He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

THE BATTLE-FIELD.

ONCE this soft turf, this rivulet's sands, Were trampled by a hurrying crowd, And fiery hearts and armed hands Encounter'd in the battle-cloud.

Ah! never shall the land forget

How gush'd the life-blood of her braveGush'd, warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they fought to save.

Now, all is calm, and fresh, and still;
Alone the chirp of flitting bird,
And talk of children on the hill,

And bell of wandering kine are heard.

No solemn host goes trailing by

The black-mouth'd gun and staggering wain; Men start not at the battle-cry;

O! be it never heard again.

Soon rested those who fought; but thou
Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.

A friendless warfare! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year.
A wild and many-weapon'd throng
Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.

Yet, nerve thy spirit to the proof,

And blench not at thy chosen lot. The timid good may stand aloof,

The sage may frown-yet faint thou not,

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,

The hissing, stinging bolt of scorn; For with thy side shall dwell, at last, The victory of endurance born.

Truth, crush'd to earth, shall rise again: The eternal years of GoD are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, And dies among his worshippers.

Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,

When they who help'd thee flee in fear, Die full of hope and manly trust,

Like those who fell in battle here.

Another hand thy sword shall wield, Another hand the standard wave, Till from the trumpet's mouth is peal'd The blas of triumph o'er thy grave.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

THE melancholy days are come,
The saddest of the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods,
And meadows brown and sear.
Heap'd in the hollows of the grove,

The wither'd leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust,
And to the rabbit's tread.

The robin and the wren are flown,

And from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow,
Through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers,
That lately sprang and stood

In brighter light and softer airs,
A beauteous sisterhood!
Alas! they all are in their graves,
The gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds,

With the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie,

But the cold November rain
Calls not, from out the gloomy earth,
The lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet,

They perish'd long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died,
Amid the summer glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod,

And the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sun-flower by the brook
In autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven,
As falls the plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone,
From upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm, mild day,
As still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee

From out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard,
Though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light

The waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers
Whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood
And by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in

Her youthful beauty died,
The fair, meek blossom that grew up
And faded by my side;

In the cold, moist earth we laid her,
When the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely
Should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one,
Like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful,

Should perish with the flowers.

THE FUTURE LIFE.

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again

In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? That heart whose fondest throbs to ine were given? My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,

Shall it be banish'd from thy tongue in heaven?
Ir meadows framed by heaven's life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfetter'd mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that join'd us here;
The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,-
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

A happier lot that mine, and larger light,
Await thee there; for thou hast bow'd thy will
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,

And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell
Shrink and consume the heart, as heat the scroll;
And wrath has left its scar-that fire of hell
Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

Yet, though thou wear'st the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me in that calmer home
The wisdom that I learn'd so ill in this-
The wisdom which is love-till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN.

THOU blossom, bright with autumn dew,
And colour'd with the heaven's own blue,
That openest, when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.
Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines in purple dress'd,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.
Thou waitest late, and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue-blue-as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see The hour of death draw near to me, Hope, blossoming within my heart, May look to heaven as I depart.

OH, FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS
Он, fairest of the rural maids!
Thy birth was in the forest shades;
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky,
Were all that met thy infant eye.

Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,
Were ever in the sylvan wild;
And all the beauty of the place
Is in thy heart and on thy face.
The twilight of the trees and rocks
Is in the light shade of thy locks;
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves
Its playful way among the leaves.
Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene
And silent waters heaven is seen;
Their lashes are the herbs that look
On their young figures in the brook.
The forest depths, by foot unpress'd,
Are not more sinless than thy breast;
The holy peace that fills the air
Of those calm solitudes, is there.

THE MAIDEN'S SORROW.

SEVEN long years has the desert rain

Dropp'd on the clods that hide thy face; Seven long years of sorrow and pain I have thought of thy burial place. Thought of thy fate in the distant west,

Dying with none that loved thee near; They who flung the earth on thy breast Turn'd from the spot without a tear. There, I think, on that lonely grave, Violets spring in the soft May shower; There in the summer breezes wave Crimson phlox and moccasin flower. There the turtles alight, and there

Feeds with her fawn the timid doe;
There, when the winter woods are bare,
Walks the wolf on the crackling snow.
Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away;
All my task upon earth is done;
My poor father, old and gray,
Slumbers beneath the church-yard store
In the dreams of my lonely bed,

Ever thy form before me seems;
All night long I talk with the dead,
All day long I think of my dreams.
This deep wound that bleeds and aches,
This long pain, a sleepless pain-
When the Father my spirit takes
I shall feel it no more again.

