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HYMN TO DEATH.

And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught
Thy hand to practise best the lenient art
To which thou gavest thy laborious days,

And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth
Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes

And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill
Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale
When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which thou
Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have

To offer at thy grave-this-and the hope
Το

copy thy example, and to leave

A name of which the wretched shall not think
As of an enemy's, whom they forgive
As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou
Whose early guidance trained my infant steps-
Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep
Of death is over, and a happier life

Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.

Now thou art not--and yet the men whose guilt
Has wearied Heaven for vengeance—he who bears
False witness-he who takes the orphan's bread,
And robs the widow-he who spreads abroad
Polluted hands in mockery of prayer,

Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look
On what is written, yet I blot not out
The desultory numbers-let them stand,
The record of an idle revery.

"EARTH'S CHILDREN CLEAVE TO EARTH."

EARTH'S children cleave to Earth--her frail

Decaying children dread decay.

Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale,
And lessens in the morning ray:
Look, how, by mountain rivulet,

It lingers, as it upward creeps,

And clings to fern and copsewood set
Along the green and dewy steeps:
Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings
To precipices fringed with grass,
Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings,
And bowers of fragrant sassafras.
Yet all in vain-it passes still

From hold to hold, it cannot stay,

And in the very beams that fill

The world with glory, wastes away.
Till, parting from the mountain's brow,
It vanishes from human eye,

And that which sprung of earth is now
A portion of the glorious sky.

TO A WATERFOWL.

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way!

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
The desert and illimitable air,-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark night is near.

TO A WATERFOWL.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

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.

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