MINOR POEMS.

GREEN FIELDS.

HOME of the healthy breeze,

Ye song-inspiring leas!

I wake

my reed upon your lap once more; And not a dear wild flower,

That woos the sun and shower,

But seems more lovely than in days of yore.

Here oft, beside this stile,

The moon look'd down the while,Have I sat gazing on the village spire;

And as the solemn bell

Peal'd through the hollow dell,

My buried thoughts rose high o'er mound and pyre.

Ah! what is human life,

Its constant toil and strife?

What, but a Spring bud beaten by the blast?
Or cloud at dawning-time,

Or mist at morning's prime :
So soon they vanish, and so life is past.

Beside this hedge of thorn,

How sweet to muse at morn,

What time the skylark shakes him in the grass; Then spreads his dewy wings,

And soaring sunward sings, Pouring his lyre-notes in a liquid mass!

Around me steals his song,

Soft, musical, and strong,
Trickling amid the mosses of the mead;
Or where the daisies lie

With dew-tears in their eye,
Or swelling sweetly through the oaten reed.

Dear rural sight and sound, With pastoral graces crown'd, Throng round me musing by this meadow gate; And sheep-bells far away

Blend with the thatcher's lay,

While wren in earnest calls upon

his mate.

O, sweet from man to fly,

And mid your flowers to lie, Winding my simple fancies into rhyme!

And sweet your halcyon calm,

And sweet your breezy balm, Like fragrance wafted from some holier clime.

I dare not love the town;

Its full stream bears me down;

But here my soul breathes fetterless and free; And round my vision throng

The genii of sweet song:

O, life is joyous pass'd upon the lea.

And when eve's purple vest
Hangs round the sleepy west,

And twilight's dusky gates wide open stand,
I ask no higher bliss,

No fuller cup than this,

To rove in rhyme-dreams o'er the meadow land.

And so, green fields, to you,
'Neath heaven's ethereal blue,

A pensive poet turns his weary feet:
For none will miss him here,

None mark the falling tear,

But the great Father on His shining seat.

And when her meal was ended, She clasp'd her hands in prayer: "I thank Thee, holy Father,

Not far off from the widow

There dwelt a wicked hind, Who long had mark'd her conduct

With evil in his mind.

But, hearing of her exit