'THE ancestors of CARLOS WILCOX were among the early emigrants to New England. His father was a respectable farmer at Newport, New Hampshire, where the poet was born, on the twentysecond day of October, 1794. When he was about four years old, his parents removed to Orwell, in Vermont; and there, a few years afterward, he accidentally injured himself with an axe; the wound, for want of care or skill, was not healed; it was a cause of suffering for a long period, and of lameness during his life; it made him a minister of religion, and a poet.

Perceiving that this accident and its consequences unfitted him for agricultural pursuits, his parents resolved to give him a liberal education. When, therefore, he was thirteen years old, he was sent to an academy at Castleton; and when fifteen, to the college at Middlebury. Here he became religious, and determined to study theology. He won the respect of the officers, and of his associates, by the mildness of his temper, the gravity of his manners, and the manliness of his conduct; and he was distinguished for his attainments in languages and polite letters.

He was graduated in 1813; and after spending a few months with a maternal uncle, in Georgia, he entered the theological school at Andover, in Massachusetts. He had not been there long when one of his classmates died, and he was chosen by his fellows to pronounce a funeral oration. The departed student was loved by all for his excellent qualities; but by none more than by WILCOX; and the tenderness of feeling, and the purity of diction which characterized his eulogy, established his reputation for genius and eloquence in the seminary.

WILCOX had at this time few associates; he was a melancholy man; "I walk my room," he remarks, in one of his letters, "with my hands clasped in anguish, and my eyes streaming with tears;" he complained that his mind was unstrung, relaxed almost beyond the power of reaction; that he had lost all control of his thoughts and affections, and become a passive slave of circumstances; "I feel borne along," he says, "in despairing listlessness, guided by the current in all its windings, without resolution to raise my head to see where I am, or whither I am going; the roaring of a cataract before me would rather lull me to a deeper sleep than rouse me to an effort to escape destruction." His sufferings were apparent to his friends, among whom there were givings-out concerning an unrequited passion, or the faithlessness of one whose hand had been pledged to him; and he himself mentioned to some who were his confidants, troubles of a different kind: he was indebted to the college faculty, and in other ways embarrassed. Whatever may have been the cause, all perceived that there

was something preying on his mind; that he was ver in dejection.

As time wore on, he became more cheerful; he finished the regular course of theological studies, in 1817, and in the following spring returned to Vermont, where he remained a year. In this period he began the poem, in which he has sung

"Of true Benevolence, its charms divine,
With other motives to call forth its power,
And its grand triumphs."

In 1819, WILCOx began to preach; and his professional labours were constant, for a year, at the end of which time his health failed, and he ac cepted an invitation from a friend at Salisbury, in Connecticut, to reside at his house. Here he remained nearly two years, reading his favourite authors, and composing "The Age of Benevolence." The first book was published at New Haven, in 1822; it was favourably received by the journals and by the public. He intended to complete the poem in five books; the second, third, and fourth, were left by him when he died, ready for the press; but, for some reason, only brief frag. ments of them have been printed.

During the summer of 1824, WILCOX devoted his leisure hours to the composition of The Re ligion of Taste," a poem which he pronounced before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College; and in the following winter he was ordained as minister of the North Congregational Church, in Hartford. He soon obtained a high reputation for eloquence; his sermons were long, prepared with great care, and delivered with deep feeling. His labours were too arduous; his health rapidly declined; and in the summer of 1825, he sought relief in relaxation and travel. He visited New York, Philadelphia, the springs of Saratoga, and, for the last time, his home in Vermont. In the autumn he returned to his parish, where he remained until the spring, when, finding himself unable to perform the duties of his office, he sent to the government of the church his resignation. It was reluctantly accepted, for he had endeared himself, as a minister and a man, to all who knew him. The summer of 1826 was passed at Newport, Rhode Island, in the hope that the sea-breezo and bathing in the surf would restore his health. He was disappointed; and in September, he visited the White Mountains, in New Hampshire, and afterward went to Boston, where he remained several weeks. Finally, near the end of December, he received an invitation to preach in Danbury, in Connecticut. He went immediately to his new parish, and during the winter discharged the duties of his profession regularly. But as the spring came round, his strength failed; and on the 27th of May, 1827, he died.

