayers and many tears, 
 
 By the mercy that endears, 
 
 Spare him he our love hath shared 
 
 Spare him as thou wouldst be spared f 
 
 Take thy banner ! and if e'er 
 Thou shouldst press the soldier's bier. 
 And the muffled drum should beat 
 
60 
 
 To the tread of mournful feet, 
 Then this crimson flag shall be 
 Martial cloak and shroud for thee ! 
 
 And the warrior took that banner proud, 
 And it was his martial cloak and shroud. 
 
 LOVE ASLEEP. 
 
 Wake him not, he dreams of bliss ; 
 His little lips put forth a kiss ; 
 His arms, entwined in virgin grace, 
 Seem linked in beautiful embrace. 
 
 He smiles, and on his opening lip 
 Might saints refresh and angels sip ; 
 He blushes, 'tis the rosy light 
 That morning wears on leaving night 
 
 He sighs, 'tis not the sigh of wo ; 
 He only sighs that he may know 
 If kindred sighs another move ; 
 For mutual sighs are signs of love. 
 
 He speaks, it is his dear one's name ; 
 He whispers, still it is the same ; 
 The imprisoned accents strive in vain, 
 They murmer through his lips again. 
 
61 
 
 He wakes ! the silly little boy, 
 To break the mirror thus of joy ; 
 He wakes to sorrow, and in pain ; 
 Oh ! Love, renew thy dreams again. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Dost thou idly ask to hear 
 
 At what gentle seasons 
 Nymphs relent, when lovers near 
 
 Press the tenderest reasons ? 
 Ah, they give their faith too oft 
 
 To the careless wooer ; 
 Maidens' hearts are always soft, 
 
 Would that men's were truer ! 
 
 Woo the fair one, when around 
 
 Early birds are singing ; 
 When, o'er all the fragrant ground, 
 
 Early herbs are springing : 
 When the brookside, bank and grove, 
 
 All with blossoms laden, 
 Shine with beauty, breathe of love, 
 
 Woo the timid maiden. 
 
 Woo her, when, with rosy blush, 
 
 Summer eve is sinking ; 
 When, on rills that softly gush r 
 
62 
 
 Stars are softly winking ; 
 When, through boughs that knit the bower, 
 
 Moonlight gleams are stealing ; 
 Woo her, till the gentle hour 
 
 Wakes a gentler feeling. 
 
 Woo her, when autumnal dyes 
 
 Tinge the woody mountain ; 
 When the dropping foliage lies, 
 
 In the half-choked fountain ; 
 Let the scene, that tells how fast 
 
 Youth is passing over, 
 Warn her, ere her bloom is past, 
 
 To secure her lover. 
 
 Woo her, when the northwinds call 
 
 At the lattice nightly ; 
 When, within the cheerful hall, 
 
 Blaze the faggots brightly ; 
 While the wintry tempest round 
 
 Sweeps the landscape hoary, 
 Sweeter in her ear shall sound 
 
 Love's delightful story. 
 
 THE GRECIAN PARTIZAN. 
 
 Our free flag is dancing, 
 
 In the free mountain air, 
 And burnished arms are glancing, 
 
63 
 
 And warriors mustering there ; 
 And true and brave, though passing few, 
 
 Are they whose bosoms shield it ; 
 Their life-blood shall its folds bedew 
 
 Ere to the foe they yield it. 
 Each dark eye is fixed on earth, 
 
 And brief each solemn greeting ; 
 There is no look or sound of mirth 
 
 Where those stern men are meeting. 
 
 They go to the slaughter, 
 
 To strike the sudden blow, 
 And pour on earth, like water, 
 
 The best blood of the foe ; 
 To rush on them from rock and height, 
 
 And clear the narrow valley, 
 Or fire their camp, at dead of night, 
 
 And fly before they rally. 
 Chains are round our country prest, 
 
 And cowards have betrayed her, 
 And we must make her bleeding breast 
 
 The grave of the invader. 
 
 Not till from her fetters 
 
 We raise up Greece again, 
 And write, in bloody letters, 
 
 That tyranny is slain, 
 Oh, not till then the smile shall steal 
 
 Across those darkened faces, 
 Nor one of all those warriors feel 
 
64 
 
 His children's dear embraces. 
 Leave unreaped the ripened wheat, 
 
 Till yonder hosts are flying, 
 And all their bravest, at our feet, 
 
 Like autumn sheaves are lying. 
 
 THE INDIAN HUNTER. 
 
 When the summer harvest was gathered in, 
 
 And the sheaf of the gleaner grew white and thin, 
 
 And the ploughshare was in its furrow left, 
 
 Where the stubble land had been lately cleft, 
 
 An Indian hunter, with unstrung bow, 
 
 Looked down where the valley lay stretched below, 
 
 He was a stranger there, and all that day 
 Had been out on the hills, a perilous way, 
 But the foot of the deer was far and fleet, 
 And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter's feet, 
 And bitter feelings passed o'er him then, 
 As he stood by the populous haunts of men. 
 
 The winds of autumn came over the woods 
 As the sun stole out from their solitudes, 
 The moss was white on the maple's trunk, 
 And dead from its arms the pale vine shrunk, 
 And ripened the mellow fruit hung, and red 
 Were the tree's withered leaves round it shed. 
 
65 
 
 The foot of the reaper moved slow on the lawn, 
 And the sickle cut down the yellow corn, 
 The mower sung loud by the meadow side, 
 Where the mists of evening were spreading wide 1 , 
 And the voice of the herdsman came up the lea, 
 And the dance went round by the greenwood tree* 
 
 Then the hunter turned away from that scene, 
 Where the home of his fathers once had been, 
 And heard by the distant and measured stroke, 
 That the woodman hewed down the giant oak, 
 And burning thoughts flashed over his mind 
 Of the white man's faith, and love unkind. 
 
 The moon of the harvest grew high and bright, 
 As her golden horn pierced the cloud of white, 
 A footstep was heard in the rustling brake, 
 Where the beech overshadowed the misty lake, 
 And a mourning voice and a plunge from shore ; 
 And the hunter was seen on the hills no more. 
 
 When years had passed on, by that still lake-side 
 The fisher looked down through the silver tide, 
 And there, on tne smooth yellow sand displayed, 
 A skeleton wasted and white was laid, 
 And 'twas seen, as the waters moved deep and slow 
 That the hand was still grasping a hunter's bow. 
 
66 
 
 AN INDIAN STORY. 
 
 " I know where the timid fawn abides 
 
 In the depths of the shaded dell, 
 Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides, 
 With its many stems and its tangled sides, 
 
 From the eye of the hunter well. 
 
 " I know where the young May violet grows, 
 
 In its lone and lowly nook, 
 On the mossy bank, where the larch tree throws 
 Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose, 
 
 Far over the silent brook. 
 
 " And that timid fawn starts not with fear 
 When I steal to her secret bower, 
 
 And that young May violet to me is dear, 
 
 And I visit the silent streamlet near, 
 To look on the lovely flower." 
 
 Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks 
 
 To the hunting ground on the hills ; 
 'Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks, 
 With her bright black eyes and long black locks, 
 And voice like the music of rills. 
 
 He goes to the chase but evil eyes 
 
 Are at watch in the thicker shades ; 
 For she was lovely that smiled on his sighs, 
 
G7 
 
 And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize, 
 The flower of the forest maids. 
 
 The boughs in the morning wind are stirred, 
 
 And the woods their song renew, 
 With the early carol of many a bird, 
 And the quickened tune of the streamlet heard 
 
 Where the hazels trickle with dew. 
 
 And Maquon has promised his dark-haired maid, 
 
 Ere eve shall redden the sky, 
 A good red deer from the forest shade, 
 That bounds with the herd through grove and glade, 
 
 At her cabin door shall lie. 
 
 The hollow woods, in the setting sun, 
 
 Ring shrill with the fire-bird's lay ; 
 And Maquon's sylvan labours are done, 
 And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won 
 
 He bears on his homeward way. 
 
 He stops near his bower his eye perceives 
 
 Strange traces along the ground 
 At once, to the earth his burden he heaves, 
 He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves, 
 
 And gains its door with a bound. 
 
 But the vines are torn on its walls that leant, 
 
 And all from the young shrubs there 
 By struggling hands have the leaves been rent, 
 
68 
 
 And there hangs, on the sassafras broken and bent, 
 One tress of the well known hair, 
 
 But where is she who at this calm hour, 
 
 Ever watched his coming to see, 
 She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower, 
 He calls but he only hears on the flower 
 
 The hum of the laden bee. 
 
 It is not a time for idle grief, 
 
 Nor a time for tears to flow, 
 The horror that freezes his limbs is brief 
 He grasps his war axe and bow, and a sheaf 
 
 Of darts made sharp for the foe. 
 
 And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet, 
 
 Where he bore the maiden away ; 
 And he darts on the fatal path more fleet 
 Than the blast that hurries the vapour and sleet 
 O'er the wild November day. 
 
 'T was early Summer when Maquon's bride 
 
 Was stolen away from his door ; 
 But at length the maples in crimson are dyed, 
 And the grape is black on the cabin side, 
 
 And she smiles at his hearth once more. 
 
 But far in a pine grove, dark and cold, 
 
 Where the yellow leaf falls not, 
 Nor the Autumn shines in scarlet and gold. 
 
69 
 
 There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould, 
 In the deepest gloom of the spot. 
 
 And the Indian girls, that pass that way, 
 
 Point out the ravisher's grave ; 
 " And how soon to the bower she loved," they say, 
 " Returned the maid that was borne away 
 
 From Maquon the fond and the brave." 
 
 THE SOUL OF SONG. 
 
 Where lives the Soul of song ? 
 
 Dwells it amid the city's festive halls ? 
 
 Where crowd the eager throng, 
 
 Or where the wanderer's silent footstep falls ? 
 
 Loves it the gay saloon, 
 
 Where wine and dances steal away the night, 
 
 And bright as summer noon 
 
 Burns round the pictured walls a blaze of light ? 
 
 Seeks it the public square, 
 
 When victory hails the people's chosen son, 
 
 And loud applauses there 
 
 From lip to lip in emulous greetings run ? 
 
 Dwells it amid the host, 
 
 Who bear their crimson banners waving high ; 
 
70 
 
 Whose first and only boast 
 
 Draws tears of anguish from the patriot's eye ? 
 
 Follows it on the path, 
 
 Where the proud conqueror marches to his home, 
 
 And wearied of his wrath 
 
 Smiles as he steps beneath the imperial dome ? 
 
 No not in festive halls, 
 
 In crowded marts, nor in the gay saloon ; 
 
 Not in the forum falls, 
 
 Nor on the conquering host, the gracious boon ; 
 
 But where blue mountains rise 
 
 Silent and calm amid the upper air, 
 
 And pure and cloudless skies 
 
 Bend o'er a world, that lies below as fair ; 
 
 But where uncultured plains 
 
 Spread far and wide their beds of grass and flowersy 
 
 And heaven's bright pencil stains 
 
 Clear gems that roll away in silent showers; 
 
 But in the depth of woods, 
 
 Where the slant sunbeam gilds the hoary trees, 
 
 And the soft voice of floods 
 
 Glides on the pinions of the evening breeze ; 
 
 But in the broken dell, 
 
 Where the cripsed ivy curls its tangled vines. 
 
71 
 
 And the wild blossom's bell 
 
 Drops with the dew, that in its hollow shines ; 
 
 But in the gulfy cave, 
 
 Where pours the cascade from the glacier's height, 
 
 And all its waters wave, 
 
 Like rainbows, in their luxury of light ; 
 
 There dwells the Soul of song, 
 
 It flies not to the city's festive halls, 
 
 But loves to steal along, 
 
 Where the lone wanderer's silent footstep falls, 
 
 THE DESOLATE CITY, 
 
 I had a vision. 
 A city lay before me, desolate, 
 And yet not all decayed. A summer sun 
 Shone on it from a most etherial sky, 
 And the soft winds threw o'er it such a balm, 
 One would have thought it was a sepulchre, 
 And this the incense offered to the manes 
 Of the departed. 
 
 In the light it lay 
 
 Peacefully, as if all its thousands took 
 Their afternoon's repose, and soon would wake 
 To the loud joy of evening. There it lay, 
 
72 
 
 A city of magnificent palaces, 
 
 And churches, towering more like things of Heaven, 
 
 The glorious fabrics, fancy builds in clouds, 
 
 And shapes on loftiest mountains bright their domes 
 
 Threw back the living ray, and proudly stood 
 
 Many a statue, looking like the forms 
 
 Of spirits hovering in mid air. Tall trees, 
 
 Cypress and plane, waved over many a hill 
 
 Cumbered with ancient ruins broken arches, 
 
 And tottering columns vaults, where never came 
 
 The blessed beam of day, but only lamps 
 
 Shedding a funeral light, were kindled there, 
 
 And gave to the bright frescoes on the walls. 
 
 And the pale statues in their far recesses, 
 
 A dim religious awe. Rudely they lay, 
 
 Scarce marking out to the inquisitive eye 
 
 Their earliest outline. But as desolate 
 
 Slumbered the newer city, though its walls 
 
 Were yet unbroken, and its towering domes 
 
 Had never stooped to ruin. All was still ; 
 
 Hardly the faintest sound of living thing 
 
 Moved through the mighty solitude and yet 
 
 All wore the face of beauty. Not a cloud 
 
 Hung in the lofty sky, that seemed to rise 
 
 In twofold majesty, so bright and pure, 
 
 It seemed indeed a crystalline sphere and there 
 
 The sun rode onward in his conquering march 
 
 Serenely glorious. From the mountain heights 
 
 Tinged with the blue of heaven, to the wide sea 
 
 Glassed with as pure a blue, one desolate plain 
 
73 
 
 Spread out, and over it the fairest sky 
 
 Bent round and blessed it. Life was teeming there 
 
 In all its lower forms, a wilderness 
 
 Of rank luxuriance ; flowers, and purpling vines 
 
 Matted with deepest foliage, hid the ruins, 
 
 And gave the semblance of a tangled wood 
 
 To piles, that once were loudly eloquent 
 
 With the glad cry of thousands. There were gardens 
 
 Round- stateliest villas, full of graceful statues, 
 
 And temples reared to woodland deities ; 
 
 And they were overcrowded with the excess 
 
 Of beauty. All that most is coveted 
 
 Beneath a colder sky, grew wantonly 
 
 And richly there. Myrtles and citrons filled 
 
 The air with fragrance. From the tufted elm, 
 
 Bent with its own too massy foliage, hung 
 
 Clusters of sunny grapes in frosted purple, 
 
 Drinking in spirit from the glowing air, 
 
 And dropping generous dews. The very wind 
 
 Seemed there a lover, and his easy wings 
 
 Fanned the gay bowers, as if in fond delay 
 
 He bent o'er loveliest things, too beautiful 
 
 Ever to know decay. The silent air 
 
 Floating as softly as a cloud of roses, 
 
 Dropped from Idalia in a dewy shower, 
 
 The air itself seemed like the breath of Heaven 
 
 Filling the groves of Eden. Yet these walls 
 
 Are desolate not a trace of living man 
 
 Is found amid these glorious works of man, 
 
 And nature's fairer glories. Why should he 
 G 
 
74 
 
 Be absent from the festival of life, 
 
 The holiday of nature ? Why not come 
 
 To add to the sweet sounds of winds and waters 
 
 Of winds uttering ^Eolian melodies 
 
 To the bright, listening flowers, and waters falling 
 
 Most musical from marble fountains wreathed 
 
 With clustering ivy, like a poet's brow 
 
 Why comes he not to add his higher strains, 
 
 And be the interpreter of lower things, 
 
 In intellectual worship, at the throne 
 
 Of the Beneficent Power, that gave to them 
 
 Their pride and beauty ? " In these palaces, 
 
 These awful temples, these religious caves, 
 
 These hoary ruins, and these twilight groves 
 
 Teeming with life and love, a secret plague 
 
 Dwells, and the unwary foot, that ventures here, 
 
 Returns not. Fly ! To linger here is death." 
 
