Ere yet despair's eternal shroud
Wrapped every vision hope had given.
When these deep purpling shades came down,
In softened tints, upon the hills,
We swore, that, whether fate should crown
Our future course with joys or ills,—
Whether safe moored in love's retreat,
Or severed wide by mount and sea,―
This hour, in spirit, we would meet,
And urge to Heaven our mutual plea.
O, tell me if this hallowed hour
Still finds thee constant at our shrine, Still witnesses thy fervent prayer
Ascending warm and true with mine! Faithful through every change of wo,
My heart still flies to meet thee there: 'Twould soothe this weary heart to know That thine responded every prayer.
The Burial of Arnold.*-N. P. WILLIS.
YE'VE gathered to your place of prayer
With slow and measured tread:
Your ranks are full, your mates all there-
But the soul of one has fled.
He was the proudest in his strength,
The manliest of ye all;
Why lies he at that fearful length,
And ye around his pall?
Ye reckon it in days, since he
Strode up that foot-worn aisle,
With his dark eye flashing gloriously,
And his lip wreathed with a smile.
O, had it been but told you, then,
To mark whose lamp was dim,
From out yon rank of fresh-lipped men,
Would ye have singled him?
A member of the senior class in Yale College.
Whose was the sinewy arm, which flung
Defiance to the ring?
Whose laugh of victory loudest rung-
Yet not for glorying?
Whose heart, in generous deed and thought,
No rivalry might brook,
And yet distinction claiming not?
There lies he-go and look!
On now-his requiem is done,
The last deep prayer is said—
On to his burial, comrades-on,
With the noblest of the dead!
Slow-for it presses heavily-
It is a man ye bear!
Slow for our thoughts dwell wearily
On the noble sleeper there.
Tread lightly, comrades!-we have laid
His dark locks on his brow-
Like life-save deeper light and shade:
We'll not disturb them now.
Tread lightly-for 'tis beautiful,
That blue-veined eye-lid's sleep,
Hiding the eye death left so dull-
Its slumber we will keep.
Rest now!-his journeying is done—
Your feet are on his sod-
Death's chain is on your champion-
He waiteth here his God!
Ay-turn and weep-'tis manliness
To be heart-broken here-
For the grave of earth's best nobleness
Is watered by the tear.
Lines to a Child on his Voyage to France, to meet his Father.-HENRY WARE, JR.
Lo, how impatiently upon the tide
The proud ship tosses, eager to be free!
Her flag streams wildly, and her fluttering sails
Pant to be on their flight. A few hours more,
And she will move, in stately grandeur, on,
Cleaving her path majestic through the flood,
As if she were a goddess of the deep.
O, 'tis a thought sublime, that man can force
A path upon the waste, can find a way
Where all is trackless, and compel the winds,
Those freest agents of almighty Power,
To lend their untamed wings, and bear him on
To distant climes. Thou, William, still art young,
And dost not see the wonder.
The buoyant deck, and look upon the flood,
Unconscious of the high sublimity,
As 'twere a common thing-thy soul unawed,
Thy childish sports unchecked; while thinking man
Shrinks back into himself,-himself so mean
'Mid things so vast,—and, rapt in deepest awe,
Bends to the might of that mysterious Power,
Who holds the waters in his hand, and guides
The ungovernable winds. 'Tis not in man
To look unmoved upon that heaving waste,
Which, from horizon to horizon spread,
Meets the o'er-arching heavens on every side,
Blending their hues in distant faintness there.
'Tis wonderful!-and yet, my boy, just such
Is life. Life is a sea as fathomless,
As wide, as terrible, and yet, sometimes,
As calm and beautiful. The light of heaven
Smiles on it, and 'tis decked with every hue
Of glory and of joy. Anon, dark clouds
Arise, contending winds of fate go forth,
And Hope sits weeping o'er a general wreck.
And thou must sail upon this sea, a long,
Eventful voyage. The wise may suffer wreck,
The foolish must. O, then, be early wise;
Learn from the mariner his skilful art
To ride upon the waves, and catch the breeze,
And dare the threatening storm, and trace a path,
'Mid countless dangers, to the destined port
Unerringly secure. O, learn from him
To station quick-eyed Prudence at the helm,
To guard thyself from Passion's sudden blasts,
And make Religion thy magnetic guide,
Which, though it trembles as it lowly lies,
Points to the light that changes not, in heaven.
Farewell! Heaven smile propitious on thy course,
And favoring breezes waft thee to the arms
Of love paternal. Yes, and more than this-
Blessed be thy passage o'er the changing sea
Of life; the clouds be few that intercept
The light of joy; the waves roll gently on
Beneath thy bark of hope, and bear thee safe
To meet in peace thine other Father-GOD.
New England.-J. G. PERCIVAL.
HAIL to the land whereon we tread,
Our fondest boast;
The sepulchre of mighty dead,
The truest hearts that ever bled,
Who sleep on Glory's brightest bed,
A fearless host:
No slave is here; our unchained feet
Walk freely as the waves that beat
Our coast.
Our fathers crossed the ocean's wave
To seek this shore;
They left behind the coward slave
To welter in his living grave;—
With hearts unbent, and spirits brave,
They sternly bore
Such toils as meaner souls had quelled;
But souls like these, such toils impelled
Hail to the morn, when first they stood
On Bunker's height,
And, fearless, stemmed the invading flood,
And wrote our dearest rights in blood,
And mowed in ranks the hireling brood,
In desperate fight!
O, 'twas a proud, exulting day,
For even our fallen fortunes lay
There is no other land like thee,
No dearer shore;
Thou art the shelter of the free;
The home, the port of Liberty,
Thou hast been, and shalt ever be,
Till time is o'er.
Ere I forget to think upon
My land, shall mother curse the son
She bore.
Thou art the firm, unshaken rock,
On which we rest;
And, rising from thy hardy stock,
Thy sons the tyrant's frown shall mock,
And Slavery's galling chains unlock,
And free the oppressed:
All, who the wreath of Freedom twine
Beneath the shadow of their vine,
Are blessed.
We love thy rude and rocky shore,
And here we stand-
Let foreign navies hasten o'er,
And on our heads their fury pour,
And peal their cannon's loudest roar,
And storm our land;
They still shall find our lives are given
To die for home;-and leant on Heaven
Our hand.
The Damsel of Peru.-BRYANT.
WHERE olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew,
There sat, beneath the pleasant shade, a damsel of Peru:
Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air,
Came glimpses of her snowy arm and of her glossy hair;
And sweetly rang her silver voice amid that shady nook,
As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of hidden brook.
'Tis a song of love and valor, in the noble Spanish tongue, That once upon the sunny plains of Old Castile was sung,
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