Who blessed me, and free worship pay, O, kind to me, in darkest hour Of branch and twig that naked tree 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, hay come Who feel for me in ills I bear. Lines occasioned by hearing a little Boy mock the Old South Clock, as it rung the Hour of Twelve.-MRS. CHILD. Av, ring thy shout to the merry hours: From their sunny wings they scatter Rowers, 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. Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim, 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; 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, A beauteous type of that unchanging good, The voyager of time should shape his heedful way. 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 From an unpublished Poem.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. All-but a few apostates, who are meddling With merchandise, pounds, shillings, pence, and peddling; Or, wandering through the southern countries, teaching A decent living. The Virginians look But these are but their outcasts. View them near At home, where all their worth and pride is placed; And there their hospitable fires burn clear, And there the lowliest farm-house hearth is graced With manly hearts, in piety sincere, Faithful in love, in honor stern and chaste, In friendship warm and true, in danger brave, And minds have there been nurtured, whose control Men who swayed senates with a statesman's soul, Names that adorn and dignify the scroll Whose leaves contain their country's history. Hers are not Tempe's nor Arcadia's spring, Of Florence and the Arno-yet the wing Of life's best angel, Health, is on her gales Through sun and snow-and, in the autumn time, Her clear, warm heaven at noon,-the mist that shrouds The glorious splendor of her sunset clouds, Where'er his web of song her poet weaves; |