PICTURES. The wooded vales, and melts among the | Where'er I look, where'er I stray, hills; A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest On the calm bosom of a stormless sea, Bearing alike upon its placid breast, With earthly flowers and heavenly stars impressed, The hues of time and of eternity: Such are the pictures which the thought of thee, O friend, awakeneth, charming the keen pain Of thy departure, and our sense of loss Requiting with the fulness of thy gain. Lo! on the quiet grave thy life-borne cross, Dropped only at its side, methinks doth shine, Of thy beatitude the radiant sign! No sob of grief, no wild lament be there, To break the Sabbath of the holy air; But, in their stead, the silent-breathing prayer Of hearts still waiting for a rest like thine. O spirit redeemed! Forgive us, if henceforth, With sweet and pure similitudes of earth, We keep thy pleasant memory freshly green, Of love's inheritance a priceless part, Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe, is 163 Thy thought goes with me on my way, And hence the prayer I breathe to-day; O'er lapse of time and change of scene, The weary waste which lies between Thyself and me, my heart I lean. Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-word, With such a prayer, on this sweet day, PICTURES. I. LIGHT, warmth, and sprouting greenness, and o'er all Blue, stainless, steel-bright ether, raining down Tranquillity upon the deep-hushed town, The freshening meadows, and the hillsides brown; Voice of the west-wind from the hills of pine, And the brimmed river from its distant fall, Low hum of bees, and joyous interlude Of bird-songs in the streamlet-skirting wood, Heralds and prophecies of sound and sight, Blessed forerunners of the warmth and light, Attendant angels to the house of prayer, With reverent footsteps keeping pace with mine, Once more, through God's great love, with you I share A morn of resurrection sweet and fair As that which saw, of old, in Palestine, Immortal Love uprising in fresh bloom From the dark night and winter of the tomb ! 5th mo., 2d, 1852. II. White with its sun-bleached dust, the pathway winds Before me; dust is on the shrunken grass, Breath of the blessed Heaven for which we pray, Blow from the eternal hills! - make glad our earthly way! 8th mo., 1852. DERNE.56 NIGHT on the city of the Moor! On sea-waves, to whose ceaseless knock And on the trees beneath whose Stretched in the broad court of the boughs I pass; Frail screen against the Hunter of the sky, Who, glaring on me with his lidless eye, While mounting with his dog-star high and higher Ambushed in light intolerable, unbinds The burnished quiver of his shafts of fire. Between me and the hot fields of his South A tremulous glow, as from a furnacemouth, Glimmers and swims before my dazzled sight, As if the burning arrows of his ire Broke as they fell, and shattered into light; Yet on my cheek I feel the western wind, And hear it telling to the orchard trees, And to the faint and flower-forsaken bees, Tales of fair meadows, green with con stant streams, khan, The dusty Bornou caravan Rough pillowed on some pirate breast, Along the Bashaw's guarded wall, Jew Creeps stealthily his quarter through, Or counts with fear his golden heaps, The City of the Corsair sleeps! But where yon prison long and low Or, worn upon some maiden breast, A bitter cup each life must drain, ASTRÆA. O'erwrit alike, without, within, Why mourn the quiet ones who die - shed 165 Strives evermore at fearful odds 'T is done, - the hornéd crescent falls! Scorched by the sun and furnace-breath The victor and deliverer stands ! ; they are not The tale is one of distant skies What dark mass, down the mountainsides Swift-pouring, like a stream divides? o'er The self-forgetful ones, who stake Home, name, and life for Freedom's sake. God mend his heart who cannot feel The impulse of a holy zeal, And sees not, with his sordid eyes, ASTREA. "Jove means to settle O POET rare and old! whom Thou brave and true one! Thy cross of suffering and of shame Thine was the seed-time; God alone The harvest-time is hid with Him. Yet, unforgotten where it lies, EVA. DRY the tears for holy Eva, For the golden locks of Eva * Thomas à Kempis. Imit. Christ. Gentle Eva, loving Eva, Child confessor, true believer, Listener at the Master's knee, "Suffer such to come to me.' O, for faith like thine, sweet Eva, Lighting all the solemn river, And the blessings of the poor Wafting to the heavenly shore ! TO FREDRIKA BREMER.57 SEERESS of the misty Norland, Daughter of the Vikings bold, Welcome to the sunny Vineland, Which thy fathers sought of old ! Soft as flow of Silja's waters, When the moon of summer shines, Strong as Winter from his mountains Roaring through the sleeted pines. Heart and ear, we long have listened To thy saga, rune, and song, As a household joy and presence We have known and loved thee long. By the mansion's marble mantel, Round the log-walled cabin's hearth, Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies Meet and mingle with our mirth. And o'er weary spirits keeping We alone to thee are strangers, 167 Thou our friend and teacher art; Come, and know us as we know thee; Let us meet thee heart to heart! To our homes and household altars RIL. "The spring comes slowly up this way." Christabel. 'Tis the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard; For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow, And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow; Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white, On south sloping brooksides should smile in the light, O'er the cold winter-beds of their latewaking roots The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots; And, longing for light, under winddriven heaps, Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps, Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers, With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers! We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the south! For the touch of thy light wings, the kiss of thy mouth; For the yearly evangel thou bearest from God, Resurrection and life to the graves of the sod! Up our long river-valley, for days, have not ceased The wail and the shriek of the bitter northeast, Raw and chill, as if winnowed through |