A SPRING-DAY WALK.
ADIEU, the city's ceaseless hum,
The haunts of sensual life, adieu! Green fields, and silent glens! we come, To spend this bright spring-day with you. Whether the hills and vales shall gleam
With beauty, is for us to choose; For leaf and blossom, rock and stream, Are colour'd with the spirit's hues. Here, to the seeking soul, is brought A nobler view of human fate, And higher feeling, higher thought, And glimpses of a higher state. Through change of time, on sea and shore, Serenely nature smiles away; Yon infinite blue sky bends o'er
Our world, as at the primal day. The self-renewing earth is moved
With youthful life each circling year; And flowers that CERES' daughter loved At Enna, now are blooming here. Glad nature will this truth reveal,
That God is ours and we are His;
O, friends, my friends! what joy to feel
That He our loving father is!
TO ONE FAR AWAY. SWIFTER far than swallow's flight, Homeward o'er the twilight lea; Swifter than the morning light, Flashing o'er the pathless sea, Dearest in the lonely night Memory flies away to thee! Stronger far than is desire;
Firm as truth itself can be; Deeper than earth's central fire; Boundless as the circling sea; Yet as mute as broken lyre,
Is my love, dear wife, for thee! Sweeter far than miser's gain,
Or than note of fame can be Unto one who long in vain
Treads the paths of chivalryAre my dreams, in which again My fond arms encircle thee!
BEATRICE.
UNTOUCH'D by mortal passion,
Thou seem'st of heavenly birth,
Pure as the effluence of a star
Just reach'd our distant earth!
Grave Fancy's pencil never
To an ideal fair
Such spiritual expression
As thy sweet features wear. An inward light to guide thee Unto thy soul is given, Pure and serene as its divine Original in heaven.
Type of the ransom'd PSYCHE!
How gladly, hand in hand,
To some new world I'd fly with thee From off this mortal strand.
UNDERNEATH this marble cold,
Lies a fair girl turn'd to mould;
One whose life was like a star,
Without toil or rest to mar
Its divinest harmony,
Its Gon-given serenity.
One, whose form of youthful grace,
One, whose eloquence of face
Match'd the rarest gem of thought
By the antique sculptors wrought:
Yet her outward charms were less
Than her winning gentleness,
Her maiden purity of heart,
Which, without the aid of art,
Did in coldest hearts inspire
Love, that was not all desire.
Spirit forms with starry eyes,
That seem to come from Paradise,
Beings of ethereal birth,
Near us glide sometimes on earth,
Like glimmering moonbeams dimly seen
Glancing down through alleys green;
Of such was she who lies beneath
This silent effigy of grief.
Wo is me! when I recall
One sweet word by her let fall-
One sweet word but half-express'd—
Downcast eyes told all the rest,
To think beneath this marble cold,
Lies that fair girl turn'd to mould.
THE DREAMING GIRL.
SHE floats upon a sea of mist,
In fancy's boat of amethyst!
A dreaming girl, with her fair cheek
Supported by a snow-white arm,
In the calm joy of innocence,
Subdued by some unearthly charm.
The clusters of her dusky hair
Are floating on her bosom fair,
Like early darkness stealing o'er
The amber tints that daylight gave,
Or, like the shadow of a cloud
Upon a fainting summer-wave.
Is it a spirit of joy or pain
Sails on the river of her brain?
For, lo! the crimson on her cheek
Faints and glows like a dying flame;
Her heart is beating loud and quick—
Is not love that spirit's name?
Up-waking from her blissful sleep,
She starts with fear too wild to weep;
Through the trailing honeysuckle,
All night breathing odorous sighs,
Which her lattice dimly curtains,
The morn peeps in with his bright eyes. Perfume loved when it is vanish'd, Pleasure hardly felt ere banish'd, Is the happy maiden's vision,
That doth on her memory gleam, And her heart leaps up with gladness
That bliss was nothing but a dream!
THE devious way on which they march'd
By braided boughs was overarch'd;
And right and left spread far away
Fens only lit by fire-fly's ray:
Dark with a tangled growth of vine,
Black ash, huge water-oak and pine,
Mix'd with red cedar, moss'd and old,
Set firmly in the watery mould.
Here, cover'd with a slime of green,
Stagnant and turbid pools were seen,
Edged round with wild aquatic weeds,
Long-bladed flag and clustering reeds,
Pond lilies, oily-leaved and pale,
Red willow, and the alder frail;
There, skeletons of groves gone by-
Sad objects to poetic eye!—
Like monarchs by the battle-blast
Assail'd and overthrown at last,
Wasted and worn in bough and stem,
And robb'd of leaf-wrought diadem,
Lay rotting in their barky mail,
Indifferent to sun and gale.
Deep hollows in the miry clay
Mark'd where their roots once spread away,
Now mix'd with many a rugged mound,
Form'd when their fastenings were unbound,
Or wrench'd, like gossamer, in twain,
By the wild rushing hurricane.
WOODS BY MOONLIGHT.
ABOVE, the overhanging banks
Were lined by trees in broken ranks,
And moonlight falling gently down,
Set with rich pearls each emerald crown;
There tower'd, majestical and old,
The dark-leaved hemlock from the mould;
The spruce, unstirr'd by breath of air,
Shaped like a parasol, was there,
And the huge pine full proudly bore
His honours like a regal thing,
His trunk, with mossy velvet hoar,
Fit ermine for so wild a king.
LIKE cougar, mad with taste of blood,
A warrior darted from the throng,
While the dim arches of the wood
Rang with their gathering song,—
High overhead his hatchet raised,
While lightning from his eye-balls blazed,
Then buried in the solid oak
Its glittering blade with rending stroke.
Changed was the scene from measure slow,
To frantic leap and deafening yell,
And on imaginary foe
A hundred weapons fell,
Till hacked and splinter'd to the ground,
In fragments lay the post around.
Wild and more wild the tumult grew
Amid the crazed, demoniac crew;
Knives flash'd, and man to man opposed;
Dark forms in mimic combat closed;
Upwhirl'd in clouds the summer dust;
Quick blows were aim'd, and furious thrust,
With face convulsed the fallen gasp'd,
And murderous hands the scalp-lock grasp';
Some from the swathing board cut loose
With seeming hate, the swart pappoose,
Then raised it, struggling, by the heel,
And pointed at its throat the steel;
While others on the trampled ground,
Limbs of the frantic mother bound,
And her shrill cry with laughter drown'd.
Feign'd was base flight and bold advance,
Poised was the long, bone-headed lance;
Stout arms the heavy war-club sway'd;
Elastic bows sharp twanging made;
And mock'd, with modulated tone,
Was victor shout and dying groan.
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