Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Tore from the trembling father's arms THE TOADSTOOL. HERE 'S a thing that grows by the fainting flower, And springs in the shade of the lady's bower; The lily shrinks, and the rose turns pale, And the blue-eyed violet starts aside; She does not glow in a painted vest, And she never blooms on the maiden's breast; O there is light in her lover's glance, His breeches are made of spotted skin, His jacket is tight, and his pumps are thin; And, if you will look by the moonlight fair, And he twines his arms round her slender stem, But she turns away in her maiden shame, THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS.* T was not many centuries since, A ring of weeping sprites was seen. The freshman's lamp had long been dim, And tortured Melody had ceased Her sufferings on the evening flute. * Written after a general pruning of the trees around Harvard College. They met not as they once had met, To laugh o'er many a jocund tale: But every pulse was beating low, And every cheek was cold and pale. There rose a fair but faded one, Who oft had cheered them with her song; She waved a mutilated arm, And silence held the listening throng. "Sweet friends," the gentle nymph began, "From opening bud to withering leaf, One common lot has bound us all, In every change of joy and grief. "While all around has felt decay, "When often by our feet has past Some biped, Nature's walking whim, Say, have we trimmed one awkward shape, Or lopped away one crooked limb? "Go on, fair Science; soon to thee Shall Nature yield her idle boast; Her vulgar fingers formed a tree, But thou hast trained it to a post. "Go paint the birch's silver rind, And quilt the peach with softer down; Up with the willow's trailing threads, Off with the sunflower's radiant crown! "Go, plant the lily on the shore, And set the rose among the waves, And bid the tropic bud unbind Its silken zone in arctic caves; "Bring bellows for the panting winds, Hang up a lantern by the moon, And give the nightingale a fife, And lend the eagle a balloon! "I cannot smile, - the tide of scorn, That rolled through every bleeding vein, Comes kindling fiercer as it flows Back to its burning source again. "Again in every quivering leaf That moment's agony I feel, When limbs, that spurned the northern blast, Shrunk from the sacrilegious steel. "A curse upon the wretch who dared "In every julep that he drinks, May gout, and bile, and headache be; And when he strives to calm his pain, May colic mingle with his tea. May nightshade cluster round his path, And thistles shoot, and brambles cling; May blistering ivy scorch his veins, And dogwood burn, and nettles sting. "On him may never shadow fall, When fever racks his throbbing brow, To hang him on my highest bough!" She spoke ; In sadness to her wounded tree.* THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. HERE was a sound of hurrying feet, There was a rush along the aisles, And on, like Ocean's midnight wave, He was a dark and swarthy man, A faded coat of bottle-green Was buttoned round his breast. * A little poem, on a similar occasion, may be found in the works of Swift, from which, perhaps, the idea was borrowed; although I was as much surprised as amused to meet with it some time after writing the preceding lines. |