So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!

But long

I bear with me

No token stone nor glittering shell,

and oft shall Memory

tell

Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea.

LINES,

WRITTEN ON HEARING OF THE DEATH OF SILAS WRIGHT, OF NEW YORK.

As they who, tossing midst the storm at night,
While turning shoreward, where a beacon shone,
Meet the walled blackness of the heaven alone,
So, on the turbulent waves of party tossed,
In gloom and tempest, men have seen thy light
Quenched in the darkness. At thy hour of noon,
While life was pleasant to thy undimmed sight,
And, day by day, within thy spirit grew
A holier hope than young Ambition knew,
As through thy rural quiet, not in vain,
Pierced the sharp thrill of Freedom's cry of pain,
Man of the millions, thou art lost too soon!
Portents at which the bravest stand aghast-
The birth-throes of a Future, strange and vast,
Alarm the land; yet thou, so wise and strong,
Suddenly summoned to the burial bed,

Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long,
Hear'st not the tumult surging overhead.
Who now shall rally Freedom's scattering host?
Who wear the mantle of the leader lost?
Who stay the march of slavery? He, whose voice
Hath called thee from thy task-field, shall not

lack

Yet bolder champions, to beat bravely back The wrong which, through his poor ones, reaches

Him:

Yet firmer hands shall Freedom's torchlights trim, And wave them high across the abysmal black, Till bound, dumb millions there shall see them and

rejoice.

10th mo., 1847.

LINES,

ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPTS PRESENTED TO A FRIEND.

'Tis said that in the Holy Land

The angels of the place have blessed

The pilgrim's bed of desert sand,
Like Jacob's stone of rest.

That down the hush of Syrian skies
Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight sings

The song whose holy symphonies
Are beat by unseen wings;

Till starting from his sandy bed,
The wayworn wanderer looks to see
The halo of an angel's head

Shine through the tamarisk-tree.

So through the shadows of my way
Thy smile hath fallen soft and clear,
So at the weary close of day
Hath seemed thy voice of cheer.

That pilgrim pressing to his goal
May pause not for the vision's sake,
Yet all fair things within his soul
The thought of it shall wake;

The graceful palm-tree by the well,
Seen on the far horizon's rim;
The dark eyes of the fleet gazelle,
Bent timidly on him;

Each pictured saint, whose golden hair
Streams sunlike through the convent's gloom;
Pale shrines of martyrs young and fair,
And loving Mary's tomb;

And thus each tint or shade which falls
From sunset cloud or waving tree,
Along my pilgrim path recalls
The pleasant thought of thee.

Of one, in sun and shade the same,
In weal and woe my steady friend,
Whatever by that holy name
The angels comprehend.

Not blind to faults and follies, thou
Hast never failed the good to see,
Nor judged by one unseemly bough
The upward-struggling tree.

These light leaves at thy feet I lay-
Poor common thoughts on common things,
Which time is shaking, day by day,
Like feathers from his wings-

Chance shootings from a frail life-tree,
To nurturing care but little known,
Their good was partly learned of thee,
Their folly is my own.

That tree still clasps the kindly mould,
Its leaves still drink the twilight dew,
And weaving its pale green with gold,
Still shines the sunlight through.

There still the morning zephyrs play,
And there at times the spring bird sings,

And mossy trunk and fading spray

Are flowered with glossy wings.

Yet, even in genial sun and rain,
Root, branch, and leaflet fail and fade;
The wanderer on its lonely plain
Ere long shall miss its shade.

Oh, friend beloved, whose curious skill
Keeps bright the last year's leaves and flowers,
With warm, glad summer thoughts to fill
The cold, dark, winter hours!

Pressed on thy heart, the leaves I bring
May well defy the wintry cold,
Until, in Heaven's eternal spring,
Life's fairer ones unfold.

THE REWARD.

WHO, looking backward from his manhood's prime, Sees not the spectre of his misspent time ?

And, through the shade

Of funeral cypress planted thick behind,
Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind
From his loved dead?

Who bears no trace of passion's evil force?
Who shuns thy sting, oh terrible Remorse?—

Who does not cast

On the thronged pages of his memory's book,
At times, a sad and half reluctant look,

Regretful of the Past?

Alas! the evil which we fain would shun
We do, and leave the wished-for good undone :

Our strength to-day

Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall;
Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all

Are we alway.

Yet, who, thus looking backward o'er his years,

Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears,

If he hath been

Permitted, weak and sinful as he was,

To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause,

His fellow-men?

If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in

A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin,

If he hath lent

Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, Over the suffering, mindless of his creed

Or home, hath bent.

He has not lived in vain, and while he gives The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives,

With thankful heart;

He gazes backward, and with hope before,
Knowing that from his works he never more
Can henceforth part.

RAPHAEL.

I SHALL not soon forget that sight:
The glow of Autumn's westering day,

A hazy warmth, a dreamy light,
On Raphael's picture lay.