 TO GENEVIEVE. 
 
 I'll rob the hyacinth and rose, 
 I'll search the cowslip's fragrant cell, 
 Nor spare the breath that daily blows 
 Her incense from the asphodel. 
 
 And these shall breathe thy gentle name, 
 Sweet Naiad of the sacred stream, 
 
75 
 
 Where, musing, first I caught the flame, 
 That Passion kindles in his dream. 
 
 Thy soul of Music broke the spell, 
 That bound my lyre's neglected strings ; 
 Attuned its silent echo's shell, 
 And loosed again his airy wings. 
 
 Ah ! long had beauty's eyes in vain 
 Diffused their radiant light divine ; 
 Alas, it never woke a strain, 
 Till inspiration beamed from thine. 
 
 Thus vainly did the stars at night 
 O'er Memnon's lyre their watch prolong, 
 When nought but bright Aurora's light 
 Could wake its silence into song ! 
 
 THE ANGLER'S SONG. 
 
 From the river's plashy bank, 
 
 Where the sedge grows green and rank, 
 
 And the twisted woodbine springs, 
 Upward speeds the morning lark 
 To its silver cloud and hark ! 
 
 On his way the woodman sings. 
 
76 
 
 On the dim and misty lakes 
 Gloriously the morning breaks, 
 
 And the eagle 's on his cloud : 
 Whilst the wind, with sighing, woos 
 To its arms the chaste cold ooze, 
 
 And the rustling reeds pipe loud. 
 
 Where the embracing ivy holds 
 Close the hoar elm in its folds, 
 
 In the meadow's fenny land, 
 And the winding river sweeps 
 Through its shallows and still deeps, 
 
 Silent with my rod I stand. 
 
 But when sultry suns are high 
 Underneath the oak I lie, 
 
 As it shades the water's edge, 
 And I mark my line, away 
 In the wheeling eddy, play, 
 
 Tangling with the river sedge. 
 
 When the eye of evening looks 
 
 On green woods and winding brooks, 
 
 And the wind sighs o'er the lea, 
 Woods and streams, I leave you then, 
 While the shadow in the glen 
 
 Lengthens by the greenwood tree. 
 
77 
 
 HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. 
 
 The sad and solemn night 
 Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires ; 
 
 The glorious host of light 
 Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires : 
 All through her silent watches, gliding slow, 
 Her constellations come, and round the heavens, and go. 
 
 Day, too, hath many a star 
 To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they : 
 
 Through the blue fields afar, 
 Unseen, they follow in his flaming way. 
 Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim, 
 Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him. 
 
 And thou dost see them rise, 
 Star of the Pole ! and thou dost see them set. 
 
 Alone, in thy cold skies, 
 Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, 
 Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train, 
 Nor dip'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main. 
 
 There, at morn's rosy birth, 
 Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, 
 
 And eve, that round the earth 
 Chases the day, beholds thee watching there ; 
 There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls 
 The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls. 
 G2 
 
76 
 
 Alike, beneath thine eye, 
 The deeds of darkness and of light are done ; 
 
 High towards the star-lit sky 
 Towns blaze the smoke of battle blots the sun 
 The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud 
 And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud. 
 
 On thy unaltering blaze 
 The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost, 
 
 Fixes his steady gaze, 
 
 And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast ; 
 And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, 
 Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps 
 right. 
 
 And, therefore, bards of old, 
 Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood 
 
 Did in thy beams behold 
 A beauteous type of that unchanging good, 
 That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray 
 The voyager of time should shape his heedful way* 
 
 SONG OF THE STARS. 
 
 When the radiant morn of creation broke, 
 
 And the world in the smile of God awoke, 
 
 And the empty realms of darkness and death 
 
 Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath. 
 
79 
 
 And orbs of beauty, and spheres of flame, 
 
 From the void abyss, by myriads came, 
 
 In the joy of youth, as they darted away, 
 
 Through the widening wastes of space to play. 
 
 Their silver voices in chorus rung, 
 
 And this was the song the bright ones sung. 
 
 Away, away, through the wide, wide sky, 
 
 The fair blue fields that before us lie : 
 
 Each sun with the worlds that round us roll, 
 
 Each planet poised on her turning pole, 
 
 With her isles of green, and her clouds of white, 
 
 And her waters that lie like fluid light. 
 
 For the source of glory uncovers his face, 
 And the brightness overflows unbounded space ; 
 And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides 
 In our ruddy air and our blooming sides ; 
 Lo, yonder the living splendors play ! 
 Away, on our joyous path away ! 
 
 Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar, 
 In the infinite azure, star after star, 
 How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass I 
 How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass ! 
 And the path of the gentle winds is seen, 
 Where the small waves dance, and the young woods 
 lean. 
 
80 
 
 And see, where the brighter day-beams pour, 
 How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower ; 
 And the morn and the eve, with their pomp of hues, 
 Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews ; 
 And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground, 
 With her shadowy cone, the night goes round. 
 
 Away, away ! in our blossoming bowers, 
 
 In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours, 
 
 In the seas and fountains that shine with morn, 
 
 See, love is brooding, and life is born, 
 
 And breathing myriads are breaking from night, 
 
 To rejoice, like us, in motion and light. 
 
 Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres ! 
 To weave the dance that measures the years. 
 Glide on in the glory and gladness sent 
 To the farthest wall of the firmament, 
 The boundless visible smile of him 
 To the veil of whose brow our lamps are dim. 
 
 11 The memory of joys that are past." 
 
 Ossian. 
 
 Where are now the flowers that once detained me 
 Like a loiterer on my early way ? 
 Where the fragrant wreaths that softly chained me, 
 When young life was like an infant's play ? 
 
81 
 
 Were they but the fancied dreams, that hover 
 Round the couch where tender hearts repose ? 
 Only pictured veils that brightly cover 
 With their skyey tints a world of woes ? 
 
 They are gone but Memory loves to cherish 
 All their sweetness in her deepest core. 
 Ah ! the recollection cannot perish, 
 Though the eye may never meet them more. 
 
 There are hopes, that like enchantment brighten 
 Gaily in the van of coming years ; 
 They are never met and yet they lighten, 
 When we walk in sorrow and in tears. 
 
 When the present only tells of anguish, 
 Then we know their worth, and only then : 
 O ! the wasted heart will cease to languish, 
 When it thinks of joys that might have been. 
 
 Age, and suffering, and want, may sever 
 Every link, that bound to life, in twain : 
 Hope even Hope may vanish, but forever 
 Memory with her visions will remain. 
 
THE LAPSE OF TIME. 
 
 Lament who will, in fruitless tears, 
 
 The speed with which our moments fly : 
 
 I sigh not over vanished years, 
 
 But watch the years that hasten by. 
 
 See how they come, a mingled crowd 
 Of bright and dark, but rapid days ; 
 
 Beneath them, like a summer cloud, 
 The wide world changes as I gaze. 
 
 What ! grieve that time has brought so soon 
 
 The sober age of manhood on ! 
 As idly should I weep at noon, 
 
 To see the blush of morning gone. 
 
 Could I forego the hopes that glow 
 
 In prospect, like Elysian isles ? 
 And let the charming future go, 
 
 With all her promises and smiles ? 
 
 The future ! cruel were the power 
 
 Whose doom would tear thee from my heart. 
 
 Thou sweetener of the present hour ! 
 We cannot no we will not part. 
 
 Oh, leave me, still, the rapid flight 
 That makes the changing seasons gay, 
 
83 
 
 The grateful speed that brings the night, 
 The swift and glad return of day ; 
 
 The months that touch with lovelier grace 
 
 This little prattler at my knee, 
 In whose arch eye and speaking face 
 
 New meaning every hour I see ; 
 
 The years that o'er each sister land 
 Shall lift the country of my birth, 
 
 And nurse her strength, till she shall stand 
 The pride and pattern of the earth ; 
 
 Till younger commonwealths, for aid, 
 Shall cling about her ample robe, 
 
 Arid, from her frown, shall shrink, afraid, 
 The crowned oppressors of the globe. 
 
 True time will seam and blanch my brow- 
 Well I shall sit with aged men, 
 
 And my good glass will tell me how 
 A grisly beard becomes me then. 
 
 And should no foul dishonour lie 
 Upon my head, when I am gray, 
 
 Love yet may search my fading eye, 
 And smooth the path of my decay. 
 
 Then haste thee, time, 'tis kindness all 
 That speeds thy winged feet so fast ; 
 
84 
 
 Thy pleasures stay not till they pall, 
 And all thy pains are quickly past. 
 
 Thou fliest, and bear'st away our woes ; 
 
 And, as thy shadowy train depart, 
 The memory of sorrow grows 
 
 A lighter burden on the heart. 
 
 INSCRIPTION. 
 
 Stranger, if thou hast ever blest the shade, 
 
 That lent thee shelter from the sun or rain, 
 
 Thou wilt not rest thee underneath this elm 
 
 Without a sense of gratitude. The boughs, 
 
 That overshadow thee, have borne the brunt 
 
 Of centuries, and have records of the past 
 
 In all their whispering leaves. We cannot hear them 
 
 Telling their tales, through the long summer day, 
 
 To the cool west-wind, and have other thoughts, 
 
 Than of the generations, who have sat, 
 
 In long succession, on the mossy turf 
 
 That beds these twisted roots. Sunshine and calm, 
 
 Darkness and storm, have been around these boughs. 
 
 And they have smiled to the unclouded sky, 
 
 And rocked in the rude tempest, but have stood 
 
 Unbroken, while the stream of human life 
 
 Has ebbed and flowed, like the perpetual tide, 
 
85 
 
 And hardly left a trace upon its shores, 
 
 To tell us where it came. Then rest thee, stranger, 
 
 And think thou hearest in the ancient wood 
 
 A monitor, that warns thee of thy end 
 
 With a low earnest voice, a voice of kindness, 
 
 That, like a silent fountain running over, 
 
 Refreshes where it flows, and, like its waters, 
 
 Gives life to the sere heart it passes by. 
 
 SONNET. 
 TO 
 
 Aye, thou art for the grave ; thy glances shine 
 
 Too brightly to shine long ; another Spring 
 Shall deck her for men's eyes, but not for thine, 
 
 Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening. 
 The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf, 
 
 Nor the vexed ore a mineral of power, 
 And they who love thee, wait in anxious grief 
 
 Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour. 
 Glide softly to thy rest then ; Death should come 
 
 Gently to one of gentle mould like thee, 
 As light winds wandering through groves of bloom 
 
 Detach the delicate blossom from the tree. 
 Close thy sweet eyes calmly, and without pain ; 
 
 And we will trust in God, to see thee, yet again. 
 H 
 
86 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Earth holds no fairer, lovelier one than thou. 
 Maid of the laughing lip, and frolic eye. 
 Innocence sits upon thy open brow, 
 Like a pure spirit in its native sky. 
 If ever beauty stole the heart away, 
 Enchantress, it would fly to meet thy smile ; 
 Moments would seem by thee a summer day. 
 And all around thee an Elysian isle. 
 Roses are nothing to the maiden blush 
 Sent o'er thy cheek's soft ivory, and night 
 Has nought so dazzling in its world of light, 
 As the dark rays that from thy lashes gush. 
 Love lurks amid thy silken curls, and lies 
 Like a keen archer in thy kindling eyes. 
 
 DION'S DREAM. 
 
 He lay upon his couch by night, 
 Locked fast in sleep ; for he had been 
 Engaged the livelong day in fight 
 With warrior-bands of foreign men : 
 When, on the moon's declining beam, 
 There came the Spirit of a dream. 
 
87 
 
 It breathed upon his face the spell, 
 Which shows the future and the past, 
 And bade him note fair Hellas well, 
 And see her age of glory past. 
 " And cast thine eyes, chief, west and east, 
 And tell me, dreamer, what thou seest." 
 
 And Dion saw, and lo ! the land, 
 The land of Greece was free no more ; 
 But o'er it ruled a turbaned band, 
 Whose scimitars were red with gore. 
 And there a Spartan boy, who waits 
 A bondman at the conqueror's gates. 
 
 He saw her sons the proselytes 
 
 Of a pure creed a faith divine ; 
 
 None pay the " Unknown God" high rites,- 
 
 His temple holds a holier shrine. 
 
 'Tis changed ; alas, at evening there 
 
 A Muezzim chants the Moslem prayer. 
 
 He saw a wretched peasant stand 
 Chained to his implements of toil ; 
 And there are fetters on his hand, 
 And there are tears, but ne'er a smile. 
 And oft is upward cast his eye 
 In prayer to God, that he may die. 
 
 He saw a girl with golden locks 
 And polished brow and azure eye ; 
 
88 
 
 Why roves she o'er the lonely rocks ? 
 Why all the day long weep and sigh ? 
 Alas, her loveliness has caught 
 A haram's lord, and she is bought. 
 
 And o'er the Morea, far and wide, 
 The ruthless sons of Islam stand 
 With every weapon, hell has tried 
 To work the downfall of a land. 
 And Dion thus in sorrow slept, 
 Then left his couch and sat and wept. 
 
 Again he sunk to sleep : again 
 
 He dreamed. Upon that mount of Thrace, 
 
 Which rises, as 'tis said of men, 
 
 Ten thousand feet above its base, 
 
 He stood, and from the height surveyed 
 
 The changes passing centuries made. 
 
 Is that lost Greece he sees below ? 
 Where is the glittering minaret ? 
 And where is he, the turbaned foe, 
 The Othman surely rules her yet ? 
 No, rest thee, chief, the Moslem thrones 
 Cumber no land that Europe owns. 
 
 He sees upon a sunny slope 
 All festooned over with the vine, 
 A merry, laughing, peasant group, 
 Around a vase of China wine. 
 
And much they talk of days gone past, 
 Ere Despotism breathed his last. 
 
 He sees a labouring man at work ; 
 His children, babes with yellow hair, 
 Play by, and, fearless of the Turk, 
 Pursue a young bird fluttering there, 
 And he, that sire, with soft embrace 
 Of those dear babes, joins in the chace. 
 
 And, emblem of the peace that reigns 
 Throughout the clime, he sees a maid 
 Of angel form forsake the plains, 
 And wander to the mountain's shade, 
 All lonely, with her father's flocks ; 
 For there 's no Turk among these rocks. 
 
 What cloud is that, which, girt with wings, 
 Comes sweeping where proud Corinth smiles ? 
 No shadowy cloud ; that vessel brings 
 The dove from far Atlantic isles ; 
 Lo ! o'er her, with a dark blue blent, 
 There waves a starry firmament. 
 
