TO A CLOUD.

BEAUTIFUL cloud! with folds so soft and fair,
Swimming in the pure quiet air!

Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below
Thy shadow o'er the vale moves slow;
Where, midst their labour, pause the reaper train
As cool it comes along the grain.

Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee

In thy calm way o'er land and sea:

To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look
On Earth as on an open book;

On streams that tie her realms with silver bands,
And the long ways that seem her lands;
And hear her humming cities, and the sound
Of the great ocean breaking round.
Ay—I would sail upon thy air-borne car
To blooming regions distant far,

To where the sun of Andalusia shines

On his own olive-groves and vines, Or the soft lights of Italy's bright sky In smiles upon her ruins lie.

But I would woo the winds to let us rest

O'er Greece long fettered and oppressed,

Whose sons at length have heard the call that comes
From the old battle-fields and tombs,

And risen, and drawn the sword, and on the foe
Have dealt the swift and desperate blow,

And the Othman power is cloven, and the stroke
Has touched its chains, and they are broke.
Ay, we would linger till the sunset there
Should come, to purple all the air,
And thou reflect upon the sacred ground
The ruddy radiance streaming round.

Bright meteor! for the summer noontide made!
Thy peerless beauty yet shall fade.

The sun, that fills with light each glistening fold,
Shall set, and leave thee dark and cold:

The blast shall rend thy skirts, or thou mayst frown

In the dark heaven when storms come down; And weep in rain, till man's inquiring eye

Miss thee, for ever, from the sky.

THE MURDERED TRAVELLER.

WHEN spring, to woods and wastes around, Brought bloom and joy again,

The murdered traveller's bones were found,

Far down a narrow glen.

The fragrant birch, above him, hung

Her tassels in the sky;

And many a vernal blossom sprung,

And nodded careless by.

The red-bird warbled, as he wrought
His hanging nest o'erhead,

And fearless, near the fatal spot,

But there was weeping far away,

And gentle eyes, for him,

With watching many an anxious day,

Were sorrowful and dim.

They little knew, who loved him so,

The fearful death he met,

When shouting o'er the desert snow,
Unarmed, and hard beset ;—

Nor how, when round the frosty pole
The northern dawn was red,

The mountain wolf and wild-cat stole
To banquet on the dead ;—

Nor how, when strangers found his bones,

They dressed the hasty bier,

And marked his grave with nameless stones, Unmoistened by a tear.

But long they looked, and feared, and wept, Within his distant home;

And dreamed, and started as they slept,

For joy that he was come.

Long, long they looked—but never spied

His welcome step again,

Nor knew the fearful death he died

Far down that narrow glen.

HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR.

THE sad and solemn night

Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light

Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires;

All through her silent watches, gliding slow,

Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.

Day, too, hath many a star

To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they:

Through the blue fields afar,

Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:

Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim, Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

And thou dost see them rise,

Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.

Alone, in thy cold skies,

Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet,
Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train,

Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.