In quick, low voices, e'er the streaming light
Pours on their nests, as sprung from day's fresh source? With creatures innocent thou must, perforce,
A sharer be, if that thine heart be pure.
And holy hour like this, save sharp remorse,
Of ills and pains of life must be the cure,
And breathe in kindred calm, and teach thee to endure."
I feel its calm. But there's a sombrous hue
Along that eastern cloud of deep, dull red;
Nor glitters yet the cold and heavy dew;
And all the woods and hill-tops stand outspread
With dusky lights, which warmth nor comfort shed.
Still-save the bird that scarcely lifts its song-
The vast world seems the tomb of all the dead-
The silent city emptied of its throng,
And ended, all alike, grief, mirth, love, hate, and wrong.
But wrong, and hate, and love, and grief, and mirth
Will quicken soon; and hard, hot toil and strife,
With headlong purpose, shake this sleeping earth
With discord strange, and all that man calls life.
With thousand scattered beauties nature's rife ;
And airs, and woods, and streams, breathe harmonies
Man weds not these, but taketh art to wife;
Nor binds his heart with soft and kindly ties:
He, feverish, blinded, lives, and, feverish, sated, dies.
And 'tis because man useth so amiss
Her dearest blessings, Nature seemeth sad;
Else why should she, in such fresh hour as this,
Not lift the veil, in revelation glad,
From her fair face?—It is that man is mad!
Then chide me not, clear star, that I repine,
When Nature grieves; nor deem this heart is bad.
Thou look'st towards earth; but yet the heavens are thine, While I to earth am bound:-When will the heavens be mine?
If man would but his finer nature learn,
And not in life fantastic lose the sense
Of simpler things; could Nature's features stern
Teach him be thoughtful; then, with soul intense,
I should not yearn for God to take me hence,
But bear my lot, albeit in spirit bowed,
Remembering, humbly, why it is, and whence:
But when I see cold man of reason proud,
My solitude is sad—I'm lonely in the crowd.
But not for this alone, the silent tear
Steals to mine eyes, while looking on the morn,
Nor for this solemn hour:-fresh life is near,-
But all my joys!-they died when newly born.
Thousands will wake to joy; while I, forlorn,
And like the stricken deer, with sickly eye,
Shall see them pass. Breathe calm-my spirit's torn;
Ye holy thoughts, lift up my soul on high!-
Ye hopes of things unseen, the far-off world bring nigh.
And when I grieve, O, rather let it be
That I-whom Nature taught to sit with her
On her proud mountains, by her rolling sea-
Who, when the winds are up, with mighty stir
Of woods and waters, feel the quickening spur
To my strong spirit;-who, as mine own child,
Do love the flower, and in the ragged bur
A beauty see-that I this mother mild
Should leave, and go with Care, and passions fierce and wild!
How suddenly that straight and glittering shaft
Shot 'thwart the earth!-in crown of living fire
Up comes the Day !—as if they conscious quaffed
The sunny flood, hill, forest, city, spire
Laugh in the wakening light.-Go, vain Desire!
The dusky lights have gone; go thou thy way!
And pining Discontent, like them, expire!
Be called my chamber, PEACE, when ends the day;
And let me with the dawn, like PILGRIM, sing and pray!
Ay, thou art welcome-heaven's delicious breath!-
When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,
And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief,
And the year smiles as it draws near its death.
Wind of the sunny South!-0, long delay
In the gay woods and in the golden air,-
Like to a good old age, released from care,
Journeying, in long serenity, away.
In such a bright late quiet, would that I
Might wear out life, like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks, And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,
And music of kind voices ever nigh;
And, when my last sand twinkled in the glass,
Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.
Hymn for the Massachusetts Charitable Association.
LOUD o'er thy savage child,
O God, the night wind roars,
As, houseless, in the wild
He bows him, and adores.
Thou seest him there,
As to the sky
He lifts his eye
Alone in prayer
Thine inspiration comes!
In skill the blessing falls!
The field around him blooms,
The temple rears its walls,
And saints adore,
And music swells,
Where savage yells
Were heard before.
To honor thee, dread Power,
Our SKILL and STRENGTH combine
And temple, tomb and tower
Attest these gifts of thine,
A swelling dome
For Pride they gild,
For Peace they build
An humbler home.
By these our fathers' host
Was led to victory first,
When on our guardless coast
The cloud of battle burst.
Through storm and spray,
By these controlled,
Our navies hold
Their thundering way.
Great Source of every art!
Our homes, our pictured halls,
Our thronged and busy mart
That heaves its granite walls,
And shoots to heaven
Its glittering spires,
To catch the fires
Of morn and even,-
These, and the breathing forms
The brush or chisel gives,
With this, when marble warms,
With that, when canvass lives,-
These all combine,
In countless ways,
To swell thy praise;
For all are thine!
The little Beach Bird.-RICHARD H. DANA.
THOU little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice?
Why with that boding cry
O'er the waves dost thou fly?
O, rather, bird, with me
Through the fair land rejoice!
Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,
As driven by a beating storm at sea;
Thy cry is weak and scared,
As if thy mates had shared
The doom of us. Thy wail
What does it bring to me?
Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge, Restless and sad; as if, in strange accord
With motion, and with roar
Of waves that drive to shore,
One spirit did ye urge—
The Mystery-the Word.
Of thousands thou, both sepulchre and pall,
Old Ocean, art! A requiem o'er the dead,
From out thy gloomy cells,
A tale of mourning tells
Tells of man's wo and fall,
His sinless glory fled.
Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight
Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring
Thy spirit never more.
Come, quit with me the shore,
For gladness and the light,
Where birds of summer sing.
Address of the Sylph of Autumn to the Bard.WASHINGTON ALLSTON.
AND now, in accents deep and low,
Like voice of fondly-cherished wo,
The Sylph of Autumn sad:
Though I may not of raptures sing,
That graced the gentle song of Spring,
Like Summer playful pleasures bring,
Thy youthful heart to glad:
Yet still may I in hope aspire
Thy heart to touch with chaster fire,
And purifying love:
For I, with vision high and holy,
And spell of quick'ning melancholy,
Thy soul from sublunary folly
First raised to worlds above.
What though be mine the treasures fair
Of purple grape, and yellow pear,
And fruits of various hue,
And harvests rich of golden grain,
That dance in waves along the plain
To merry song of reaping swain,
Beneath the welkin blue;
With these I may not urge my suit,
Of Summer's patient toil the fruit,
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