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A DREA M.

'Twas noon, 'twas summer: I beheld

Woods darkening in the flush of day, And that bright rivulet spread and swelled, A mighty stream, with creek and bay.

And here was love, and there was strife,
And mirthful shouts, and wrathful cries,
And strong men, struggling as for life,
With knotted limbs and angry eyes.

Now stooped the sun-the shades grew thin;
The rustling paths were piled with leaves;

And sunburnt groups were gathering in,

From the shorn field, its fruits and sheaves.

The river heaved with sullen sounds;
The chilly wind was sad with moans;
Black hearses passed, and burial-grounds.
Grew thick with monumental stones.

Still waned the day; the wind that chased
The jagged clouds blew chillier yet;

The woods were stripped, the fields were waste;
The wintry sun was near its set.

And of the young, and strong, and fair,

A lonely remnant, gray and weak,

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Lingered, and shivered to the air
Of that bleak shore and water bleak.

Ah! age is drear, and death is cold!
I turned to thee, for thou wert near,
And saw thee withered, bowed, and old,
And woke all faint with sudden fear.

'Twas thus I heard the dreamer say,

And bade her clear her clouded brow; "For thou and I, since childhood's day,

Have walked in such a dream till now.

"Watch we in calmness, as they rise, The changes of that rapid dream, And note its lessons, till our eyes

Shall open in the morning beam."

THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.

THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.

HERE are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines,
That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground
Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet
To linger here, among the flitting birds

And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass,

A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set

With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades-
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old-

My thoughts go up the long dim path of years,
Back to the earliest days of liberty.

Oh FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap
With which the Roman master crowned his slave
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man,
Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand

Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,

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THE FOUNTAIN.

FOUNTAIN, that springest on this grassy slope,
Thy quick cool murmur mingles pleasantly,
With the cool sound of breezes in the beach,
Above me in the noontide. Thou dost wear
No stain of thy dark birthplace; gushing up
From the red mould and slimy roots of earth,
Thou flashest in the sun. The mountain air,
In winter, is not clearer, nor the dew

That shines on mountain blossom. Thus doth God
Bring, from the dark and foul, the pure and bright.

This tangled thicket on the bank above

Thy basin, how thy waters keep it green!
For thou dost feed the roots of the wild vine

That trails all over it,

and to the twigs

Ties fast her clusters.

There the spice-bush lifts

Her leafy lances; the viburnum there,

Paler of foliage, to the sun holds up

Her circlet of green berries. In and out

THE FOUNTAIN.

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The chipping sparrow, in her coat of brown,
Steals silently, lest I should mark her nest.

Not such thou wert of yore, ere yet the axe Had smitten the old woods. Then hoary trunks Of oak, and plane, and hickory, o'er thee held A mighty canopy. When April winds

Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush

Of scarlet flowers. The tulip-tree, high up,
Opened, in airs of June, her multitude
Of golden chalices to humming-birds

And silken-winged insects of the sky.

Frail wood-plants clustered round thy edge in Spring.

The liverleaf put forth her sister blooms

Of faintest blue. Here the quick-footed wolf,
Passing to lap thy waters, crushed the flower

Of sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem

The red drops fell like blood. The deer, too, left
Her delicate foot-print in the soft moist mould,
And on the fallen leaves. The slow-paced bear,

In such a sultry summer noon as this,

Stopped at thy stream, and drank, and leaped across.

But thou hast histories that stir the heart

With deeper feeling;

They rise before me.

while I look on thee

I behold the scene

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