THE VANITY OF THE VULGAR GREAT. STAY, thou ambitious rill, Ignoble offering of some fount impure! Gloomy with shade, thou hadst thy birth obscure; In scanty waves among the rocks to flow. Fling not abroad thy spray, Nor fiercely lash the green turf at thy side! With liquid snows hath swoln thy foaming tide? To still thy boastings with his scorching noon. Lo! calmly through the vale The Po, the king of rivers, sweeps along; Yet many a mighty sail Bears on his breast proud vessels, swift and strong. Nor from the meadow's side 'Neath summer's sun recedes his lessen'd tide. Thou, threatening all around, Dost foam and roar along thy troubled path; Stunning the gazer with thy noisy wrath! Of all thy boasted glories is thine own. The smile of yonder sky Is brief, and change the fleeting seasons know; Soon to their death thy brawling waves shall flow. Shall pass the traveller with unmoisten'd feet. TO THE WHIPPORWILL. BIRD of the lone and joyless night, Nor sounds the song of happier bird, Thy wild and plaintive note is heard. Sad minstrel! thou hast learn'd, like me, Who will not trust its charm again. GRENVILLE MELLEN. MOUNT WASHINGTON. MOUNT of the clouds, on whose Olympian height The tall rocks brighten in the ether air, And spirits from the skies come down at night, To chant immortal songs to freedom there! Thine is the rock of other regions; where Save where, with silvery flash, the waters flow Beneath the far off mountain, distant, calm, and slow. Thine is the summit where the clouds repose, Or eddying wildly round thy cliffs are borne; When Tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws His billowy mist amid the thunder's home! Far down the deep ravines the whirlwinds come, And bow the forests as they sweep along ; While, roaring deeply from their rocky womb, The storms come forth, and, hurrying darkly on, Amid the echoing peaks the revelry prolong! And when the tumult of the air is fled, And quench'd in silence all the tempest flame, There come the dim forms of the mighty dead, Around the steep which bears the hero's name, The stars look down upon them; and the same Pale orb that glistens o'er his distant grave, Gleams on the summit that enshrines his fame, And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave, The richest, purest tear that memory ever gave! Mount of the clouds! when winter round thee throws The hoary mantle of the dying year, To swell as Freedom's home on man's unbounded view! JAMES G. BROOKS. JOY AND SORROW. Joy kneels, at morning's rosy prime, Pale Sorrow wakes while Joy doth sleep; And, guided by the evening star, She wanders forth to muse and weep. Joy loves to cull the summer flower, Hath laid the leaf and blossom low; ANNA MARIA WELLS. THE WHITE HARE. It was the Sabbath eve: we went, The twilight hour to pass, In darker grandeur, as the day The cooling dews their balm distill'd; Our songs of gladness there. The green-wood waved its shade hard by, A snow-white hare, that long had been Her beauty 'twas a joy to note; All motionless, with head inclined, Till the last note had died, and then Back to her green-wood bowers. Once more the magic sounds we tried; Go, happy thing! disport at will; The harrier may beset thy way, |