As if in his soul the bold animal smiled To his friends of the sky, the joint-heirs of the wild. In the wide-raging torrent that lends thee its roar- And his last cry of anger comes back from the As Nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies. JOHN WILSON (Christopher North). HE very soul seems to be refreshed on the bare recollection of the pleasure which the senses receive in contemplating, on a fine vernal morning, the charms of the pink, the violet, the rose, the honey-suckle, the hyacinth, the tulip, and a thousand other flowers, in every variety of figure, scent, and hue; for Nature is no less remarkable for the accuracy and beauty of her works than for variety and profusion. THE gorse is yellow on the heath, THE SWALLOW. The banks with speedwell flowers are gay, The oaks are budding; and beneath, The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath, The silver wreath of May. The welcome guest of settled spring, Come, summer visitant, attach To my reed-roof your nest of clay; And let my ear your music catch, Low twittering underneath the thatch, At the grey dawn of day. As fables tell, an Indian sage The Hindostani woods among, Could, in his distant hermitage, As if 'twere marked in written page, Translate the wild bird's song. I wish I did his power possess, That I might learn, fleet bird, from thee, What our vain systems only guess, And know from what wild wilderness You came across the sea. I would a little while restrain Your rapid wing, that I might hear Whether on clouds that bring the rain You sail'd above the western main, The wind your charioteer. In Afric, does the sultry gale Through spicy bower and palmy grove Bear the repeated cuckoo's tale? Dwells there a time the wandering rail, Or the itinerant dove? Were you in Asia? O relate If there your fabled sister's woes She seemed in sorrow to narrate; Or sings she but to celebrate Her nuptials with the rose? "The welcome guest of settled spring, Or if, by instinct taught to know How learn ye, while the cold waves boom Alas! how little can be known, Her sacred veil where Nature draws; CHARLOTTE SMITH. THE SIERRAS. IKE fragments of an uncompleted world, In clouds, the broken lands loom bold and gray; They stand white stairs of heaven-stand a line Of lifting, endless, and eternal white; They look upon the far and flashing brine, Upon the boundless plains, the broken height Of Kamiakin's battlements. The flight Of time is underneath their untopped towers; They seem to push aside the moon at night, To jostle and to loose the stars. The flowers Of heaven fall about their brows in shining showers. They stand a line of lifted snowy isles, High held above a tossed and tumbled sea, A sea of wood in wild unmeasured miles; White pyramids of Faith where man is free; White monuments of Hope that yet shall be The mounts of matchless and immortal song. I look far down the hollow days; I see The bearded prophets, simple-soul'd and strong, That strike the sounding harp and thrill the heeding throng. Serene and satisfied! supreme! as lone As God, they loom like God's archangels churl'd: They look as cold as kings upon a throne; The mantling wings of night are crush'd and curl'd As feathers curl. The elements are hurl'd From off their bosoms, and are bidden go, Like evil spirits, to an under-world; They stretch from Cariboo to Mexico, A line of battle-tents in everlasting snow. JOAQUIN MILLER. |