 The warrior wakes ; there is no cloud 
 Upon his heart ; the morning sun 
 Shines through his tent, and fierce and loud 
 Come shouts, as when the battles 's won. 
 And little taught by yester night, 
 The Satrap arms again for fight. 
 H2 
 
90 
 
 THE GLADIATOR. 
 
 They led a lion from his den, 
 
 The lord of Afric's sun-scorched plain ; 
 
 And there he stood, stern foe of men, 
 
 And shook his flowing mane. 
 
 There 's not of all Rome's heroes, ten 
 
 That dare abide this game. 
 
 His bright eye nought of lightning lacked ; 
 
 His voice was like the cataract. 
 
 They brought a dark-haired man along, 
 
 Whose limbs with gyves of brass were bound : 
 
 Youthful he seemed, and bold, and strong, 
 
 And yet unscathed of wound. 
 
 Blithely he stepped among the throng, 
 
 And careless threw around 
 
 A dark eye, such as courts the path 
 
 Of him, who braves a Dacian's wrath. 
 
 Then shouted the plebeian crowd 
 Rung the glad galleries with the sound ; 
 And from the throne there spake aloud 
 A voice, " Be the bold man unbound ! 
 And, by Rome's sceptre yet unbowed, 
 By Rome, earth's monarch crowned, 
 Who dares the bold the unequal strife, 
 Though doomed to death, shall save his life.'.' 
 
91 
 
 Joy was upon that dark man's face, 
 
 And thus, with laughing eye, spake he 
 
 " Loose ye the lord of Zaara's waste, 
 
 And let my arms be free ; 
 
 4 He has a martial heart,' thou sayest, 
 
 But oh, who will not be 
 
 A hero, when he fights for life, 
 
 And home, and country, babes, and wife. 
 
 And thus I for the strife prepare ; 
 The Thracian falchion to me bring ; 
 But ask th' imperial leave to spare 
 The shield a useless thing. 
 Were I a Samnite's rage to dare, 
 Then o'0r me should I fling 
 The broad orb ; but to lion's wrath 
 The shield were but a sword of lath." 
 
 And he has bared his shining blade, 
 And springs he on the shaggy foe ; 
 Dreadful the strife, but briefly played 
 The desert-king lies low, 
 His long and loud death-howl is made, 
 And there must end the show. 
 And when the multitude were calm, 
 The favourite freedman took the palm. 
 
 " Kneel down, Rome's emperor beside :" 
 He knelt, that dark man ; o'er his brow 
 Was thrown a wreath in crimson died, 
 
92 
 
 And fair words gild it now : 
 
 " Thou'rt the bravest youth that ever tried 
 
 To lay a lion low ; 
 
 And from our presence forth thou go'st 
 
 To leatf the Dacians of our host." 
 
 Then flushed his cheek, but not with pride. 
 And grieved and gloomily spoke he : 
 " My cabin stands where blithely glide 
 Proud Danube's waters to the sea ; 
 I have a young and blooming bride, 
 And I have children three ; 
 No Roman wealth nor rank can give 
 Such joy, as in their arms to live. 
 
 My wife sits at the cabin door, 
 
 With throbbing heart and swollen eyes ; 
 
 While tears her cheek are coursing o'er, 
 
 She speaks of sundered ties. 
 
 She bids my tender babes deplore 
 
 The death their father dies ; 
 
 She tells these jewels of my home, 
 
 I bleed to please the rout of Rome. 
 
 I cannot let those cherubs stray 
 Without their sire's protecting care ; 
 And I would chase the griefs away 
 Which cloud my wedded fair." 
 The monarch spoke, the guards obey,. 
 And gates unclosed are ; 
 
He is gone no golden bribes divide 
 The Dacian from his babes and bride. 
 
 TRUE GREATNESS. 
 
 There is a fire, that has its birth 
 Above the proudest hills of earth ; 
 And higher than the eternal snows, 
 The fountain whence it rose. 
 
 It came to man in ancient days, 
 And fell upon his ardent gaze, 
 A god descending in his car, 
 The Spirit of a star. 
 
 And as the glorious vision broke 
 Full on his eye, at once he woke, 
 And with the rush of battling steeds 
 He sprang to generous deeds. 
 
 Then first he stood erect and free, 
 And in the might of destiny 
 A stern, unconquerable fate 
 
 Compelled him to be great. 
 
 He strove not for the wreath of fame ; 
 
 From heaven, the power that moved him, came, 
 
94 
 
 And welcome, as the mountain air, 
 The voice that bade him dare. 
 
 Onward he bore, and battled still 
 With a most firm, enduring will, 
 His only hope, to win and rise, 
 His only aim the skies. 
 
 He saw their glories blaze afar ; 
 A soul looked down from every star, 
 And from its eye of lightning flew 
 
 A glance, that thrilled him through. 
 
 Full in the front of war he stood ; 
 His home, his country, claimed his blood : 
 Without one sigh that blood was given ; 
 He only thought of Heaven. 
 
 MARCH. 
 
 The stormy March is come at last, 
 With wind and cloud and changing skies, 
 
 I hear the rushing of the blast 
 
 That through the snowy valley flies. 
 
 Ah, passing few are they who speak, 
 Wild stormy montk ! in praise of thee ; 
 
95 
 
 Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak, 
 Thou art a welcome month to me. 
 
 For thou, to northern lands again, 
 The glad and glorious sun dost bring, 
 
 And thou hast joined the gentle train 
 And wear'st the gentle name of Spring. 
 
 And, in thy reign of blast and storm, 
 Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, 
 
 When the changed winds are soft and warm, 
 And heaven puts on the blue of May. 
 
 Then sing aloud the gushing rills 
 
 And the full springs, from frost set free, 
 
 That, brightly leaping down the hills, 
 Are just set out to meet the sea. 
 
 The year's departing beauty hides 
 Of wintry storms the sullen threat ; 
 
 But, in thy sternest frown, abides 
 A look of kindly promise yet. 
 
 Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies 
 And that soft time of sunny showers, 
 
 When the wide bloom, on earth that lies, 
 Seems of a brighter world than ours. 
 
1)6 
 
 AN APRIL DAY. 
 
 When the warm sun, that brings 
 Seed-time and harvest, has returned again, 
 'Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs 
 
 The first flower of the plain. 
 
 I love the season well 
 
 When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, 
 Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell 
 
 The coming-in of storms. 
 
 From the earth's loosened mould 
 The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives : 
 Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold, 
 
 The drooping tree revives. 
 
 The softly- warbled song 
 
 Comes through the pleasant woods, and coloured wings 
 Are glancing in the golden sun along 
 
 The forest openings. 
 
 And when bright sunset fills 
 
 The silver woods with light, the green slope throws 
 Its shadows in the hollows of the hills, 
 
 And wide the upland glows. 
 
 And when the day is gone, 
 In the blue lake the sky o'erreaching far 
 
97 
 
 Is hollowed out, and the moon dips her horn, 
 And twinkles many a star. 
 
 Inverted in the tide 
 
 Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw. 
 And the fair trees look over, side by side, 
 
 And see themselves below. 
 
 Sweet April ! many a thought 
 Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed ; 
 Nor shall they fail, till to its autumn brought 
 
 Life's golden fruit is shed. 
 
 THE REIGN OP MAY. 
 
 I feel a newer life in every gale ; 
 
 The winds, that fan the flowers, 
 And with their welcome breathings fill the sail, 
 
 Tell of serener hours, 
 Of hours that glide unfelt away 
 
 Beneath the sky of May. 
 
 The spirit of the gentle south-wind calls 
 
 From his blue throne of air, 
 And where his whispering voice in music falls, 
 
 Beauty is budding there ; 
 The bright ones of the valley break 
 
 Their slumbers and awake. 
 
The waving verdure rolls along the plain, 
 
 And the wide forest weaves, 
 To welcome back its playful mates again, 
 
 A canopy of leaves ; 
 And from its darkening shadow floats 
 
 A gush of trembling notes. 
 
 Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May ; 
 
 The tresses of the woods, 
 With the light dallying of the west- wind play, 
 
 And the full-brimming floods, 
 As gladly to their goal they run, ^ 
 
 Hail the returning sun. 
 
 AFTER A TEMPEST. 
 
 The day had been a day of wind and storm ; 
 
 The wind was laid, the storm was overpast, 
 And stooping from the zenith, bright and warm, 
 
 Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last. 
 
 I stood upon the upland slope and cast 
 My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene, 
 
 Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast, 
 And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green, 
 With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between. 
 
 The rain-drops glistened on the trees around, 
 Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirred. 
 
99 
 
 Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground, 
 Was shaken by the flight of startled bird ; 
 For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard 
 
 About the flowers ; the cheerful rivulet sung 
 And gossiped, as he hastened ocean-ward ; 
 
 To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung, 
 
 And chirping from the ground the grasshopper up- 
 sprung. 
 
 And from beneath the leaves that kept them dry 
 
 Flew many a glittering insect here and there, 
 And darted up and down the butterfly, 
 
 That seemed a living blossom of the air. 
 
 The flocks came scattering from the thicket, where 
 The violent rain had pent them, in the way 
 
 Strolled groups of damsels frolicksome and fair, 
 The farmer swung the scythe or turned the hay, 
 And 'twixt the heavy swaths his children were at play. 
 
 It was a scene of peace and, like a spell, 
 
 Did that serene and golden sunlight fall 
 Upon the motionless wood that clothed the cell, 
 
 And precipice upspringing like a wall, 
 
 And glassy river and white waterfall, 
 And happy living things that trod the bright 
 
 And beauteous scene ; while, far beyond them all, 
 On many a lovely valley, out of sight, 
 Was poured from the blue heavens the same soft 
 golden light. 
 
100 
 
 I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene 
 An emblem of the peace that yet shall be, 
 
 When o'er earth's continents and isles between, 
 The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea, 
 And married nations dwell in harmony. 
 
 When millions, crouching- in the dust to one, 
 No more shall beg their lives on bended knee, 
 
 Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sun 
 
 The o'erlaboured captive toil, and wish his life were 
 done. 
 
 Too long at clash of arms amid her bowers 
 And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast, 
 
 The fair earth, that should only blush with flowers 
 And ruddy fruits ; but not for aye can last 
 The storm, and sweet the sunshine when 'tis past ; 
 
 Lo, the clouds roll away they break they fly, 
 And, like the glorious light of summer, cast 
 
 O'er the wide landscape from the embracing sky, 
 
 On all the peaceful world the smile of heaven shall lie. 
 
 SUMMER WIND. 
 
 It is a sultry day ; the sun has drank 
 The dew that lay upon the morning grass, 
 There is no rustling in the lofty elm 
 That canopies my dwelling, and its shade 
 
101 
 
 Scarce cools me. All is silent save the fainf; 
 And interrupted murmur of the bee, 
 Settling on the sick flowers, arid then again 
 Instantly on the wing. The plants around 
 Feel the too potent fervours ; the tall maize 
 Rolls up its long green leaves ; the clover droops 
 Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms. 
 But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills, 
 With all their growth of woods, silent and stern, 
 As if the scorching heat and dazzling light 
 Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds, 
 Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven, 
 Their bases on the mountains their white tops 
 Shining in the far ether fire the air 
 With a reflected radiance, and make turn 
 The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie 
 Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, 
 Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, 
 Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind 
 That still delays its coming. Why so slow, 
 Gentle and voluble spirit of the air? 
 Oh come and breathe upon the fainting earth 
 Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves 
 He hears me ? See, on yonder woody ridge, 
 The pine is bending his proud top, and now, 
 Among the nearer groves, chesnut and oak 
 Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes ! 
 Lo where the grassy meadow runs in waves ! 
 The deep distressful silence of the scene 
 Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds 
 12 
 
102 
 
 And universal motion. He is come, 
 Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs 
 And bearing on their fragrance ; and he brings 
 Music of birds and rustling of young boughs, 
 And sound of swaying branches, and the voice 
 Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs 
 Are stirring in his breath, a thousand flowers, 
 By the road-side and the borders of the brook, 
 Nod gaily to each other, glossy leaves 
 Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew 
 Were on them yet, and silver waters break 
 Into small waves and sparkle as he comes. 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 With what glory comes and goes the year ! 
 The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers 
 Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy 
 Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out ; 
 And when the silver habit of the clouds 
 Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with 
 A sober gladness the old year takes up 
 His bright inheritance of golden fruits, 
 A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene. 
 
 There is a beautiful spirit breathing now 
 Its mellow richness on the clustered trees, 
 
103 
 
 And from a beaker full of richest dyes 
 Pouring new glory on the autumn woods, 
 And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds. 
 Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird, 
 Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales 
 The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, 
 Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life 
 Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned, 
 And silver beach, and maple yellow-leaved, 
 Where autumn, like a faint old man, sits down 
 By the way-side a-weary. Through the trees 
 The golden robin moves ; the purple finch, 
 That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds, 
 A winter bird, comes with its plaintive whistle, 
 And pecks by the witch-hazel, whilst aloud 
 From cottage roofs the warbling blue-bird sings ; 
 And merrily with oft-repeated stroke 
 Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail. 
 
 O what a glory doth this world put on 
 For him that with a fervent heart goes forth 
 Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks 
 On duties well performed, and days well spent ! 
 For him the wind, aye, the yellow leaves 
 Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings.': 
 He shall so hear the solemn hymn, that Death 
 Has lifted up for all, that he shall go 
 To his long resting-placo without a tear. 
 
104 
 
 MORNING TWILIGHT. 
 
 The mountains are blue in the morning- air, 
 And the woods are sparkling with dewy light ; 
 The winds, as they wind through the hollows, bear 
 The breath of the blossoms that wake by night. 
 Wide o'er the bending meadows roll 
 The mists, like a lightly moving sea ; 
 The sun is not risen and over the whole 
 There hovers a silent mystery. 
 
 The pure blue sky is in calm repose ; 
 
 The pillowy clouds are sleeping there ; 
 
 So stilly the brook in its covert flows, 
 
 You would think its murmur a breath of air. 
 
 The water that floats in the glassy pool, 
 
 Half hid by the willows that line its brink, 
 
 In its deep recess has a look so cool, 
 
 One would worship its nymph, as he bent to drink. 
 
 Pure and beautiful thoughts, at this early hour, 
 Go off to the home of the bright and blessed ; 
 They steal on the heart with an unseen power, 
 And its passionate throbbings are laid at rest : 
 O ! who would not catch, from the quiet sky 
 And the mountains that soar in the hazy air, 
 When his harbinger tells that the sun is nigh. 
 The visions of bliss that are floating there. 
 
105 
 
 TO A CLOUD. 
 
