Poetical Works

Though stricken to the heart with winter's | And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,

Pouring new glory on the autumn woods, And dipping in warm light the pillared

clouds.

O'er the bare upland, and away Through the long reach of desert woods,

The embracing sunbeams chastely play, And gladden these deep solitudes.

Where, twisted round the barren oak,

The summer vine in beauty clung, And summer winds the stillness broke, The crystal icicle is hung.

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs

Pour out the river's gradual tide, Shrilly the skater's iron rings,

And voices fill the woodland side.

Alas! how changed from the fair scene, When birds sang out their mellow lay, And winds were soft, and woods were green,

And the song ceased not with the day!

But still wild music is abroad,

Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;

And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,

Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear Has grown familiar with your song; I hear it in the opening year,

I listen, and it cheers me long.

HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS OF BETHLEHEM.

AT THE CONSECRATION OF PULASKI'S

BANNER.

WHEN the dying flame of day
Through the chancel shot its ray,
Far the glimmering tapers shed
Faint light on the cowled head;
And the censer burning swung,
Where, before the altar, hung
The crimson banner, that with prayer
Had been consecrated there.

And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while,

Sung low, in the dim, mysterious aisle.

"Take thy banner! May it wave Proudly o'er the good and brave; When the battle's distant wail Breaks the sabbath of our vale,

When the clarion's music thrills
To the hearts of these lone hills,
When the spear in conflict shakes,
And the strong lance shivering
breaks.

"Take thy banner! and, beneath
The battle-cloud's encircling wreath,
Guard it, till our homes are free!
Guard it! God will prosper thee !
In the dark and trying hour,
In the breaking forth of power,
In the rush of steeds and men,
His right hand will shield thee then.

"Take thy banner! But when night
Closes round the ghastly fight,
If the vanquished warrior bow,
Spare him! By our holy vow,
By our prayers and many tears,
By the mercy that endears,
Spare him he our love hath shared!
Spare him! as thou wouldst be
spared!

The veil of cloud was lifted, and below | Departs with silent pace! That spirit Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow

Was darkened by the forest's shade,
Or glistened in the white cascade;
Where upward, in the mellow blush of
day,

The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.

I heard the distant waters dash, I saw the current whirl and flash, And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,

The woods were bending with a silent reach.

Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell,
The music of the village bell

Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills; And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,

Was ringing to the merry shout,
That faint and far the glen sent out,
Where, answering to the sudden shot,
thin smoke,

through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.

If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep

'Thy heart from fainting and thy soul

from sleep,

Go to the woods and hills! No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

moves

In the green valley, where the silver

Aslant the wooded slope, at evening,

goes,

Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,

Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,

The distant lake, fountains, and mighty

trees,

In many a lazy syllable, repeating Their old poetic legends to the wind.

And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill

The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,

My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly
forms

We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues

That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds

When the sun sets. Within her tender

eye

The heaven of April, with its changing light,

And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,

And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair

Is like the summer tresses of the trees, When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek

Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her
breath,

It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, from the morning's dewy flowers, it

comes

Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passion-
ate cadence.

BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK.

ON sunny slope and beechen swell,
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down,
The glory, that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its golden leaves.

Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,
Around a far uplifted cone,

In the warm blush of evening shone;
An image of the silver lakes,
By which the Indian's soul awakes.

But soon a funeral hymn was heard

The tall, gray forest; and a band
Of stern in heart, and strong in hand,
Came winding down beside the wave,
To lay the red chief in his grave.

They sang, that by his native bowers
He stood, in the last moon of flowers,
And thirty snows had not yet shed
Their glory on the warrior's head;
But, as the summer fruit decays,
So died he in those naked days.

A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin
Covered the warrior, and within
Its heavy folds the weapons, made
For the hard toils of war, were laid;
The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds,
And the broad belt of shells and
beads.

Before, a dark-haired virgin train
Chanted the death dirge of the slain;
Behind, the long procession came
Of hoary men and chiefs of fame,
With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,
Leading the war-horse of their chief.

Stripped of his proud and martia!
dress,

Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless,
With darting eye, and nostril spread,
And heavy and impatient tread,
He came; and oft that eye so proud
Asked for his rider in the crowd.

They buried the dark chief; they freed
Beside the grave his battle steed;
And swift an arrow cleaved its way
To his stern heart! Ore piercing neigh
Arose, and, on the dead man's plain,

Where the soft breath of evening stirred | The rider grasps his steed again.

TRANSLATIONS.

[Don Jorge Manrique, the author of the following poem, flourished in the last half of the fifteenth century. He followed the profession of arms, and died on the field of battle. Mariana, in his His. tory of Spain, makes honorable mention of him, as being present at the siege of Uclés; and speaks of him as "a youth of estimable qualities, who in this war gave brilliant proofs of his valor. He died young; and was thus cut off from long exercising his great virtues, and exhibiting to the world the light of his genius, which was already known to fame." He was mortally wounded in a skirmish near Cañavete, in the year 1479.

The name of Rodrigo Manrique, the father of the poet, Conde de Paredes and Maestre de Santiago, is well known in Spanish history and song. He died in 1476; according to Mariana, in the town of Uclés; but, according to the poem of his son, in Ocaña. It was his death that called forth the poem upon which rests the literary reputation of the younger Manrique. In the language of his historian, "Don Jorge Manrique, in an elegant Ode, full of poetic beauties, rich embellishments of genius, and high moral reflections, mourned the death of his father as with a funeral hymn." This praise is not exaggerated. The poem is a model in its kind. Its conception is solemn and beautiful; and, in accordance with it, the style moves on, — calm, dignified, and majestic.]

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