Low on the utmost boundary of the sight,
The rising vapors catch the silver light;
Thence fancy measures, as they parting fly,
Which first will throw its shadow on the eye,
Passing the source of light; and thence away,
Succeeded quick by brighter still than they.
For yet above these wafted clouds are seen
(In a remoter sky still more serene)
Others, detached in ranges through the air,

MOONLIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE.

FROM "EVANGELINE."

BEAUTIFUL was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest,

Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon.

On the river

Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight,

Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.

Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the garden

Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers and confessions

Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian.

Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows and night-dews,

Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the magical moonlight

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable

longings,

As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade of the oak-trees,

Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless prairie.

Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies

Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite numbers.

Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens,

Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to

marvel and worship,

Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of that temple,

As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, "Upharsin.”

And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fire-flies,

Wandered alone, and she cried, "O Gabriel! O my beloved!

Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee?

fair;
Scattered immensely wide from east to west,
The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest.
These, to the raptured mind, aloud proclaim
Their mighty Shepherd's everlasting name;
And thus the loiterer's utmost stretch of soul
Climbs the still clouds, or passes those that
roll,

And loosed imagination soaring goes
High o'er his home and all his little woes.

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

does not reach me?

Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to

the prairie !

Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands around me!

Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor,

Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in thy slumbers.

When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded about thee?"

Yet, though a sense of grief Comes with the falling leaf,

Loud and sudden and near the note of a whip

poorwill sounded

Above the foamy bar,

AUTUMN.

A DIRGE.

THE autumn is old;
The sear leaves are flying;
He hath gathered up gold,
And now he is dying:
Old age, begin sighing!

The vintage is ripe ;
The harvest is heaping;
But some that have sowed
Have no riches for reaping :-
Poor wretch, fall a-weeping!

The year 's in the wane;
There is nothing adorning;
The night has no eve,
And the day has no morning;
Cold winter gives warning.

The rivers run chill;
The red sun is sinking;
And I am grown old,

And life is fast shrinking;
Here's enow for sad thinking!

THOMAS HOOD.

THE LATTER RAIN.

THE latter rain, it falls in anxious haste
Upon the sun-dried fields and branches bare,
Loosening with searching drops the rigid waste
As if it would each root's lost strength repair;
But not a blade grows green as in the spring;
No swelling twig puts forth its thickening
leaves;

The robins only mid the harvests sing,
Pecking the grain that scatters from the sheaves;
the fruit all ripened

Now comes a fragrant breeze
Through the dark cedar-trees,

And round about my temples fondly lingers,
In gentle playfulness,
Like to the soft caress
Bestowed in happier days by loving fingers.

drops,

It pierces chestnut-burr and walnut-shell; The furrowed fields disclose the yellow crops; Each bursting pod of talents used can tell; And all that once received the early rain Declare to man it was not sent in vain.

JONES VERY.

THE AUTUMN.

THE autumn time is with us! Its approach
Was heralded, not many days ago,
By hazy skies that veiled the brazen sun,
And sea-like murmurs from the rustling corn,
And low-voiced brooks that wandered drowsily
By purpling clusters of the juicy grape,
Swinging upon the vine. And now, 't is here,
And what a change hath passed upon the face
Of Nature, where thy waving forests spread,
Then robed in deepest green! All through the
night

The subtle frost hath plied its mystic art,
And in the day the golden sun hath wrought
True wonders; and the wings of morn and even
Have touched with magic breath the changing

leaves.

And now, as wanders the dilating eye
Athwart the varied landscape circling far,
What gorgeousness, what blazonry, what pomp
Of colors, bursts upon the ravished sight!
Here, where the maple rears its yellow crest,
A golden glory; yonder, where the oak
Stands monarch of the forest, and the ash
Is girt with flame-like parasite, and broad
The dog-wood spreads beneath a rolling field
Of deepest crimson; and afar, where looms
The gnarled gum, a cloud of bloodiest red!

WILLIAM D. GALLAGHer.

INDIAN SUMMER.

WHEN leaves grow sear all things take sombre hue; The wild winds waltz no more the woodside through,

And all the faded grass is wet with dew.

A gauzy nebula films the pensive sky,
The golden bee supinely buzzes by,

In silent flocks the bluebirds southward fly.

The forest's cheeks are crimsoned o'er with shame,
The cynic frost enlaces every lane,
The ground with scarlet blushes is aflame!

The one we love grows lustrous-eyed and sad, With sympathy too thoughtful to be glad, While all the colors round are running mad.

The sunbeams kiss askant the sombre hill,
The naked woodbine climbs the window-sill,
The breaths that noon exhales are faint and chill.

The ripened nuts drop downward day by day,
Sounding the hollow tocsin of decay,
And bandit squirrels smuggle them away.

Vague sighs and scents pervade the atmosphere,
Sounds of invisible stirrings hum the ear,
The morning's lash reveals a frozen tear.

The hermit mountains gird themselves with mail,
Mocking the threshers with an echo flail,
The while the afternoons grow crisp and pale.

Inconstant Summer to the tropics flees,
And, as her rose-sails catch the amorous breeze,
Lo! bare, brown Autumn trembles to her knees!

The stealthy nights encroach upon the days,
The earth with sudden whiteness is ablaze,
And all her paths are lost in crystal maze !

Tread lightly where the dainty violets blew,
Where the spring winds their soft eyes open flew;
Safely they sleep the churlish winter through.

Though all life's portals are indiced with woe, And frozen pearls are all the world can show, Feel! Nature's breath is warm beneath the snow.

Look up, dear mourners! Still the blue expanse, Serenely tender, bends to catch thy glance; Within thy tears sibyllic sunbeams dance!

With blooms full-sapped again will smile the land:

The fall is but the folding of His hand,
Anon with fuller glories to expand.

The dumb heart hid beneath the pulseless tree Will throb again; and then the torpid bee Upon the ear will drone his drowsy glee.

So shall the truant bluebirds backward fly, And all loved things that vanish or that die Return to us in some sweet By-and-By.

ANONYMOUS

WINTER SONG. SUMMER joys are o'er; Flowerets bloom no more, Wintry winds are sweeping; Through the snow-drifts peeping, Cheerful evergreen

Rarely now is seen.

Now no plumed throng

Charms the wood with song; Ice-bound trees are glittering; Merry snow-birds, twittering, Fondly strive to cheer Scenes so cold and drear.

The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs,
Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?
Earth yields them naught; the imprisoned worm
is safe

Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs
Lie covered close; and berry-bearing thorns,
That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose),
Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.
The long protracted rigor of the year

And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature's geometric signs,

holes

Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,
As instinct prompts; self-buried ere they die.

WILLIAM COWPER.

NEW ENGLAND IN WINTER.

FROM "SNOW-BOUND."

THE sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, -
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag wavering to and fro

Crossed and recrossed the winged snow:

Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,

Or garden wall, or belt of wood;

A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road;

The bridle-post an old man sat

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;

The well-curb had a Chinese roof;

And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp's supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse thrust his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The cock his lusty greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The horned patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.