 Beautiful cloud ! with folds so soft and fair, 
 
 Swimming in the pure quiet air ! 
 Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below 
 
 Thy shadow o'er the vale moves slow : 
 Where, 'midst their labour, pause the reaper train 
 
 As cool it comes along the grain. 
 Beautiful cloud ! I would I were with thee 
 
 In thy calm way o'er land and sea : 
 To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look 
 
 On Earth as on an open book ; 
 On streams that tie her realms with silver bands, 
 
 And the long ways that seam her lands ; 
 And hear her humming cities, and the sound 
 
 Of waves that chafe their rocky bound. 
 Aye I would sail upon thy air-borne car 
 
 To blooming regions distant far, 
 To where the sun of Andalusia shines 
 
 On his own olive groves and vines, 
 Or the soft lights of Italy's bright sky 
 
 In smiles upon her ruins lie. 
 But I would woo the winds to let us rest 
 
 O'er Greece long fettered and opprest, 
 Whose sons at length have heard the call that comes 
 
 From the old battle fields and tombs, 
 And risen, and drawn the sword, and, on the foe, 
 
 Have dealt the swift and desperate blow, 
 
106 
 
 And the Othman power is cloven, and the stroke 
 Has touched its chains, and they are broke. 
 
 Aye, we would linger till the sunset there 
 Should come, to purple all the air, 
 
 And thou reflect upon the sacred ground, 
 The ruddy radiance streaming round. 
 
 Bright meteor ! for the summer noontide made ! 
 
 Thy peerless beauty yet shall fade. 
 The sun, that fills with light each glistening fold, 
 
 Shall set, and leave thee dark and cold : 
 The blast shall rend thy skirts, or thou may'st frown 
 
 In the dark heaven when storms come down, 
 And weep in rain, till man's inquiring eye 
 
 Miss thee, forever, from the sky. 
 
 AUTUMNAL NIGHTFALL. 
 
 Round Autumn's mouldering urn, 
 Loud mourns the chill and cheerless gale, 
 When nightfall shades the quiet vale, 
 
 And stars in beauty burn. 
 
 'Tis the year's eventide. 
 The wind, like one that sighs in pain 
 O'er joys that ne'er will bloom again, 
 
 Mourns on the far hill-side. 
 
107 
 
 And yet my pensive eye 
 Rests on the faint blue mountain long-, 
 And for the fairy-land of song, 
 
 That lies beyond, I sigh. 
 
 The moon unveils her brow ; 
 In the mid-sky her urn glows bright, 
 And in her pale and mellow light 
 
 The valley sleeps below. 
 
 I stand deep musing here, 
 Beneath the dark and motionless beech, 
 Whilst wandering winds of nightfall reach 
 
 My melancholy ear. 
 
 The air breathes chill and free ; 
 A Spirit, in soft music, calls 
 From Autumn's gray and moss-grown halls, 
 
 And round her withered tree. 
 
 The hoar and mantled oak, 
 With moss and twisted ivy brown, 
 Bends in its lifeless beauty down 
 
 Where weeds the fountain choke. 
 
 Leaves, that the night-wind bears 
 To earth's cold bosom with a sigh, 
 Are types of our mortality, 
 
 And of our fading years. 
 
108 
 
 The tree that shades the plain, 
 Wasting and hoar as time decays, 
 Spring shall renew with cheerful days, . 
 
 But not my joys again. 
 
 AUTUMN WOODS. 
 
 Ere, in the northern gale, 
 The summer tresses of the trees are gone, 
 The woods of Autumn, all around our vale, 
 
 Have put their glory on. 
 
 The mountains that infold 
 
 In their wide sweep, the coloured landscape round, 
 Seem groups of giant kings in purple arid gold, 
 
 That guard the enchanted ground. 
 
 I roam the woods that crown 
 The upland, where the mingled splendours glow, 
 Where the gay company of trees look down 
 
 On the green fields below. 
 
 My steps are not alone 
 
 In these bright walks ; the sweet southwest, at play, 
 Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown 
 
 Along the winding way. 
 
109 
 
 And far in heaven, the while, 
 The sun, that sends that gale to wander here, 
 Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile, 
 
 The sweetest of the year. 
 
 Where now the solemn shade, 
 Verdure and gloom where many branches meet ; 
 So grateful, when the noon of summer made 
 
 The valleys sick with heat ? 
 
 Let in through all the trees 
 
 Come the strange rays ; the forest depths are bright ; 
 Their sunny-coloured foliage, in the breeze, 
 
 Twinkles, like beams of light. 
 
 The rivulet, late unseen, 
 
 Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run. 
 Shines with the image of its golden screen, 
 
 And glimmerings of the sun. 
 
 But, 'neath yon crimson tree, 
 Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, 
 Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, 
 
 Her blush of maiden shame. 
 
 Oh, Autumn ! why so soon 
 'Depart the hues that make thy forests glad ; 
 Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon. 
 
 And leave thee wild and sad ! 
 
110 
 
 Ah, 't were a lot too blest 
 Forever in thy coloured shades to stray ; 
 Amidst the kisses of the soft southwest 
 
 To rove and dream for aye ; 
 
 And leave the vain low strife 
 
 That makes men mad the tug for wealth and power, 
 The passions and the cares that wither life, 
 
 And waste its little hour. 
 
 AUTUMNAL HYMN OF THE HUSBANDMAN. 
 
 Now we rest from our toils, Lord, our labours are done, 
 Our meadows are bared to the kiss of the sun ; 
 We have winnowed the wheat, well our toil it repays, 
 And our oxen have eaten the husks of the maize. 
 
 We gathered our harvests ; with strength in each limb 
 Toiled the mower ; the ripe grass bowed prostrate to 
 
 him; 
 
 And the reaper, as nimbly he felled the proud grain, 
 Was blither than those who wear sceptres and reign. 
 
 And tfre wheat blade was tall, and the full, golden ear 
 Proclaimed that the months of rejoicing were near ; 
 The grape in rich clusters hung, promising mirth, 
 And the boughs of the apple-tree slept on the earth. 
 
Ill 
 
 Did we thank thee, then, God of the seasons ? Oh no ! 
 We were prompt in accepting thy favours, but slow 
 Were our lips to give thanks for the rich gifts, thy hand 
 Showered thick on the maize-littered vales of our land. 
 
 Thou hast rained on us manna, Lord, yet we are mute ; 
 Though summer's all smiles, of thy love are the fruit, 
 Springs and autumns, as fair as the Orient boasts, 
 Dawn on us, yet faint are our tongues, Lord of Hosts ! 
 
 Now we raise our glad voices in gratitude raise, 
 And we waft on the beams of the morning our praise ; 
 We thank thee for golden grain gathered in shock, 
 And the milk of the kine, and the fleece of the flock. 
 
 And we thank thee for limbs moving light to the task , 
 For hearts beating high, though unwarmed of the flask, 
 Fill us, Lord, with just sense of thy bounty, and give 
 Health to us, and to all in the land where we live. 
 
 WOODS IN WINTER. 
 
 When winter winds are piercing chill, 
 
 And through the white-thorn blows the gale, 
 
 With solemn feet I tread the hill, 
 That over-brows the lonely vale. 
 
112 
 
 O'er the bare upland, and away 
 
 Through the long reach of desert woods, 
 The embracing sunbeams chastely play, 
 
 And gladden these deep solitudes. 
 
 On the gray maple's crusted bark 
 Its tender shoots the hoar-frost nips ; 
 
 Whilst in the frozen fountain hark ! 
 His piercing beak the bittern dips. 
 
 Where, twisted round the barren oak, 
 The summer vine in beauty clung, 
 
 And summer winds the stillness broke, 
 The crystal icicle is hung. 
 
 Where from their frozen urns mute springs 
 
 Pour out the river's gradual tide, 
 Shrilly the skater's iron rings, 
 
 And voices fill the woodland side. 
 
 Alas ! how changed from the fair scene, 
 When birds sang out their mellow lay ; 
 
 And winds were soft and woods were green- 
 And the song ceased not with the day. 
 
 But still wild music is abroad, 
 
 Pale, desert woods ! within your crowd ; 
 And gathered winds, in hoarse accord, 
 
 Arnid the vocal reeds pipe loud. 
 
113 
 
 Chill airs, and wintry wii.ds ! my ear 
 Has grown familiar with your song ; 
 
 I hear it in the opening yt ~ 
 I listen, and it cheers me ^ong. 
 
 A SONG OF SAVOY. 
 
 As the dim twilight shrouds 
 
 The mountain's purple crest, 
 And summer's white and folded clouds 
 
 Are glowing in the west, 
 Loud shouts come up the rocky dell, 
 And voices hail the evening bell. 
 
 Faint is the goatherd's song, 
 And sighing comes the breeze : 
 
 The silent river sweeps along 
 Amid its bending trees, 
 
 And the full moon shines faintly there, 
 
 And music fills the evening air. 
 
 Beneath the waving firs 
 
 The tinkling cymbals sound ; 
 And as the wind the foliage stirs, 
 
 I see the dancers bound 
 Where the green branches, arched above, 
 Bend over this fair scene of love. 
 
 K2 
 
114 
 
 And he is there, that sought 
 
 My young heart long ago ! 
 But he has left me, though I thought 
 
 He ne'er could leave me so. 
 Ah ! lovers' vows, how frail are they ! 
 And his were made but yesterday. 
 
 Why comes he not ? I call 
 
 In tears upon him yet ; 
 'T were better ne'er to love at all, 
 
 Than love, and then forget ! 
 Why comes he not ? Alas ! I should 
 Reclaim him still, if weeping could. 
 
 But see, ^he leaves the glade, 
 
 And beckons me away : 
 He comes to seek his mountain maid ! - 
 
 I cannot chide his stay. 
 Glad sounds along the valley swell, 
 And voices hail the evening belL 
 
 REBECCA TO ROWENA. 
 
 " Lady, I've looked upon thy face ; 
 And beauty, kindness, virtue, grace, 
 
 Have all combined to make thee fair 
 O ! may thy fortunes be as bright, 
 
115 
 
 As are those eyes, whose gentle light 
 Thy features now so softly wear. 
 
 Lady, I love thee, for thou art 
 
 The bride of him to whom my heart " 
 
 She paused and turned aside a tear 
 Flowed from her eye " O ! I am weak, 
 Forgive me, but I cannot speak 
 
 Of him who is to thee so dear ; 
 
 To whom I owe my honour, life ; 
 Who fought so nobly at the strife, 
 
 The mortal strife of Templestowe, 
 For a poor Jewish maiden, whom 
 All other men left to her doom, 
 
 As if she were of man the foe. 
 
 My blessing on him fare thee well ; 
 Long in my heart thy form shall dwell 
 
 Enshrined ; and when I think of thee, 
 Joyful shall be the tears I shed, 
 That Heaven has poured upon thy head 
 
 Its richest gifts. Lady, thou'lt see 
 
 My face no more ; I go away 
 
 To other lands men shall not say, 
 
 That the poor Jewess lives a slave ! 
 No, my despised, degraded race 
 In this fair land can have no place. 
 
 Yet, though the darkly-rolling wave 
 
116 
 
 Divide us while we live on earth, 
 We meet again ; my lowly birth, 
 
 The scorn which all have freely given 
 As if it were my birth-right here, 
 Are nought ; my humble, fervent prayer 
 
 The God of Israel shall hear; we meet in Heaven. 
 
 PAINTING A PERSONIFICATION. 
 
 One bright sunshiny autumn day, 
 
 When the leaves were just beginning to fade, 
 
 I saw a gay and laughing maid 
 
 Stand by the side of a public way. 
 
 There she stood erect and tall ; 
 
 Her flowery cheek had caught the dyes 
 
 Of the earliest dawn and O! her eyes, 
 
 Not a star that shoots or flies, 
 
 But those dark eyes outshine them all. 
 
 She stood with a long and slender wand, 
 With a tassel of hair at its pointed tip ; 
 And fast as the dews from a forest drip, 
 When a summer shower has bathed the land, 
 So quick a thousand colours came, 
 Darting along like shapes of flame, 
 At every turn of her gliding hand* 
 
117 
 
 She gave a form to the bodiless air, 
 And clear as a mirrored sheet it lay ; 
 And phantoms would come and pass away, 
 As her magical rod was pointed there. 
 
 First, the shape of a budding rose, 
 Just unfolding its tender leaf; 
 Then, all unbound its virgin zone, 
 Full in its pride and beauty blown, 
 It heavily hangs like a nodding sheaf; 
 And a cloud of perfume around it flows. 
 
 Then a mingling of vale and hill, 
 
 Hung around with a woody screen 
 
 O ! how alive its quivering green ; 
 
 And there a babbling brook is seen 
 
 To turn the wheel of a moss-grown mill : 
 
 There is a clear and glassy pool, 
 
 And a boy lies idly along its brink, 
 
 And he drops a pebble to see it sink 
 
 Down in that depth, so calm and cool ; 
 
 And out from behind a bowering tree 
 
 There peeps a maiden crowned with flowers : 
 
 The two are innocent paramours 
 
 At her delicate laugh he turns to see, 
 
 And then she darts like a frighted fawn 
 
 That springs away from the turfy lawn, 
 
 And far in the tangled thicket cowers 
 
 So she flies in her haste to hide 
 
 The blush that mantles her cheek and brow ; 
 
118 
 
 Then he languidly turns his eye aside 
 
 To the quiet brook's eternal flow. 
 
 There you may see a warrior horse, 
 
 All his trappings are dropped with gold 
 
 How his eye sparkles ! and O ! how bold, 
 
 As he springs away in his pride and force. 
 
 There a dark and keen-eyed Moor 
 
 Hangs and pulls at his bridle rein, 
 
 But all his skill and might are vain ; 
 
 He prances and tosses and hark ! away, 
 
 Bright as the flashing steeds of day, 
 
 He has broke from his keeper, and flings his mane, 
 
 Like a streaming meteor, over the plain. 
 
 Can you not see the creature neigh, 
 
 In his vapoury nostrils panting wide, 
 
 In his tossing head and his arch of pride, 
 
 And his rapid glance from side to side, 
 
 As he stands and beats the echoing ground 
 
 With quivering tramp, and sudden bound ? 
 
 Then with a tremble in every limb, 
 
 And an angry snort he darts away, 
 
 And round in a circle he seems to swim, 
 
 Or bends and turns like a lamb at play. 
 
 What is that comes from a golden cloud, 
 Floating along in thinnest air 
 Was there ever a shape so fine and fair ? 
 And O ! what wealth of sunny hair 
 Clings around like a glittering shroud 
 
119 
 
 Sec ! she raises a snowy arm, 
 Pure as a flake, ere it leaves the sky 
 She waves it around with a grace and a charm, 
 And putting her glossy ringlets by, 
 Shows to the sight a lip and eye ; 
 Is it a shape of light and air, 
 A vermeil cloud, and a midnight star, 
 That meet and mingle in glory there, 
 Or one of the winged spirits that fly 
 Like the prophet who rose in his fiery car ? 
 | No, 't is a being of human mould, 
 ; Changing with blush, and tear, and smile, 
 Such as the bard in his lonely isle, 
 ! Close to his heart would love to fold. 
 i Back she throws her tossing curls, 
 | Cheek, and brow, and neck are bare, 
 Tenderly crimson and purely fair, 
 Lake a damask rose when it first unfurls 
 Its feathery bosom to light and air. 
 Now that world of grace is calm, 
 Sweeter and dearer, but not so bright, 
 Like a flower when it sends the dew of night 
 Back from its breast in a cloud of balm. 
 See on her lids the gathering tear, 
 Clear as a star in the midnight main, 
 Such she might drop on her mother's bier, 
 Or shed for the youth who has long been dear, 
 When she parts and never may meet again 
 O ! what flashes of glory break 
 From that crystalline fount of love and joy ; 
 
120 
 
 All her smiles and glances wake, 
 
 And those opening lips such music make, 
 
 As rings from the heart of the hunter boy, 
 
 When he springs through the forest, fleet and proud 
 
 And the startled echoes are many and loud, 
 
 Loud as the burst of a nation's joy, 
 
 In the rocks that girdle the mountain lake. 
 
