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

Old Massachusetts wears it
Within her lordly crown,

And broad Ohio bears it

Amid his young renown.
Connecticut hath wreathed it

Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathes 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.

BY NATHANIEL P. WILLIS.

I HAVE found violets. April hath come on,
And the cool winds feel softer, and the rain
Falls in the beaded drops of summer time.
You may hear birds at morning, and at eve
The tame dove lingers till the twilight falls,
Cooing upon the eaves, and drawing in
His beautiful bright neck, and, from the hills,

APRIL.

A murmur like the hoarseness of the sea
Tells the release of waters, and the earth
Sends up a pleasant smell, and the dry leaves
Are lifted by the grass; and so I know
That Nature, with her delicate ear, hath heard
The dropping of the velvet foot of Spring.
Take of my violets! I found them where
The liquid South stole o'er them, on a bank
That lean'd to running water. There's to me
A daintiness about these early flowers
That touches me like poetry. They blow
With such a simple loveliness among

The common herbs of pasture, and breathe out
Their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts
Whose beatings are too gentle for the world.
I love to go in the capricious days

Of April and hunt violets; when the rain
Is in the blue cups trembling, and they nod
So gracefully to the kisses of the wind.

It be deem'd too idle, but the young
may
Read nature like the manuscript of heaven,
And call the flowers its poetry. Go out!
Ye spirits of habitual unrest,

And read it when the " fever of the world"
Hath made your hearts impatient, and, if life
Hath yet one spring unpoison'd, it will be
Like a beguiling music to its flow,

And

you will no more wonder that I love To hunt for violets in the April time.

6

61

FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS.

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.

WHEN the hours of Day are number'd,
And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul that slumber'd,
To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight

Dance upon the parlour wall;

Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;

The beloved ones, the true-hearted,
Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherish'd
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perish'd,
Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,

Who the cross of suffering bore, Folded their pale hands so meekly, Spake with us on earth no more! And with them the Being beauteous, Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven.

With a slow and noiseless footstep

Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me,

Lays her gentle hand in mine.

AUGUST.

And she sits and gazes at me

With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saintlike,
Looking downward from the skies.

Utter'd not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.

1

Oh, though oft depress'd and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside
If I but remember only

Such as these have lived and died!

AUGUST.

BY WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER,

DUST on thy mantle! dust, Bright Summer, on thy livery of green! A tarnish, as of rust,

Dims thy late-brilliant sheen :

And thy young glories-leaf, and bud, and flowerChange cometh over them with every hour.

Thee hath the August sun

Look'd on with hot, and fierce, and brassy face;
And still and lazily run,

Scarce whispering in their pace,

The half-dried rivulets, that lately sent
A shout of gladness up, as on they went.

63

Flame-like, the long midday,

With not so much of sweet air as hath stirr'd

The down upon the spray,

Where rests the panting bird,

Dozing away the hot and tedious noon,
With fitful twitter, sadly out of tune.

Seeds in the sultry air,

And gossamer web-work on the sleeping trees;
E'en the tall pines, that rear

Their plumes to catch the breeze,

The slightest breeze from the unfreshening west,
Partake the general languor, and deep rest..

Happy, as man may be,

Stretch'd on his back, in homely bean-vine bower,
While the voluptuous bee

Robs each surrounding flower,

And prattling childhood clambers o'er his breast,
The husbandman enjoys his noonday rest.

Against the hazy sky

The thin and fleecy clouds, unmoving, rest,
Beneath them far, yet high

In the dim, distant west,

The vulture, scenting thence its carrion-fare,
Sails, slowly circling in the sunny air.

Soberly, in the shade,

Repose the patient cow, and toil-worn ox;
Or in the shoal stream wade,

Shelter'd by jutting rocks:

The fleecy flock, fly-scourged and restless, rush
Madly from fence to fence, from bush to bush,