Won me to learn of her to bear Sorrows, and pains, and all that wear Our hearts-me-chained by sickness-taught, From open air and ample sky O'er crusted plain stretched smooth and wide; With shout and call, shoot light and swift. But I could stand at set of sun, The rainbow hues 'twixt him and me- And gone's his path, like the steps of light By angels trod at dead of night, Lifted but now, when heaven was nigh. Why could not I, in spirit, raise Pillar of Bethel to his praise Who blessed me, and free worship pay, By clouds?-Nay, turn, and read thy mind; O, kind to me, in darkest hour Of branch and twig that naked tree As if its dark'ning touch, through fear, Thus Nature threw her beauties round me; Thus, from the gloom in which she found me, She won me by her simple graces, She wooed me with her happy faces. The day is closed; and I refrain That wets the parching earth, has come Lines occasioned by hearing a little Boy mock the Old South Clock, as it rung the Hour of Twelve.-MRS. CHILD. Ay, ring thy shout to the merry hours: From their sunny wings they scatter flowers, And, laughing, look on thee. Thy thrilling voice has started tears: It brings to mind the day When I chased butterflies and years,- Then my glad thoughts were few and free; And did not ask where heaven could be- I since have sought the meteor crown, But youthful joy has gone away; I know too much, to be as blessed My spirit, reasoned into rest, Yet still I love the winged hours: We often part in glee And sometimes, too, are fragrant flowers Hymn to the North Star.-Bryant. THE sad and solemn Night Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires; Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; Day, too, hath many a star To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they: Unseen, they follow in his flaming way. And thou dost see them rise, Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set. Thou keep'st thy old, unmoving station yet, There, at Morn's rosy birth, Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air; Chases the Day, beholds thee watching there; There Noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls 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 clou 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, A beauteous type of that unchanging good, Connecticut.-F. G. HALLECK From an unpublished Poem. AND still her gray rocks tower above the sea That murmurs at their feet, a conquered wave; 'Tis a rough land of earth, and stone, and tree, Where breathes no castled lord or cabined slave; Where thoughts, and tongues, and hands, are bold and free, And friends will find a welcome, foes a grave; And where none kneel, save when to Heaven they pray, Nor even then, unless in their own way. Theirs is a pure republic, wild, yet strong, A " fierce democracie," where all are true To what themselves have voted-right or wrong- (If red, they might to Draco's code belong;) A vestal state, which power could not subdue, A justice of the peace, for the time being, And knowing all things ;-and should Park appear The Niger's source, they'd meet him with-We know. They love their land, because it is their own, A stubborn race, fearing and flattering none. ey live and die : |