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THE NEW MOON.

Comes out upon the air;
And painfully the sick man tries
To fix his dim and burning eyes
On the soft promise there.

Most welcome to the lover's sight,
Glitters that pure, emerging light;
For prattling poets say,

That sweetest is the lovers' walk,
And tenderest is their murmured talk,
Beneath its gentle ray.

And there do graver men behold
A type of errors, loved of old,
Forsaken and forgiven;

And thoughts and wishes not of earth,
Just opening in their early birth,

Like that new light in heaven.

THE GLADNESS OF NATURE.

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,

When our mother Nature laughs around; When even the deep blue heavens look glad, And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.

The clouds are at play in the azure space,

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,

And here they stretch to the frolic chase,

And there they roll on the easy gale.

There's a dance of leaves in that

aspen bower,

There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,

There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,

And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;

Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN.

THOU blossom bright with autumn dew,
And coloured with the heaven's own blue,
That openest, when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,

Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late, and com'st alone,

When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue-blue-as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.

“INNOCENT CHILD AND SNOW-WHITE FLOWER.”

INNOCENT child and snow-white flower!
Well are ye paired in your opening hour.
Thus should the pure and the lovely meet,
Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet.

White as those leaves, just blown apart,
Are the folds of thy own young heart;
Guilty passion and cankering care
Never have left their traces there.

Artless one! though thou gazest now,
O'er the white blossom with earnest brow,
Soon will it tire thy childish eye,

Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by.

Throw it aside in thy weary hour,
Throw to the ground the fair white flower,

Yet, as thy tender years depart,

Keep that white and innocent heart.

SONNET-MIDSUMMER.

A POWER is on the earth and in the air,

From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid,

And shelters him, in nooks of deepest shade,
From the hot steam and from the fiery glare.
Look forth upon the earth-her thousand plants

Are smitten, even the dark sun-loving maize
Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze;

The herd beside the shaded fountain pants;
For life is driven from all the landscape brown;

The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den,
The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men
Drop by the sun-stroke in the populous town;
As if the Day of Fire had dawned and sent
Its deadly breath into the firmament.

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