And on its top a trembling moment stand,
Then to the distant flock at once return.
Exhilarated by the general joy,

And the fair prospect of a fruitful year,
The peasant, with light heart and nimble step,
His work pursues, as it were pastime sweet.
With many a cheering word, his willing team
For labour fresh, he hastens to the field
Ere morning lose its coolness; but at eve,
When loosen'd from the plough and homeward
turn'd,

He follows slow and silent, stopping oft
To mark the daily growth of tender grain
And meadows of deep verdure, or to view
His scatter'd flock and herd, of their own will
Assembling for the night by various paths,
The old now freely sporting with the young,
Or labouring with uncouth attempts at sport.

A SUMMER NOON.

A SULTRY noon, not in the summer's prime,
When all is fresh with life, and youth, and bloom,
But near its close, when vegetation stops,
And fruits mature stand ripening in the sun,
Soothes and enervates with its thousand charms,
Its images of silence and of rest,

The melancholy mind. The fields are still;
The husbandman has gone to his repast,
And, that partaken, on the coolest side
Of his abode, reclines in sweet repose.
Deep in the shaded stream the cattle stand,
The flocks beside the fence, with heads all prone,
And panting quick. The fields, for harvest ripe,
No breezes bend in smooth and graceful waves,
While with their motion, dim and bright by turns,
The sunshine seems to move; nor e'en a breath
Brushes along the surface with a shade
Fleeting and thin, like that of flying smoke.
The slender stalks their heavy bended heads
Support as motionless as oaks their tops.
O'er all the woods the topmost leaves are still;
E'en the wild poplar leaves, that, pendent hung
By stems elastic, quiver at a breath,

Rest in the general calm. The thistle down,
Seen high and thick, by gazing up beside
Some shading object, in a silver shower
Plumb down, and slower than the slowest snow,
Through all the sleepy atmosphere descends;
And where it lights, though on the steepest roof,
Or smallest spire of grass, remains unmoved.
White as a fleece, as dense and as distinct
From the resplendent sky, a single cloud,
On the soft bosom of the air becalm'd,
Drops a lone shadow, as distinct and still,
On the bare plain, or sunny mountain's side;
Or in the polish'd mirror of the lake,
In which the deep reflected sky appears
A calm, sublime immensity below.

No sound nor motion of a living thing
The stillness breaks, but such as serve to soothe,
Or cause the soul to feel the stillness more.
The yellow-hammer by the way-side picks,
Mutely, the thistle's seed; but in her flight,

So smoothly serpentine, her wings outspread
To rise a little, closed to fall as far,
Moving like sea-fowl o'er the heaving waves,
With each new impulse chimes a feeble note.
The russet grasshopper at times is heard,
Snapping his many wings, as half he flies,
Half-hovers in the air. Where strikes the sun,
With sultriest beams, upon the sandy plain,
Or stony mount, or in the close, deep vale,
The harmless locust of this western clime,
At intervals, amid the leaves unseen,
Is heard to sing with one unbroken sound,
As with a long-drawn breath, beginning low,
And rising to the midst with shriller swell,
Then in low cadence dying all away.
Beside the stream, collected in a flock,
The noiseless butterflies, though on the ground,
Continue still to wave their open fans
Powder'd with gold; while on the jutting twigs
The spindling insects that frequent the banks
Rest, with their thin, transparent wings outspread
As when they fly. Ofttimes, though seldom seen,
The cuckoo, that in summer haunts our groves,
Is heard to moan, as if at every breath
Panting aloud. The hawk, in mid-air high,
On his broad pinions sailing round and round,
With not a flutter, or but now and then,
As if his trembling balance to regain,
Utters a single scream, but faintly heard,
And all again is still.

SEPTEMBER.

THE sultry summer past, September comes, Soft twilight of the slow-declining year. All mildness, soothing loneliness, and peace; The fading season ere the falling come, More sober than the buxom, blooming May, And therefore less the favourite of the world, But dearest month of all to pensive minds. "Tis now far spent; and the meridian sun, Most sweetly smiling with attemper'd beams, Sheds gently down a mild and grateful warmth. Beneath its yellow lustre, groves and woods, Checker'd by one night's frost with various hues, While yet no wind has swept a leaf away, Shine doubly rich. It were a sad delight Down the smooth stream to glide, and see it tinged Upon each brink with all the gorgeous hues, The yellow, red, or purple of the trees That, singly, or in tufts, or forests thick Adorn the shores; to see, perhaps, the side Of some high mount reflected far below, With its bright colours, intermix'd with spots Of darker green. Yes, it were sweetly sad To wander in the open fields, and hear, E'en at this hour, the noonday hardly past, The lulling insects of the summer's night; To hear, where lately buzzing swarms were heard, A lonely bee long roving here and there To find a single flower, but all in vain; Then rising quick, and with a louder hum, In wider ag cireles round and round his head,