Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest,

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Summoning, from the innumerable boughs, The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast: Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head

To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep :
And they who stand about the sick man's bed,
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,

And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go-but the circle of eternal change,

Which is the life of nature, shall restore,

With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,
Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;
Sweet odours in the sea-air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

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40

'INNOCENT CHILD AND SNOW-WHITE FLOWER'

INNOCENT child and snow-white flower!
Well are ye paired in your opening hour;
Thus should the pure and the lovely meet,
Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet.

White as those leaves, just blown apart,
Are the folds of thy own young heart;
Guilty passion and cankering care
Never have left their traces there.

Artless one! though thou gazest now
O'er the white blossom with earnest brow,
Soon will it tire thy childish eye;

Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by.

Throw it aside in thy weary hour,

Throw to the ground the fair white flower;
Yet, as thy tender years depart,

Keep that white and innocent heart.

'WHEN THE FIRMAMENT QUIVERS WITH DAYLIGHT'S YOUNG BEAM'

ΙΟ

WHEN the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam,

And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn, And the glow of the sky blazes back from the stream, How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness grow dim!

Oh! 'tis sad, in that moment of glory and song,
To see, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun,
The glittering band that kept watch all night long,
O'er Love and o'er Slumber, go out one by one:

Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast,

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Scarce glimmers with one of the train that were there; And their leader the day-star, the brightest and last, Twinkles faintly and fades in that desert of air. Thus, Oblivion, from 'midst of whose shadow we came, Steals o'er us again when life's twilight is gone; And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven of fame, Grow pale and are quenched as the years hasten on. Let them fade-but we'll pray that the age, in whose flight

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Of ourselves and our friends the remembrance shall die, May rise o'er the world, with the gladness and light Of the morning that withers the stars from the sky.

TO THE RIVER ARVE

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR THE FOOT OF MONT BLANC

NOT from the sands or cloven rocks,
Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow;
Nor earth, within her bosom, locks
Thy dark unfathomed wells below.
Thy springs are in the cloud, thy stream
Begins to move and murmur first
Where ice-peaks feel the noonday beam,
Or rain-storms on the glacier burst.

Born where the thunder and the blast
And morning's earliest light are born,
Thou rushest swoln, and loud, and fast,
By these low homes, as if in scorn:
Yet humbler springs yield purer waves:
And brighter, glassier streams than thine,
Sent up from earth's unlighted caves,

With heaven's own beam and image shine.

Yet stay; for here are flowers and trees;
Warm rays on cottage roofs are here,
And laugh of girls, and hum of bees-

Here linger till thy waves are clear.
Thou heedest not-thou hastest on;
From steep to steep thy torrent falls,
Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone,
It rests beneath Geneva's walls.

Rush on but were there one with me

That loved me, I would light my hearth
Here, where with God's own majesty

Are touched the features of the earth.
By these old peaks, white, high, and vast,
Still rising as the tempests beat,

Here would I dwell, and sleep at last,
Among the blossoms at their feet.

ΤΟ

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TO COLE, THE PAINTER, DEPARTING FOR
EUROPE

THINE eyes shall see the light of distant skies:
Yet, COLE! thy heart shall bear to Europe's strand
A living image of our own bright land,
Such as upon thy glorious canvas lies;

Lone lakes- savannas where the bison roves—

Rocks rich with summer garlands-solemn streamsSkies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams— Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves. Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest-fair,

But different everywhere the trace of men, Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air, Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight, But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN

THOU blossom bright with autumn dew,
And coloured with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest;

Thou waitest late and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue-blue-as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

ΤΟ

ΙΟ

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.

THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER

WILD was the day; the wintry sea
Moaned sadly on New England's strand,
When first the thoughtful and the free,
Our fathers, trod the desert land.

They little thought how pure a light,

With years, should gather round that day: How love should keep their memories bright, How wide a realm their sons should sway.

Green are their bays; but greener still

Shall round their spreading fame be wreathed, And regions, now untrod, shall thrill

With reverence, when their names are breathed.

Till where the sun, with softer fires,
Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep,

The children of the pilgrim sires

This hallowed day like us shall keep.

HYMN OF THE CITY

NOT in the solitude

Alone may man commune with heaven, or see
Only in savage wood

And sunny vale, the present Deity;

Or only hear his voice

Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice.

Even here do I behold

Thy steps, Almighty !—here, amidst the crowd,
Through the great city rolled,

With everlasting murmur deep and loud—