 Now for the touch of a master hand 
 See ! how she poises and waves her wand, 
 As if in a dream of busy thought 
 She sought for visions and found them not. 
 Now it rises and look what power 
 Springs to life, as she lifts her rod 
 Is it a hero, or visible god, 
 Or bard in his rapt and gifted hour ? 
 What a lofty and glorious brow, 
 Bent like a temple's towering arch, 
 As if that a wondering world might march 
 To the altar of mind, and kneel and bow ; 
 And then what a deep and spirited eye, 
 Quick as a quivering orb of fire, 
 Changing and shifting from love to ire, 
 Like the lights in a summer-evening sky ; 
 Then the living and breathing grace 
 Sent from the whole of that magic face, 
 The eloquent play of his lips, the smile 
 Sporting in sunbeams there awhile, 
 Then with the throb of passion pressed 
 Like a shivering leaf that cannot rest, 
 
121 
 
 And still as a lake when it waits a storm, 
 That wraps the mountain's giant form, 
 When they lie in the shade of his awful frown, 
 And his gathered brows are wrinkled down. 
 
 Such the visions that breathe and live, 
 The playful touch of her wand can give. 
 
 RIZPAH. 
 
 And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they 
 hanged them in the hill before the Lord ; and they fell all seven to- 
 gether, and were put to death in the da}'s of the harvest, in the first 
 days, in the beginning of barley-harvest. 
 
 And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for 
 her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water drop- 
 ped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air 
 to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. 
 
 2 Samuel, xxi. 9. 30, 
 
 Hear what the desolate Rizpah said, 
 As on Gibeah's rocks she watched the dead. 
 The sons of Michel before her lay, 
 And her own fair children, dearer than they : 
 By a death of shame they all had died, 
 And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side. 
 And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all 
 That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul, 
 All wasted with watching and famine now, 
 And scorched by the sun her haggard brow, 
 L 
 
Sat, mournfully guarding their corpses there, 
 And murmured a strange and solemn air ; 
 The low, heart-broken, and wailing strain 
 Of a mother that mourns her children slain. 
 
 I have made the crags my home, and spread 
 On their desert backs my sackcloth bed ; 
 I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks, 
 And drank the midnight dew in my locks ; 
 I have wept till I could not weep, and the pain 
 Of my burning eyeballs went to my brain. 
 Seven blackened corpses before me lie, 
 In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky. 
 I have watched them through the burning day, 
 And driven the vulture and raven away ; 
 And the cormorant wheeled in circles round, 
 Yet feared to alight on the guarded ground. 
 And, when the shadows of twilight came, 
 I have seen the hyena's eyes of flame, 
 And heard at my side his stealthy tread, 
 But aye at my shout the savage fled ; 
 And I threw the lighted brand, to fright 
 The jackal and wolf that yelled in the night. 
 
 Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons, 
 By the hands of wicked and cruel ones ; 
 Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime, 
 All innocent, for your father's crime. 
 He sinned but he paid the price of his guilt 
 When his blood by a nameless hand was spilt ; 
 
1-23 
 
 When he strove with the heathen host in vain, 
 And fell with the flower of his people slain, 
 And the sceptre his children's hands should sway 
 From his injured lineage passed away. 
 
 But I hoped that the cottage roof would be 
 A safe retreat for my sons and me ; 
 And that while they ripened to manhood fast, 
 They should wean my thoughts from the woes of the past* 
 And my bosom swelled with a mother's pride, 
 As they stood in their beauty and strength by my side, 
 Tall like their sire, with the princely grace 
 Of his stately form, and the bloom of his face. 
 
 Oh, what an hour for a mother's heart, 
 When the pitiless ruffians tore us apart ! 
 When I clasped their knees and wept and prayed, 
 And struggled and shrieked to heaven for aid, 
 And clung to my sons with desperate strength, 
 Till the 'murderers loosed my hold at length, 
 And bore me breathless and faint aside, 
 In their iron arms, while my children died. 
 They died and the mother that gave them birth 
 Is forbid to cover their bones with earth. 
 
 The barley harvest was nodding white, 
 When my children died on the rocky height, 
 And the reapers were singing on hill and plain, 
 When I came to my task of sorrow and pain. 
 But now the season of rain is nigh, 
 
124 
 
 The sun is dim in the thickening sky, 
 And the clouds in sullen darkness rest, 
 When he hides his light at the doors of the west. 
 I hear the howl of the wind that brings 
 The long drear storm on its heavy wings ; 
 But the howling wind, and the driving rain 
 Will beat on my houseless head in vain : 
 I shall stay, from my murdered sons to scare 
 The beasts of the desert, and fowls of the air. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Why have ye lingered on your way so long, 
 Bright visions, who were wont to hear my call, 
 And with the harmony of dance and song 
 Keep round my dreamy couch a festival ? 
 Where are ye gone with all your eyes of light, 
 And where the flowery voice I loved to hear, 
 When, through the silent watches of the night, 
 Ye whispered like an angel in my ear ? 
 O ! fly not with the rapid wing of time, 
 But with your ancient votary kindly stay, 
 And while the loftier dreams that rose sublime 
 In years of higher hope, have flown away, 
 O ! with the colours of a softer clime, 
 Give your last touches to the dying day. 
 
125 
 
 THE PERPETUAL YOUTH OF NATURE". 
 A SOLILOQUY. 
 
 With what a hollow voice these broken ruins 
 
 Tell of the vanished past. Here they are thrown. 
 
 Too rudely for the most inquiring eye 
 
 To read one legend of the men who reared them, 
 
 Or even form a guess of those who made 
 
 These walls their home. It is a beautiful clime, 
 
 And all th e year is lovely on these shores ; 
 
 For there is neither winter here to blight, 
 
 Nor the hot sun to dry the fountains up, 
 
 And make the plains a desert. Nature here 
 
 Has built her bower of evergreens ; and flowers 
 
 Are never wanting for her festivals, 
 
 And these are every day, and there is in them 
 
 Such a perpetual variety 
 
 Of bright and fair, the heart is never weary 
 
 Of the soft revelry ; and yet no trace 
 
 Of human footsteps on the bordering sands 
 
 Of the calm ocean, gives a sign that man 
 
 Has found his way before me to this haunt 
 
 Of silence and repose. Well, be it so, 
 
 And I will hold myself the rightful lord 
 
 Of all this fair domain, by the strong claim 
 
 Of first discovery. No inheritance 
 
 Of gilded palaces, or loaded fields 
 
 Bent with a thousand harvests, could so fill 
 
 My spirit with the stirring health of joy, 
 L2 
 
126 
 
 As thus to hold myself the sole possessor 
 
 Of such a solitude so full of life, 
 
 And yet so mute, so bright and beautiful, 
 
 And yet so darkly shadowed with the pall 
 
 Of buried ages. How the merry vines 
 
 Go gadding in the brisk and spirited air, 
 
 That even calls from out the barren rocks 
 
 A welcoming smile. The wind is very low 
 
 It hardly wags the shrinking violet, 
 
 Or sends a quiver to the aspen leaf, 
 
 Or curls the green wave on the pebbled shore, 
 
 Or gives a wrinkle to the quiet sea, 
 
 That like a giant resting from his toil, 
 
 Sleeps in the morning sun. That flowery palm 
 
 Has a most glorious aspect as he bows 
 
 In silent worship to his rising god ; 
 
 And from his station on the tallest pile 
 
 Of these mysterious ruins, once the shrine, 
 
 It may be, of the living Sun himself, 
 
 How like a most majestic sovereign 
 
 He keeps his lofty seat, and yet adores 
 
 The Lord that made him. It is wonderful, 
 
 That man should hold himself so haughtily, 
 
 And talk of an immortal name, and feed 
 
 His proud ambition with such daring hopes, 
 
 As creatures of a more eternal nature 
 
 Alone should form. Why, 't is a mockery 
 
 Too poor for tears, and yet too sad for smiles, 
 
 To think how much of glitter and of pride 
 
 Has flaunted in the Sun, and sent him back 
 
i87 
 
 His fullest beams. These rude disjointed heaps, 
 That seem the chaos of a broken world, 
 And hardly give us signs enough to show, 
 They were not thrown from out the central earth 
 By an upheaving earthquake these were bright 
 With such barbaric pomp, as made the Sun 
 Muffle his head, and hide himself at noon 
 To shun the poor encounter. So they sung, 
 The sycophants, who told the gorgeous tyrant 
 Of these once peopled shores, he was a god, 
 And with the port and bearing of a god 
 Sat on his throne, or in his chariot 
 Went sounding on his long triumphal way. 
 Fools ! and where are they ? Not a mark to tell 
 The shadows of their names The tooth of Time 
 Has ground the marble sculptures to rude forms 
 Such as the falling waters eat from rocks 
 In the deep gloom of caves ! and yet, as if 
 They meant to show their scorn of him, who calls 
 Himself their lord, the beasts and creeping things 
 Have come from out their deserts and their holes, 
 And made their dens in the crushed palaces, 
 And round the buried altars hollowed out 
 Their lurking-places. O ! how fresh and fair 
 Grows the young grass, and how the wild vines clasp 
 The rifted columns, with as bright a foliage, 
 As when from out the bosom of the earth 
 First rose the rampant Spring, and the glad Sun 
 Laughed from his azure throne to see the buds 
 Put out their tender leaves, and the soft green 
 Spread like a carpet to the tented sky. 
 
128 
 
 MOUNT WASHINGTON. 
 
 The loftiest peak of the White Mountains, N. H. 
 
 Mount of the clouds ; on whose Olympian height 
 The tall rocks brighten in the ether air, 
 And spirits from the skies come down at night, 
 To chant immortal songs to Freedom there ! 
 Thine is the rock of other regions ; where 
 The world of life which blooms so far below 
 Sweeps a wide waste : no gladdening scenes appear, 
 Save where with silvery flash the waters flow 
 Beneath the far off mountain, distant, calm, and slow. 
 
 Thine is the summit where the clouds repose, 
 Or eddying wildly round thy cliffs are borne ; 
 When Tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws 
 His billowy mist amid the thunder's home ! 
 Far down the deep ravines the whirlwinds come, 
 And bow the forests as they sweep along ; 
 While roaring deeply from their rocky womb 
 The storms came forth and hurrying darkly on, 
 Amid the echoing peaks the revelry prolong ! 
 
 And when the tumult of the air is fled, 
 And quenched in silence all the tempest flame, 
 There come the dim forms of the mighty dead, 
 Around the steep which bears the hero's name. 
 The stars look down upon them and the same 
 Pale orb that glistens o'er his distant grave, 
 Gleams on the summit that enshrines his fame, 
 
129 
 
 And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave 
 The richest, purest tear, that memory ever gave ! 
 
 Mount of the clouds ! when winter round thee throws 
 The hoary mantle of the dying year, 
 Sublime amid thy canopy of snows, 
 Thy towers in bright magnificence appear ! 
 'T is then we view thee with a chilling fear, 
 Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue ; 
 When lo ! in softened grandeur, far, yet clear, 
 Thy battlements stand clothed in Heaven's own hue, 
 To swell as Freedom's home on man's unbounded view! 
 
 SUNRTSE FROM MOUNT WASHINGTON. 
 
 The laughing hours have chased away the Night 
 Plucking the stars out from her diadem ; 
 And now the blue-eyed morn with modest grace, 
 Looks through her half-drawn curtains in the East 
 Blushing in smiles and glad as infancy. 
 And see ! the foolish Moon, but now so vain 
 Of borrowed beauty, how she yields her charms, 
 And, pale with envy, steals herself away ! 
 The clouds have put their gorgeous livery on 
 Attendant on the day. The mountain tops 
 Have lit their beacons, and the vales below 
 Send up a welcoming. No song of birds, 
 
130 
 
 Warbling to charm the air with melody, 
 Floats on the frosty breeze ; yet Nature hath 
 The very soul of music in her looks, 
 The sunshine and the shade of poetry ! 
 
 I stand upon thy loftiest pinnacle, 
 
 Temple of Nature ! and look down with awe 
 
 On the wide world beneath me, dimly seen. 
 
 Around me crowd the giant sons of earth, 
 
 Fixed on their old foundations, unsubdued, 
 
 Firm as when first rebellion bade them rise, 
 
 Unrifted to the Thunderer ; now they seem 
 
 A family of mountains, clustering round 
 
 Their hoary patriarch, emulously watching 
 
 To meet the partial glances of the day. 
 
 Far in the glowing East, the flecking light, 
 
 Mellowed by distance, with the blue sky blending,- 
 
 Questions the eye with ever-varying forms. 
 
 The sun is up ; away the shadows fling 
 
 From the broad hills, and hurrying to the west, 
 
 Sport in the sunshine, till they die away. 
 
 The many beauteous mountain-streams leap down, 
 
 Out- welling from the clouds, and sparkling light 
 
 Dances along with their perennial flow. 
 
 And there is beauty in yon river's path 
 
 The glad Connecticut. I know her well 
 
 By the white veil she mantles o'er her charms. 
 
 At times, she loiters by a ridge of hills, 
 
 Sportfully hiding ; then again with glee 
 
 Out-rushes from her wild- wood lurking-place. 
 
131 
 
 Far as the eye can bound, the ocean-waves 
 And lakes and rivers, mountains, vales and woods, 
 And all that holds the Faculty entranced, 
 Bathed in a flood of glory, float in air, 
 And sleep in the deep quietude of joy ! 
 There is a fearful stillness in this place 
 A presence that forbids to break the spell, 
 Till the heart pours its agony in tears. 
 But I must drink the vision while it lasts ; 
 For even now the curling vapours rise, 
 Wreathing their cloudy coronals to grace 
 These towering summits bidding me away. 
 But often shall my heart turn back again, 
 Thou glorious eminence ! and when oppressed 
 And aching with the coldness of the world, 
 Find a sweet resting-place and home with thee 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 O ! thou sole-sitting Spirit of Loneliness, 
 Whose haunt is by the wild and dropping caves; 
 Thou, of the musing eye and scattered tress, 
 I meet thee with a passionate joy, no less 
 Than when the mariner, from off his waves, 
 Catches the glimpses of a far blue shore 
 He thinks the danger of his voyage o'er, 
 And pressing all his canvass, steers to land, 
 
132 
 
 With a glad bosom and a ready hand. 
 So I would hie me to thy desolate shade, 
 And seat myself in some deep-sheltered nook, 
 And never breathe a wish again to look 
 On the tossed world, but rather listless laid 
 Pore on the bubbles of the passing brook. 
 
 THE LAST SONG OF THE GREEK PATRIOT. 
 
 One last, best effort now 
 
 They shall not call us slaves 
 These iron necks shall never bow 
 To barter for a hated life, 
 But we will tell in mortal strife, 
 
 What wrath a freeman braves 
 A few short years, and we have known 
 The pride and joy to live alone. 
 
