THE PALM TREE. It waved not through an Eastern sky, It was not fanned by southern breeze But fair the exiled Palm-tree grew Strange looked it there!—the willow streamed Where silvery waters near it gleamed ; The lime-bough lured the honey bee To murmur by the desert's tree, A lustre in its fan-like shade. There came an eve of festal hours- But one, a lone one, midst the throng, And slowly, sadly, moved his plumes, To him, to him, its rustling spoke, Had something of the sea-waves moan His mother's cabin home, that lay Oh! scorn him not !-the strength, whereby Th' unconquerable power, which fills These have one fountain deep and clear The same whence gushed that child-like tear! THE MEETING OF THE BROTHERS. The voices of two forest boys, Had filled with childhood's merry noise To rock and stream that sound was known, The sunny laughter of their eyes But this, as day-spring's flush, was brief Alas! 'tis but the withered leaf That wears the enduring hue! Those rocks along the Rhine's fair shore, For now on manhood's verge they stood, As if a silver clarion woo'd To some high festival; And parted as young brothers part, T'hey parted-soon the paths divide And making strangers in their course Met they no more ?-once more they met, Though the fierce day was well-nigh past, But as the combat closed, they found And ev'n upon that bloody ground And pour d forth on each other's neok The mists o'er boyhood's memory sprea The faces of the holy dead Rose as in vanish'd years : The Rhine, the Rhine, the ever blessed Lifted its voice in each full breast! Oh! was it then a time to die ? It was!--that not in vain |