HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR.

237

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.

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.

THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER.

WILD was the day; the wintry sea

Moaned sadly on New-England's strand,

When first, the thoughtful and the free,
Our fathers, trod the desert land.

They little thought how pure a light,

With years, should gather round that day; How love should keep their memories bright, How wide a realm their sons should sway.

Green are their bays; but greener still

Shall round their spreading fame be wreathed, And regions, now untrod, shall thrill

With reverence, when their names are breathed.

Till where the sun, with softer fires,

Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep, The children of the pilgrim sires

This hallowed day like us shall keep.

ODE

FOR AN AGRICULTURAL CELEBRATION.

FAR back in the ages,

The plough with wreaths was crowned;
The hands of kings and sages

Entwined the chaplet round;
Till men of spoil disdained the toil

By which the world was nourished,
And dews of blood enriched the soil

Where green their laurels flourished:
-Now the world her fault repairs-
The guilt that stains her story;
And weeps her crimes amid the cares
That formed her earliest glory.

The proud throne shall crumble,
The diadem shall wane,

The tribes of earth shall humble

The pride of those who reign;
And War shall lay his pomp away;-
The fame that heroes cherish,
The glory earned in deadly fray,

Shall fade, decay, and perish.

240

ODE.

Honour waits, o'er all the Earth,
Through endless generations,
The art that calls her harvests forth,
And feeds the expectant nations.

A WALK AT SUNSET.

WHEN insect wings are glistening in the beam
Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright,
Oh, let me, by the crystal valley-stream,

Wander amid the mild and mellow light;
And while the redbreast pipes his evening lay,
Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting day.

Oh, sun! that o'er the western mountains now
Goest down in glory! ever beautiful
And blessed is thy radiance, whether thou

Colourest the eastern heaven and night-mist cool,
Till the bright day-star vanish, or on high

Climbest, and streamest thy white splendours from mid-sky.

Yet, loveliest are thy setting smiles, and fair,
Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues
That live among the clouds, and flush the air,
Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews.
Then softest gales are breathed, and softest heard
The plaining voice of streams, and pensive note of bird.

They who here roamed, of yore, the forest wide,
Felt, by such charm, their simple bosoms won;