 Our ancient land was free, 
 
 We washed its stains in blood" 
 Again the hymn of Liberty 
 Rose from the high Athenian shrine, 
 And virgin hands did often twine, 
 
 In the dark olive wood, 
 Their garlands for the youthful brow, 
 Who taught the heathen Turk 
 
133 
 
 These have been glorious days- 
 Let come what will, our fame 
 Is like the sun's eternal blaze, 
 And when they tell of Marathon, 
 And all the fields our fathers won, 
 
 They too shall name 
 Botzaris, and the few who died, 
 Victims of glory, by his side. 
 
 The world has told our doom 
 
 'T is Liberty or Death 
 The tree we planted must not bloom, 
 For Turk and Christian all unite, 
 And royal hands our sentence write, 
 
 And yet our breath, 
 When trampled by the ruffian herd, 
 Shall never breathe one recreant word. 
 
 If we must die then die 
 
 And let the foul disgrace 
 Cling to their names eternally, 
 Who, when they had the power to save, 
 Doomed to a dark and bloody grave 
 
 A high, devoted race 
 Awhile the sweets of life to know, 
 O God ! and then to perish so ! 
 
 But Freedom has one shore 
 Would we could shelter there 
 
 The tender ones, we value more 
 M 
 
134 
 
 Than life or fame O ! generous men, 
 Be with us, as ye long have been, 
 
 And we will share 
 
 All the poor fruit of toils and pains, 
 Our hearts our lives perhaps, our chains. 
 
 Come, at this fatal hour, 
 
 Ye last of high-born souls ; 
 Come when the crushing weight of power 
 Has all but bent our necks to earth 
 We will not shame our glorious birth ; 
 
 Nor Turk, nor Hun controls 
 The heart that holds the Spartan fire, 
 The sacred relic of his sire. 
 
 We know, ye cannot fear 
 
 We know, that ye are brave 
 To us your very name is dear 
 O ! by that name, and all its light, 
 We bid ye join the murderous fight, 
 
 To win and save 
 O ! come if it be only time 
 To fall with us in Death sublime. 
 
 GRECIAN LIBERTY. 
 
 Glorious Vision ! who art thou, 
 With thy starry crown of light, 
 
135 
 
 Like the diadem of night 
 On the ^Ethiop monarch's brow ? 
 And why art thou descending 
 From thy bright Olympian throne, 
 And thy lavish glory lending, 
 Like the ever-rolling sun, 
 To the self-devoted band 
 On the threshold of their land ? 
 Few, but hardy are their ranks, 
 And they never will retire, 
 Though ten thousand on their flanks 
 Hurl a storm of steel and fire 
 Though an iron tempest rain 
 Death and darkness, till the day 
 Pass in dim eclipse away 
 Though the thunderbolts of war, 
 Plough their furrows in the plain, 
 And the echoing mountains bay 
 To the tumult from afar. 
 
 O ! bright and glorious creature 
 
 Winged, and mailed, arid armed for fight ; 
 
 Though beautiful in feature, 
 
 Like a Spirit of delight ; 
 
 Yet the arching of thy brow, 
 
 And thy proud and gallant form, 
 
 Tell of one who rides the storm, 
 
 When the sternest warriors bow, 
 
 And the bravest yield their breath 
 
 At the summoning of Death. 
 
136 
 
 There thou standest on the mountains, 
 And the sparkle of thy spear, 
 Like a sunbeam on the fountains, 
 To the gallant few below, 
 Is a sign of wrath and fear 
 To the blind and brutal foe ; 
 Like a beacon let it blaze 
 Broad and flaring till it daze 
 All who come with foot profane 
 To this consecrated plain, 
 Where thy pure and perfect shrine 
 Youths and maidens loved to twine 
 With the laurel and the myrtle 
 And the shadow of thy grove, 
 Haunt of innocence and love, 
 Heard the winged arrows hurtle 
 From the flowery-wreathen bow, 
 With a whisper like the flow 
 Of a brook, that winds afar 
 Underneath the Evening Star. 
 
 O ! they were happy days, 
 When, reposing in the shade, 
 Elms, and vines, and poplars made, 
 It was all thy joy to gaze 
 On the races and the dances, 
 Twining hands and burning glances, 
 Where Passion went and came, 
 Like an arrow tipped with flame. 
 Though thou didst often lie 
 
137 
 
 With a pleased and placid eye, 
 
 As thy children took their pleasure, 
 
 And the merry flute and viol 
 
 Told, in light and airy measure, 
 
 All the joys and sports of leisure ; 
 
 Not the less, to meet the trial, 
 
 Thou would'st gird thy warlike arms, 
 
 And with bare and eager blade, 
 
 On, though dangers and alarms, 
 
 To the wreath of Victory wade. 
 
 Thou could'st leave thy pleasant woods, 
 
 And the harvest of the plain, 
 
 And along the torrent floods 
 
 To the frozen mountains climb, 
 
 Where they reared their fronts sublime ; 
 
 Or scorning Slavery's chain, 
 
 Make thy dwelling on the main. 
 
 From the Dorian rocks and caves, 
 
 When the gorged and glutted foe 
 
 Lay in careless ease below, 
 
 Like an Alpine stream that raves 
 
 When the autumn rains are pouring, 
 
 And the pines in mist are towering ; 
 
 So thou did'st rush and sweep 
 
 To the dark remorseless deep, 
 
 With thy fury and thy force, 
 
 Shield and chariot, man and horse, 
 
 And thy sword wrought far and wide, 
 
 Till the land was purified. 
 M2 
 
138 
 
 And now thou dost awake, 
 
 And thy dream of ages break 
 
 From the halls of ice and snow, 
 
 Whence thy classic rivers flow ; 
 
 From thy palace in the clouds, 
 
 Where the light of evening runs 
 
 On the rolling wreath that shrouds 
 
 The last refuge of thy sons 
 
 Peaks, that never Turk has trod, 
 
 Where the armed and ardent Klepht 
 
 Found his shelter, when he left, 
 
 For a prey to wasting fires, 
 
 All the temples of his God, 
 
 And the dwellings of his sires ; 
 
 From thy caverns in the rock, 
 
 From thy dark and hidden hold, 
 
 Thou hast nerved thee to the shock, 
 
 And thy warning shout has rolled 
 
 Height from height has caught the sound 
 
 And thy foes in haste retire ; 
 
 Now the tumult rises higher 
 
 'Tis a nation's cry of joy 
 
 " None to ravage and destroy 
 
 Not a foreign foot is found 
 
 On our consecrated ground." 
 
139 
 
 TIME AND BEAUTY. 
 
 Ruthless Time, who waits for no man, 
 But with scythe, and wings, and glass, 
 
 Lies in wait for youth and woman, 
 Saw one morning Beauty pass. 
 
 O'er the flowers she bounded lightly, 
 
 Smiling as a summer's day ; 
 Time, who marked her eyes beam brightly, 
 
 Chose the fair one for his prey. 
 
 " Maid," he rudely cried, " good morrow ! 
 
 Knowest thou not what rights are mine ? 
 Beauty 'tis my wont to borrow ; 
 
 And I come to gather thine." 
 
 "I'll not yield it," cried she boldly ; 
 
 " Monster, do not draw so nigh." 
 " Come with me," he answered coldly. 
 
 " Go with thee !" said she " not I." 
 
 Time his scythe extended o'er her, 
 Threatening with his withered hand ; 
 
 And his hour-glass shook before her, 
 Pointing to the running sand. 
 
 But the maiden all intrepid, 
 Answered, laughing carelessly, 
 
 " I am young, and thou decrepid, 
 What hast thou to do with me." 
 
140 
 
 Time replied, with purpose steady, 
 " Wrinkles I must lend thy brow." 
 
 Beauty cried, " I 'm not yet ready,?* 
 Flying-, cried, " not ready now." 
 
 Time pursued, with will unshaken ; 
 
 Beauty fled with rapid feet, 
 Yet was soon well nigh o'ertaken, 
 
 For the old man's wings are fleet. 
 
 But the maiden, nothing fearful, 
 Calls on Wisdom, power divine ; 
 
 Wisdom comes, with aspect cheerful, 
 Leads her to her ancient shrine* 
 
 There her eye all passion loses, 
 But with reason shines serene ; 
 
 Truth its sober charms diffuses 
 Gently o'er her softened mien. 
 
 Thought restrains her youthful wildness ; 
 
 Calmness holy hopes bestow ; 
 On her face love joined to mildness 
 
 Blends its light with virtue's glow. 
 
 Time saw heavenly graces cluster, 
 Left, o'erawed, his will undone ; 
 
 Beauty smiled in angel lustre ; 
 Time was vanquished ; Beauty won, 
 
141 
 
 A VISION. 
 
 I have been haunted by an awful dream 
 
 A vision of my childhood one that grew 
 
 From an o'erheated fancy, nursed to fear 
 
 In a dark, visionary creed. A Star, 
 
 Of a malign aspe'ct, had been to me, 
 
 For a few weeks of dread uncertainty, 
 
 The prophet of evil ; and I saw in it 
 
 The minister of judgments, such as oft 
 
 Had been denounced before me, and had grown 
 
 To an undoubting faith. 
 
 Methought that Star, 
 As in a vision of the night I lay, 
 Stood with its train directed to the Earth, 
 And every moment it did spread itself, 
 And grew a deeper crimson. Where I was 
 I could not tell ; but I stood gazing on it 
 With unaverted eye, and I could watch it 
 Taking ten thousand fiery shapes, and changing 
 To every terrible hue and form, and still 
 Widening and widening out its burning orb, 
 Till a whole quarter of the heavens was red 
 And glowing like a furnace. Then, methought, 
 A form stood visible'within it, vast 
 And indistinct, as a far mountain, seen 
 Through a dense vapour, when the morning strikes it, 
 And makes it such a thing as the mind frames, 
 -When it goes wandering through the infinite, 
 
142 
 
 And builds on dreams. I gazed upon it, chained 
 And fascinated by its terrible glory, 
 And with it such a sense of fear, the drops 
 Stood thick upon my forehead, and my heart 
 Was near to bursting. 'T was an agony 
 Of wonder and of death ; for I beheld 
 Already come the day of doom, and Earth 
 Seemed parched and burnt by the intensity 
 Of that approaching flame. The sky above 
 Was like a vaulted furnace, and it quivered 
 And sparkled in the heat, and at the centre, 
 Transparent in the fierceness of its fire, 
 Still that illimitable form did frown 
 Blacker than tenfold night. His quick approach 
 Left me no time to scan him, but he seemed 
 To gather in himself all I had heard 
 Or dreamed of horrible. A muttering sountf, 
 Like that of far-off winds, or smothered flame 
 Roaring in caves, a sound that fell like fate 
 On my stunned ear, came as a warning voice, 
 That Earth was now within the wasting sphere 
 Of that consuming plague. At once the wind 
 Seemed to blow over me, with hot, thick breath, 
 Wafting such clouds of smoke and sheets of fire, 
 That all around me seemed one conflagration ; 
 And even the firm foundations of the hills 
 Cracked and fell inward, and one long, long peal 
 Gave warning, that this ponderous globe was rent 
 And shivered. Suddenly a burst of flame 
 So clear and strong, no thought can image it, 
 
143 
 
 Filled the whole visible space ; and still it flashed, 
 
 And flashed, till in an instant utter darkness 
 
 Closed heavily, around me, and I woke : 
 
 I woke, and yet the horrors of that dream 
 
 Would visit me at times, even when I grew 
 
 To know its causes, and could reason of it ; 
 
 And though the mind moved in its own pure light, 
 
 And stood aloof from fear, yet there were moments, 
 
 When the dark memory of this dream would quell me 
 
 Well nigh to trembling. 
 
 ITALYA CONFERENCE. 
 
 A. Why hast thou such a downward look of care, 
 As if thine eye refused the sweet communion 
 Of these enchanted skies ? I cannot weary 
 In gazing on them, there is such a clearness 
 In the mid-noon ; and then the calmer hours 
 Have such a glory round them, that I grow 
 Enamoured of their clouds. O ! they have caught 
 Their hues in Heaven, and they come stealing to us 
 Like messengers of love to kindle up 
 This volatile air. How light and thin it floats 
 Methinks I now can pass into the depths 
 Of yon wide firmament, it lies so open 
 And shows so fair. The stars are hung below it, 
 And they are moving in a vacancy, 
 Like the poised eagle. How the studded moon, 
 
144 
 
 All dropped with glittering- points, rolls on its way 
 Between the pillowy clouds, and that which seems 
 A crystalline arch a dome that rests on air, 
 Buoyed by its lightness. Can thy heavy eyes 
 Still pore on the discoloured earth, and choose 
 Their home in darkness ? Something weighs upon 
 
 thee 
 
 With no light burden, if thou hast no heart 
 To mingle with the beautiful world around thee. 
 
 B. Thou talk'st of clouds and skies. Has the sweet face 
 Of spring a power to charm away the fiends 
 That riot on the soul ? Will the foul spirit 
 Go, when the cock crows, like a muttering ghost, 
 To find his kindred shades,and leave the heart 
 To gladden through the day, and dares he not 
 To fill it with his terrors, when the Sun 
 Is out in heaven ? Is there a sovereign balm 
 In cloudless skies, and bright and glowing noons, 
 To make the spirit light, and drive from it 
 The moody madness and the listless sorrow ? 
 I feel there is not. Something tells me, here, 
 There may be such a grief, that nothing earthly 
 Hath power to stay it. I too have a feeling, 
 How beautiful this clime ; and though the native 
 Looks on it with a blank indifference, 
 To us who had our birth in clouded skies, 
 And reckoned it a bright and fortunate day, 
 If the sun gave us but an hour at noon, 
 It is indeed a luxury to see 
 
145 
 
 Whole days without a cloud, but these light shapes, 
 That float around us more like heavenly spirits, 
 They are so bright and wear such glorious hues, 
 Or hang so quietly, and look so pure, 
 When all is still at noon. O ! I have felt 
 This luxury of sense, but yet it comes not 
 So far as here. The heart knows nothing of it ; 
 And now that I have seen so many days, 
 All of an equal brightness, like the calm 
 That reigns, they say, perpetually in Heaven, 
 Why I grow weary of them, and my thoughts 
 Are on the past. Thou need'st no other answer. 
 
 A. 'T is not the barren luxury of sense, 
 That makes me love these skies but there is in 
 
 them 
 
 A living spirit. I can feel it stealing 
 Even to my heart of hearts, and waking there 
 Feelings that never yet have stirred within me, 
 So blessed, that I almost weep to think 
 How poor my life without them. I now walk 
 In a glad company of happy visions, 
 And all the air seems like a dwelling-place 
 For glorious creatures. Like the shifting waves, 
 That toss on the white shore, when evening breezes 
 Steal to the land in summer, they are floating 
 In airy trains around me. Now they come 
 Laughing on yonder mountain side, a troop 
 Of airy nymphs, and now they flit away 
 
 Round the far islands of the golden sea, 
 
 N 
 
146 
 
 Islands of light that seem to hang in air, 
 Midway in heaven. No wonder they so love 
 The song and dance, and walk with such a look 
 Of thoughtless gaiety the merry beggars, 
 Who breed like insects on these sunny shores, 
 And live as idly. There are glorious faces 
 Among them there are Roman spirits here, 
 And Grecian eyes that tell a thousand fancies, 
 Like those that shaped their deities, and wrought 
 Perfection. True, they have no stirring hopes 
 To lift them ; yet at times they will give vent 
 To the overburdened soul, and then they speak 
 In oracles, or like the harp of Memnon, 
 They utter poetry, as the bright skies 
 And stirring winds awake it. Who can wonder, 
 That every voice is bursting out in music, 
 And every peasant tunes his mandoline 
 To the delicious airs, that creep so softly 
 Into the slumbering ear. O ! 't is a land, 
 Where life is doubled, and a brighter world 
 Rolls over this, and there the spirit lives 
 In a gay paradise, and here we breathe 
 An atmosphere of roses. 
 
