259

So the wild wind strews its perfumed

caresses,

Evil and thankless the desert it blesses, Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses,

Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing. What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses?

What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes? Sweetest is music with minor-keyed closes, Fairest the vines that on ruin will cling.

Almost the day of thy giving is over; Ere from the grass dies the bee-haunted clover,

Thou wilt have vanished from friend and from lover.

What shall thy longing avail in the

grave?

Give as the heart gives whose fetters are breaking,

Life, love, and hope, all thy dreams and thy waking.

Soon, heaven's river thy soul-fever slaking,

Thou shalt know God and the gift that he gave.

As monarchs in their progress scatter gold;

And be thy heart like the exhaustless

sea,

That must its wealth of cloud and dew bestow,

Though tributary streams or ebb or flow.

LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

[U. S. A., 1791-1865.]

INDIAN NAMES.

YE say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave;
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;

That mid the forests where they roamed
There rings no hunter's shout;
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.

"T is where Ontario's billow
Like ocean's surge is curled,
Where strong Niagara's thunders wake
The echo of the world.
Where red Missouri bringeth

Rich tribute from the West,
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps,
On green Virginia's breast.

Ye say their cone-like cabins,

That clustered o'er the vale,
Have fled away like withered leaves
Before the autumn gale;

But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.

Old Massachusetts wears it
Upon her lordly crown,

And broad Ohio bears it

Amid his young renown; Connecticut hath wreathed it

Where her quiet foliage waves;
And bold Kentucky breathed it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.

Wachusett hides its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock on his forehead hoar
Doth seal the sacred trust;

Your mountains build their monument,
Though ye destroy their dust.

Ye call these red-browed brethren
The insects of an hour,

Crushed like the noteless worm amid

The regions of their power;

Ye drive them from their fathers' lands, Ye break of faith the seal,

But can ye from the court of Heaven Exclude their last appeal?

Ye see their unresisting tribes,
With toilsome step and slow,
On through the trackless desert pass,
A caravan of woe;

Think ye the Eternal Ear is deaf?
His sleepless vision dim?

Think ye the soul's blood may not cry
From that far land to him?

WILLIAM H. FURNESS.

[U. S. A.]

ETERNAL LIGHT.

SLOWLY, by God's hand unfurled,
Down around the weary world,
Falls the darkness; O, how still
Is the working of his will!

Mighty Spirit, ever nigh,
Work in me as silently;
Veil the day's distracting sights,
Show me heaven's eternal lights.

Living stars to view be brought
In the boundless realms of thought;
High and infinite desires,
Flaming like those upper fires.

Holy Truth, Eternal Right,
Let them break upon my sight;
Let them shine serene and still,
And with light my being fill.

JAMES T. FIELDS. [U. s. A.]

WORDSWORTH.

THE grass hung wet on Rydal banks, The golden day with pearls adorning, When side by side with him we walked To meet midway the summer morning.

The west-wind took a softer breath,

The sun himself seemed brighter shin

ing,

BAYARD TAYLOR.

[U. s. A.]

THE MOUNTAINS.

(From "THE MASQUE OF THE GODS.")

HOWE'ER the wheels of Time go round,
We cannot wholly be discrowned.
We bind, in form, and hue, and height,
The Finite to the Infinite,

And, lifted on our shoulders bare,
The races breathe an ampler air.
The arms that clasped, the lips that kissed,
Have vanished from the morning mist;
The dainty shapes that flashed and passed
In spray the plunging torrent cast,
Or danced through woven gleam and
shade,

The vapors and the sunbeams braid,
Grow thin and pale: each holy haunt
Of gods or spirits ministrant
Hath something lost of ancient awe;
Yet from the stooping heavens we draw
A beauty, mystery, and might,
Time cannot change nor worship slight.
The gold of dawn and sunset sheds
Unearthly glory on our heads;
The secret of the skies we keep;
And whispers, round each lonely steep,
Allure and promise, yet withhold,
What bard and prophet never told.
While Man's slow ages come and go,
Our dateless chronicles of snow
Their changeless old inscription show,
And men therein forever see
The unread speech of Deity.

AN ORIENTAL IDYL.

A SILVER javelin which the hills Have hurled upon the plain below, The fleetest of the Pharpar's rills, Beneath me shoots in flashing flow.

I hear the never-ending laugh

Of jostling waves that come and go, And suck the bubbling pipe, and quaff The sherbet cooled in mountain snow.

The flecks of sunshine gleam like stars
Beneath the canopy of shade;
And in the distant, dim bazaars,
I scarcely hear the hum of trade.

No evil fear, no dream forlorn,
Darkens my heaven of perfect blue;
My blood is tempered to the morn,
My very heart is steeped in dew.
What Evil is I cannot tell;

But half I guess what Joy may be;
And, as a pearl within its shell,
The happy spirit sleeps in me.

I feel no more the pulse's strife,
The tides of Passion's ruddy sea,
But live the sweet, unconscious life
That breathes from yonderjasmine-tree.

Upon the glittering pageantries Of gay Damascus streets I look As idly as a babe that sees

The painted pictures of a book.

Forgotten now are name and race;

The Past is blotted from my brain; For Memory sleeps, and will not trace The weary pages o'er again.

I only know the morning shines,

And sweet the dewy morning air, But does it play with tendrilled vines! Or does it lightly lift my hair?

Deep-sunken in the charmed repose,

This ignorance is bliss extreme; And whether I be Man, or Rose, O, pluck me not from out my dream!

THE VOYAGERS.

No longer spread the sail!

No longer strain the oar!

For never yet has blown the gale
Will bring us nearer shore.

The swaying keel slides on,

The helm obeys the hand; Fast we have sailed from dawn to dawn, Yet never reach the land.

Each morn we see its peaks,

Made beautiful with snow;
Each eve its vales and winding creeks,
That sleep in mist below.

At noon we mark the gleam
Of temples tall and fair;

At midnight watch its bonfires stream
In the auroral air.

SARA J. LIPPINCOTT (GRACE GREENWOOD).

[U. s. A.]

THE POET OF TO-DAY.

MORE than the soul of ancient song is given

To thee, O poet of to-day! — thy dower Comes, from a higher than Olympian heaven,

In holier beauty and in larger power.

To thee Humanity, her woes revealing, Would all her griefs and ancient wrongs rehearse; Would make thy song the voice of her appealing,

And sob her mighty sorrows through thy verse.

While in her season of great darkness sharing,

Hail thou the coming of each promise