 B Yes But this 
 
 Is nothing to the heart. They never felt 
 These summer flies, who buzz so gaily round us, 
 They never felt, one moment, what we feel 
 With such a silent tenderness, and keep 
 So closely round our hearts. We do not wake 
 
147 
 
 The echoes with our loud and thoughtless carols, 
 
 Nor sit whole days beneath a bowering vine, 
 
 Singing its amber juice, and telling too 
 
 Of starry eyes, and soft and languishing looks, 
 
 And talking of our agonies with smiles, 
 
 Making a sport of soirow. No, our year, 
 
 With its long time of gloom, and hurried days 
 
 Of warmth, that call for more of toil than pleasure 
 
 Our pensive year forbids the wandering spirit 
 
 To make itself a song-bird. We must keep 
 
 Our sorrows and our hopes close cherished by us, 
 
 Till the heart softens, and by often musing 
 
 Takes a deep, serious tone, and has a feeling 
 
 For all that suffer. So we often bear 
 
 A grief, that is the burden of a life, 
 
 And will not leave us. Something that would seem 
 
 Too trifling to be laughed at here, will weigh 
 
 And weigh upon us, till we cannot lift it, 
 
 And then we pine and die. Her heart is broken, 
 
 And the worm feeds upon her early roses, 
 
 And now her lily fades, and all its brightness 
 
 Turns to a green and sallow melancholy, 
 
 And then we strew her grave ; but here the passion 
 
 Breaks out in wildness, then is sung away 
 
 With a complaining air, and so is ended. 
 
 I have no sympathy with such light spirits, 
 
 But I can see my sober countrymen 
 
 Gather around their winter's hearth, and read 
 
 Of no unreal suffering, and then weep 
 
 Big tears that ease the heart, and need no words 
 
148 
 
 To make their meaning known. One silent hour 
 Of deep and thoughtful feeling stands me more, 
 Than a whole age of such a heartless mirth, 
 As a bright summer wakens. 
 
 ITALIAN SCENERY. 
 
 Night rests in beauty on Mont Alto. 
 
 Beneath its shade the beauteous Arno sleeps 
 In Vallombrosa's bosom, and dark trees 
 Bend with a calm and quiet shadow down 
 Upon the beauty of that silent river. 
 Still in the west, a melancholy smile 
 Mantles the lips of day, and twilight pale 
 Moves like a spectre in the dusky sky ; 
 While eve's sweet star on the fast-fading year 
 Smiles calmly : Music steals at intervals 
 Across the water, with a tremulous swell, 
 From out the upland dingle of tall firs, 
 And a faint foot-fall sounds, where dim and dark 
 Hangs the gray willow from the river's brink, 
 O'er-shadowing its current. Slowly there 
 The lover's gondola drops down the stream, 
 Silent, save when its dipping oar is heard, 
 Or in its eddy sighs the rippling wave. 
 Mouldering and moss-grown, through the lapse of 
 years, 
 
149 
 
 In motionless beauty stands the giant oak, 
 
 Whilst those, that saw its green and flourishing youth, 
 
 Are gone and are forgotten. Soft the fount, 
 
 Whose secret springs the star-light pale discloses, 
 
 Gushes in hollow music, and beyond 
 
 The broader river sweeps its silent way, 
 
 Mingling a silver current with that sea, 
 
 Whose waters have no tides, coming nor going. 
 
 On noiseless wing along that fair blue sea 
 
 The halcyon flits, and where the wearied storm 
 
 Left a loud moaning, all is peace again. 
 
 A calm is on the deep ! The winds that came 
 O'er the dark sea-surge with a tremulous breathing, 
 And mourned on the dark cliff where weeds grew rank, 
 And to the Autumnal death-dirge the deep sea 
 Heaved its long billows, with a cheerless song, 
 Have passed away to the cold earth again, 
 Like a way-faring mourner. Silently 
 Up from the calm sea's dim and distant verge, 
 Full and unveiled the moon's broad disk emerges. 
 On Tivoli, and where the fairy hues 
 Of autumn glow upon Abruzzi's woods, 
 The silver light is spreading. Far above, 
 Encompassed with their thin, cold atmosphere, 
 The Apennines uplift their snowy brows, 
 Glowing with colder beauty, where unheard 
 The eagle screams in the fathomless ether, 
 
 And stays his wearied wing. Here let us pause ! 
 Nfc 
 
150 
 
 The spirit of these solitudes the soiil 
 
 That dwells within these steep and difficult places 
 
 Speaks a mysterious language to mine own, 
 
 And brings unutterable musings. Earth 
 
 Sleeps in the shades of nightfall, and the sea 
 
 Spreads like a thin blue haze beneath my feet, 
 
 Whilst the gray columns and the mouldering tombs 
 
 Of the Imperial City, hidden deep 
 
 Beneath the mantle of their shadows, rest. 
 
 My spirit looks on earth ! A heavenly voice 
 
 Comes silently " Dreamer, is earth thy dwelling ? 
 
 Lo ! nursed within that fair and fruitful bosom 
 
 Which has sustained thy being, and within 
 
 The colder breast of Ocean, lie the germs 
 
 Of thine own dissolution ! E'en the air, 
 
 That fans the clear blue sky and gives thee strength, 
 
 Up from the sullen lake of mouldering reeds, 
 
 And the wide waste of forest, where the osier 
 
 Thrives in the damp and motionless atmosphere, 
 
 Shall bring the dire and wasting pestilence 
 
 And blight thy cheek. Dream thou of higher things ; 
 
 This world is not thy home !" And yet my eye 
 
 Rests upon earth again ! How beautiful, 
 
 Where wild Velino heaves its sullen waves 
 
 Down the high cliff of gray and shapeless granite, 
 
 Hung on the curling mist, the moonlight bow 
 
 Arches the perilous river. A soft light 
 
 Silvers the Albanian mountains, and the haze 
 
 That rests upon their summits, mellows down 
 
 The austerer features of their beauty. Faint 
 
151 
 
 And dim-discovered glow the Sabine hills, 
 And listening to the sea's monotonous shell, 
 High on the cliffs of Terracina stands 
 The castle of the royal Goth in ruins. 
 
 But night is in her wane : day's early flush 
 Glows like a hectic on her fading cheek, 
 Wasting its beauty. And the opening dawn 
 With cheerful lustre lights the royal city, 
 Where with its proud tiara of dark towers, 
 It sleeps upon its own romantic bay. 
 
 THE FAIR ITALIAN. 
 
 She looked how lovely. Not the face heaven 
 
 In its serenest calm, nor earth in all 
 
 Its garniture of flowers, nor all that live 
 
 In the bright world of dreams, nor all the eye 
 
 Of a creative spirit meets in air, 
 
 Could in the smile and sunshine of her charms,. 
 
 Not feel itself o'ermastered by such rare 
 
 And perfect beauty. Grace was over all ; 
 
 Her form, her face, her attitudes, her motions, 
 
 Each had peculiar charms. Like gliding swans. 
 
 Sailing upon the bosom of a lake, 
 
 Before the breeze of evening, when the waves 
 
152 
 
 Curl rippling round their bosoms, so she moved 
 
 Through all the mazy dance. She bore herself 
 
 So gently, that the lily on its stalk 
 
 Bends not so easily its dewy head, 
 
 As with a gliding step she wound her way 
 
 To the soft echoes of the light guitar, 
 
 The dreamy music of her sunny clime, 
 
 Where all is languishing. There was a brightness, 
 
 How high, and yet how soothing in her smile. 
 
 O ! I could look on her, a summer's day, 
 
 Delighted every moment more delighted, 
 
 With the soft sense that hovers over me, 
 
 When on a slope of moss, I lay me down 
 
 In the warm sun of April. I could kneel 
 
 In worship to her, as a radiant vision 
 
 Sent from a purer world, without a stain 
 
 Of earth breathed over her, but all entire 
 
 In infant loveliness, yet ripe and full 
 
 In her meridian elegance, a flower 
 
 With all its leaves expanded, and its hues 
 
 Mellowed by kindly sunbeams. 
 
 It was evening ; 
 
 The sun looked through the wood of chesnut trees, 
 And bronzed their rugged trunks, and lit their leaves, 
 Till, as they rustled on the bending boughs, 
 Each seemed a flake of gold ; and far beyond them 
 My eye caught glimpses of a quiet bay, 
 A nook of sleeping waters, where the light, 
 Shone with a flashing blaze. It was so still ! 
 

 153 
 
 The wind had stolen into the mountain valleys, 
 And left the plains and hillocks to the calm, 
 That sinks upon the world, when night steals on, 
 And the day takes its farewell, like the words 
 Of a departing friend, or the last tone 
 Of hallowed music, in a minster's aisles, 
 Heard, when it floats along the shade of elms, 
 In the still place of graves. A wood of palms 
 Rose on a far hill, where the amber light 
 Was rich and dazzling, with their pointed leaves 
 So nicely balanced, that the faintest breathing 
 Of the wide air swayed them in graceful curves ; 
 While all below seemed in the still repose 
 Of sleep, the twin of death, that infant slumber, 
 Where life is only visible in the play 
 Of blushes, which forever come and go 
 On the soft cheek's transparency, as pure 
 As the clear rime, that masks the untimely rose, 
 Mellowing its purple to the hues of heaven, 
 The tremulous tints of air. 
 
 I lay abroad 
 
 In careless dreaming, by the twisted roots 
 Of an outspreading beech-tree, and methought, 
 The swains of Enna and Parthenope 
 Were dancing round me to the sound of viols 
 And oaten pipes. As the light sank away, 
 The rose and jasmine thickets, and the shades 
 O'erhung with vines, in the full scent of flowers, 
 Seemed populous with the silvan family 
 
154 
 
 Of nymphs and fauns. I listened to the sounds 
 
 Of Grecian melody and song, and lay 
 
 Reclining on a couch of new plucked leaves, 
 
 Attentive to the many quiet voices, 
 
 That fill a summer's night the drowsy hum 
 
 Of beetles, and the shrill cicada's song, 
 
 And the complaining of the nightingale, 
 
 That in a bush of brambles, passed away 
 
 The silent hours, in answering to the echoes, 
 
 Herself had made. As thus I sank away 
 
 In pleasant thoughts of the dear times of old, 
 
 I saw a group of dancers, on a lawn 
 
 Not distant, to the music of a lute 
 
 Cross the yet rosy twilight. She was there, 
 
 Lovelier for the witching time, they chose 
 
 To be their hour of joy. Her full dark curls 
 
 Were clustered on a brow of ivory, 
 
 And fell in lavish wealth, shading a neck 
 
 Clear as an alabaster shrine concealing 
 
 A ruby, that with soft suffusion fills it, 
 
 As with a living glow. Her face was kindled 
 
 By the quick glances of her large black eyes, 
 
 That flashed from underneath her arching brows, 
 
 Like gems in caves ; and yet there was a softness 
 
 At times, when shades of thought stole over her 
 
 But in the happy consciousness of beauty 
 
 Her heart was all so joyous, that her smiles 
 
 Gave a perpetual sunlight to that face, 
 
 So beautiful, to see it was to love. 
 
 I could not choose but watch with earnest gaze 
 
155 
 
 One of so perfect form, and finished grace, 
 That those who moved around her, were but foils 
 Heightening the one sole diamonds When I look 
 On one so fair, I must believe that Heaven 
 Sent her in kindness, that our hearts might waken 
 To its own loveliness, and lift themselves 
 By such an adoration from a dark 
 And grovelling world. Such beauty should be wor- 
 shipped, 
 
 And not a thought of weakness or decay 
 Should mingle with the pure and hallowed dreams, 
 In which it dwells before us. It should live 
 Eternal ; or, if it must pass away, 
 And lose one tint of its now perfect brightness, 
 Let it be hidden from me, for the sense, 
 That all this glow must fade, falls on my heart, 
 Like the cold weight of death. 
 
 THE VENETIAN GONDOLIER. 
 
 Here rest the weary oar ! soft airs 
 Breathe out in the o'erarching sky ; 
 
 And Night ! sweet Night serenely wears 
 A smile of peace ; her noon is nigh. 
 
 Where the tall fir in quiet stands, 
 And waves, embracing the chaste shores, 
 
156 
 
 Move o'er sea-shells and bright sands, 
 Is heard the sound of dipping oars. 
 
 Swift o'er the wave the light bark springs, 
 Love's midnight hour draws lingering near : 
 
 And list ! his tuneful viol strings 
 The young Venetian Gondolier. 
 
 Lo ! on the silver-mirrored deep, 
 On earth, and her embosomed lakes, 
 
 And where the silent rivers sweep 
 From the thin cloud fair moonlight breaks. 
 
 Soft music breaths around, and dies 
 
 On the calm bosom of the sea ; 
 Whilst in her cell the novice sighs 
 
 Her vespers to her rosary. 
 
 At their dim altars bow fair forms, 
 
 In tender charity for those, 
 That, helpless left to life's rude storms, 
 
 Have never found this calm repose. 
 
 The bell swings to its midnight chime, 
 Relieved against the deep blue sky ! 
 
 Haste! dip the oar again! 'tis time 
 To seek Genevra's balcony. 
 
157 
 
 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 My hour has come, I lay me down 
 
 With the dark grave in view ; 
 
 And hoping for a heavenly crown, 
 
 I bid the world adieu. 
 
 The angry forms of earth are fled, 
 
 The gentle in decay ; 
 
 For me no golden beams are shed, 
 
 My eyes are closed for aye. 
 
 One sense remains. I feel a hand 
 That gently grasps my own ; 
 I deem it one by sorrow fanned, 
 So tremulous its tone. 
 If it be thine, my gentle bride ! 
 Grieve not thy fond heart thus ; 
 For, though the grave awhile divide, 
 Death opens a Heaven to us. 
 
 I asked of God an easy death, 
 
 And he has heard my prayer ; 
 
 My soul ebbs like the zephyr's breatk 
 
 When noon- day calms the air. 
 
 A little throbbing of my heart 
 
 Weak as an infant's cry ; 
 
 If thus life's links are rent apart 
 
 Why are we loth to die ? 
 
 I deemed of tortures in death's hour, 
 
 Of fevered brain and limb. 
 O 
 
158 
 
 And of unearthly forms that lower, 
 
 When the eye waxes dim. 
 
 My dreams. in death have other mould, 
 
 Forms beautiful and bright 
 
 Are with me not the beaten gold 
 
 Shines like those shapes of light. 
 
 I'm sinking as a bird on wing 
 
 Drops from his soaring high ; 
 
 Comes to my tongue a faltering, 
 
 And darkness to my eye. 
 
 Oh ! lift the mighty hill of snow 
 
 From off my frozen breast; 
 
 I come the scene is closed below. 
 
 And I enjoy a rest. 
 
 A SONG OVER THE GRAVE OF A LOVER. 
 
 Aye, flowers may glow 
 In new born beauty, and the rosy spring 
 To deck the earth its sparkling wreaths may bringv 
 
 But where art thou ? 
 
 The early bloom 
 
 Of flowers in freshest infancy I wreathe, 
 Their transient life of fragrancy to breathe 
 
 Upon thy tomb. 
 
159 
 
 And I have sought 
 
 The lowly violet, that in shade appears, 
 Shrinking from view like young love's tender fears, 
 
 With sweetness fraught ; 
 
 And rosebuds too, 
 
 Crimson as young Aurora's blush, or white 
 As woman's cheek when touched by sorrow's blight, 
 
 O'er thee I strew ; 
 
 And flowers, that close 
 
 Their buds beneath the sun, but pure and pale 
 Ope their sweet blossom 'neath the dewy veil, 
 
 That evening throws. 
 
 The fragrant leaves 
 
 Of the white lily too with these I twine 
 The drooping lily that seems born to shine 
 
 Where true love grieves. 
 
 There will be none 
 
 To deck thy grave with flowers, and chant for thee 
 These snatches of remembered melody, 
 
 When I am gone. 
 
 But thou shalt have 
 
 A gift more precious than the buds I fling 
 A broken heart ! my latest offering 
 Upon thy grave. 
 
160 
 
 REFORMED TOM BELL. 
 
 I never knew a man profaner 
 
 Than him they call reformed Tom Bell ; 
 
 Or one who more became a gainer 
 
 In worldly goods by arts of hell. 
 
 He cheated all, but most affected 
 
 Those easiest ruined by his guile ; 
 
 If he but found one unprotected, 
 
 Few were his years and brief his smile. 
 
 His father mother died of sorrow 
 
 Brought on by his unkind career, 
 
 His wives, one, two, three, could not borrow 
 
 Of nuptial life, a single year. 
 
 And many a maiden, fondly trusting, 
 
 Heard in his vow her funeral knell ; 
 
 And many an orphan with heart bursting, 
 
 Asked heaven for vengeance on Tom Bell. 
 
 And as for orisons and preaching 
 
 In the bright temple where man soars, 
 
 Tom would be sooner seen beseeching 
 
 For entrance at a wanton's doors. 
 
 He held religion " a mere bubble, 
 
 An idle tale made by the priest ; 
 
 Got up to gull with little trouble 
 
 The loving fools who would be fleeced." 
 
 And thus Tom Bell went on despising 
 Religion, virtue, God, and good ; 
 
161 
 
 He cared not, s6 his wealth kept rising-, 
 How other debts and credits stood. 
 He came to thirty, vile as ever, 
 One two were added, half a third, 
 When lo ! Tom Bell, the unbeliever, 
 Became a lover of the Word. 
 
 It was a night in cold November, 
 Five days or more before its close, 
 When shrill-voiced winds the oaks dismember, 
 And hazy clouds foretel the snows ; 
 When beasts go to their coverts creeping, 
 When birds of passage seek mild skies, 
 When the rough waves the cliffs are sweeping, 
 There stood a form before his eyes. 
 
 He sat, that awful moment, resting 
 Upon a bank of leafless firs, 
 Watching to see a soft form breasting 
 The chilly night-wind, even her's. 
 When all at once as he sits gazing, 
 He feels the air grow deadly cold ; 
 And he beholds a tall form raising 
 Itself from out the frozen mould. 
 
 Its dress was white, damp, grave-clothes flowing 
 All heavily upon the gale ; 
 Its eyes no more with life were glowing, 
 Its brow was ghastly, and cheek pale. 
 Jt bent itself, that cold corse, o'er him, 
 Upon his shoulder laid its hand ; 
 02 
 
102 
 
 With this thing from the tombs before him 
 All shuddering did the sinner stand. 
 
 And when it spoke, its tones were hollow ;- 
 " What dost thou here, this chilly night ? 
 Why, base seducer, dost thou follow 
 A gentle girl, to work her blight? 
 I perished by thy base pursuing, 
 Does not thy soul my secret tell ? 
 The earliest victim of thy wooing 
 Thou know'st me now, lost Isabel. 
 
 I come, bad man, to give thee warning, 
 Thy sins cry out, and Justice hears ; 
 Nor would'st thou see another morning, 
 Did not fair Mercy plead with tears. 
 But oh ! her voice is growing weaker, 
 Her pleas are by thy sinnings crost, 
 She blushes to become the seeker 
 For grace on thee she deems thee lost. 
 
 If by the time that morn discovers 
 Her yellow light to the brown hills, 
 No guardian angel o'er thee hovers, 
 No other spirit thy frame fills, 
 Thou shalt lie low ; and ere the going 
 Of the bright sun adown the West, 
 By him that said it the All-knowing. 
 Thou shalt be gone, but not to rest." 
 
163 
 
 'T is hushed ; he looks with horror round him ; 
 
 There 's but himself with life that stirs ; 
 
 One groan, and the next moment found him, 
 
 Lying low beneath the nodding firs. 
 
 And then, while the cold moon was shedding 
 
 Her silver light on the brown sod, 
 
 And twinkling stars their maze were threading, 
 
 He, weeping, thus addressed his God. 
 
 " I kneel to pray I who have never 
 Yet knelt in prayer, kneel to beseech 
 Forgiveness ; Thou did ? st say that ever 
 Thy pardon penitence should reach. 
 Now in the dust behold me humbled, 
 And shuddering at thy just rage lie ; 
 The worm that feeds on bodies crumbled 
 Is better in thy sight than I. 
 
 All-righteous Judge ! recall thy sentence, 
 Allow me time to mend my ways ; 
 And as I show or not repentance, 
 So lengthen, or abridge my days. 
 If that my heart still cleaves to errors. 
 Then execute thy named decree ; 
 But if I mend, O ! veil thy terrors, 
 And look with eyes of love on me." 
 
 He ceased. Whose are the tones that greet him 
 Soft as the gentle gales of spring ? 
 1 T is she who comes, weak girl ! to meet him, 
 As 't were upon a plover's wing. 
 
164 
 
 He answers not her fond caresses, 
 But with mild speech he bids her go ; 
 And says " tomorrow braid thy tresses, 
 And deck thyself for bridal show." 
 
 'T is morn, there 's frolic in the hamlet, 
 The rustics' joys to transports swell ; 
 And many a cheek as brown as camlet, 
 Goes to the nuptials of Tom Bell. 
 He's changed, they see, he checks their riot, 
 He speaks of foul paths he has trod ; 
 And in his face there reigns the quiet 
 Of one at peace with a kind God. 
 
 Now evermore at the broad chancel, 
 He wakes the earliest anthem's swell ; 
 Nor with hymns only does he cancel 
 His debts with Justice he lives well. 
 His beds have pillows for the weary, 
 His wardrobe garments for the poor, 
 He makes the hungry orphan cheery, 
 He reads the Scriptures to the boor. 
 
 At home, abroad, dry, wet, night, morning, 
 'T is all the same, he 's ever calm, 
 Each day with some new trait adorning 
 Poor nature gathering stores of balm. 
 And far and wide his praise is sounding; 
 His good deeds distant cities tell ; 
 And slanderers who delight in wounding 
 Say nought against Reformed Tom Bell. 
 
165 
 
 A MOOR'S CURSE ON SPAIN. 
 
 With tearful eyes and swelling hearts, they leave 
 
 Grenada's gate, 
 And the wind blows fair to waft their barks across 
 
 the narrow strait ; 
 They have hoisted sail, and they are gone, the last 
 
 of all the Moors, 
 Whom bigot zeal hath banished from their much-loved 
 
 Spanish shores. 
 
 The remnants of those warlike tribes, who trode on 
 Spanish necks, 
 
 Whom, name you to Castilian ears, if you delight to 
 vex; 
 
 Now broken, not by sword and spear, but papal racks 
 alone, 
 
 They go, to found, where Dido reigned, another Mos- 
 lem throne. 
 
 There stood upon the deck a Moor, who had to Mecca 
 
 been, 
 Whose hoary hair proclaimed his years beyond three 
 
 score and ten. 
 
 He had tasted of the water of Zemzeim's holy well, 
 And could read the monarch's magic ring, and speak 
 
 the direful spell. 
 
 And there he watched, that aged man, till they had 
 Calpe past, 
 
166 
 
 And saw, with eye of boding gloom, the land reced- 
 ing fast. 
 
 " Blow, blow ye winds, and waft us from Xeres' glo- 
 rious plain, 
 
 Then be ye calm, while I pronounce a Moor's curse 
 on Spain. 
 
 "Thou did'st bow, Spain, for ages, beneath a Moorish 
 
 yoke, 
 And save Asturia's mountain sons, there were none 
 
 to strike a stroke ; 
 On mountain top and lowland plain, thy fate was still 
 
 the same, 
 Thy soldiers drew dull scymitars, and the crescent 
 
 overcame. 
 
 " The days, which saw our martial deeds, are fled to 
 
 come no more ; 
 A warrior monarch rules thee now, and we give the 
 
 battle o'er ; 
 
 Abencarrage wakes not, when the battle trumpets call, 
 And Abderame sleeps in death, beside th' Alhambra's 
 
 wall. 
 
 " I leave to thee, my curse, proud Spain ! a curse 
 
 upon thy clime ; 
 Thou shalt be the land of dastard souls, a nursery of 
 
 crime ; 
 And yet, as if to mock her sons, and make their dark 
 
 doom worse. 
 
167 
 
 No land shall boast more glorious skies, than the lovely 
 land I curse. 
 
 " Thy kings shall wear no royal type, save a diadem 
 
 alone, 
 And their sovereignty by cruelty and a withering eye 
 
 be known. 
 'T were waste of time to speak my curse ; for, Spain, 
 
 thy sons shall see, 
 That magic can invoke no fiend, worse than thy kings 
 
 will be. 
 
 " And that blind faith, thou boldest from the Prophet 
 
 of the Cross, 
 A faith thy children have profaned, and its better 
 
 doctrines lost ; 
 By the lords that faith shall give thee, not less shalt 
 
 thou be gored, 
 Because they grasp a crucifix, instead of spear and 
 
 sword. 
 
 " Bright eyes are in thy land, Spain, and thy virgins 
 
 want no charms, 
 But thou art cursed to know no truth in either heart 
 
 or arms ; 
 Their bosoms shall no pillow be, for aught is kind or 
 
 brave, * 
 
 But lull in mere illicit love, the sensual priest and slave. 
 
 " Thy sway shall reach to distant lands, shall yield 
 thee gold and gem, 
 
168 
 
 But a burning and a bloody sword, shall thy sceptre 
 
 be o'er them, 
 Till vengeance meet the murderous bands, from thine 
 
 accursed shore, 
 And give them of the land they seek, a grave of 
 
 clotted gore." 
 
 The Guadalquiver's banks shall be divested of their 
 
 pride, 
 The castles of our valiant race deck no more the 
 
 mountain side, 
 And Ruin's mouldering hand shall sweep to Spain's 
 
 remotest shore, 
 And all her fertile regions weep the exile of the Moor. 
 
 THE SEA DIVER, 
 
 My way is on the bright blue sea, 
 My sleep upon its rocking tide ; 
 
 And many an eye has followed me 
 Where billows clasp the worn sea-side. 
 
 My plumage bears the crimson blush, 
 When ocean by the sun is kissed ! 
 
 When fades the evening's purple flush, 
 My dark wing cleaves the silver mist, 
 
169 
 
 Pull many a fathom down beneath 
 The bright arch of the splendid deep, 
 
 My ear has heard the sea shell breathe 
 O'er living myriads in their sleep. 
 
 They rested by the coral throne, 
 
 And by the pearly diadem, 
 Where the pale sea-grape had o'ergrown 
 
 The glorious dwellings made for them. 
 
 At night upon my storm-drenched wing, 
 I poised above a helmless bark, 
 
 And soon I saw the shattered thing 
 Had passed away and left no mark. 
 
 And when the wind and storm had done, 
 A ship, that had rode out the gale, 
 
 Sunk down without a signal gun, 
 And none was left to tell the tale. 
 
 I saw the pomp of day depart, 
 The cloud resign its golden crown, 
 
 When to the ocean's beating heart, 
 The sailor's wasted corse went down. 
 
 Peace be to those whose v graves are made 
 
 Beneath the bright and silver sea ! 
 Peace that their relics there were laid 
 
 With no vain pride and pageantry. 
 P 
 
170 
 
 SARDANAPALCJS AT THE TEMPLE OF BELUS. 
 
 This spacious mausoleum holds 
 
 Proud dust in many a worshipped shrine ; 
 Yon massive golden urn enfolds 
 
 The Founder of our line. 
 In gloomy grandeur, here are laid 
 The gods, our regal race have made. 
 
 Yes, here are sleeping side by side 
 
 The gods, Assyrian queens have borne : 
 
 Warriors of madmen deified, 
 And tyrants overthrown. 
 
 Why, since my sires are all divine, 
 
 Am I, their son, without a shrine ? 
 
 I have unto my people been 
 
 A father, brother and a friend ! 
 Go to the Western Island-men 
 
 Go eastward to mine empire's end : 
 If there be one hath wrong of me, 
 Him, fourfold recompense shall see. 
 
 I loved the glittering javelin not 
 
 I did not love war's bloody suit ; 
 I left the field where nations fought, 
 
 To listen to the lute ; 
 I passed the prancing war-horse by, 
 To gaze at beauty's melting eye. 
 
171 
 
 I never crushed Assyria's sons 
 To build Colossal temples high ; 
 
 I bade the sire his little ones 
 Watch with a parent's eye. 
 
 Throughout the land no vassal strives 
 
 With a hard lord, nor wears his gyves. 
 
 I bade my subjects plant the vine 
 
 Throughout the realms my sceptre sways ; 
 And bade them drink the joyous wine, 
 
 A feandst away their days. 
 Sardanapalus thence hath lost 
 His golden shrine and holocaust. 
 
 For had I made the rivers dance 
 With waves of blood from prostrate foes ; 
 
 And couched a warrior's murdering lance, 
 And broke my land's repose ; 
 
 Then had my glory walked abroad 
 
 And I had been enshrined a god. 
 
 What else but wide-spread carnage made 
 The founder of our line a god ; 
 
 A man, whose dark ambition bade 
 Earth be a crimsoned sod ; 
 
 A bloody hunter, yet behold ! 
 
 His shrine is of thrice beaten gold. 
 
 And she, the queen of Belus' son, 
 Who built this sanctuary high, 
 
172 
 
 And planned it proud presuming one ! 
 With roof-tree laid against the sky ; 
 Because she loved war, when she died 
 Wide realms her queenship deified. 
 
 But I, because my regal day 
 
 Hath been arrayed in pleasure's dress : 
 Because I loved soft music's lay 
 
 And beauty's dear caress ; 
 Because I women loved, and wine, 
 Am thence to be denied a shrine. 
 
FOURTEEN DAY USE 
 
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