Thy fleeces are for monks, thy grapes for the

convent feast,

And the wealth of all thy harvest fields for the pampered lord and priest.

IV.

"But I shall see the day—it will come before

I die

I shall see it in my silver hairs, and with an agedimmed eye;—

When the spirit of the land to liberty shall

bound,

As yonder fountain leaps away from the darkness of the ground :

And to my mountain cell, the voices of the free Shall rise, as from the beaten shore the thunders of the sea.'

A MEDITATION ON RHODE ISLAND

COAL.

Decolor, obscuris, vilis, non ille repexam
Cesariem regum, non candida virginis ornat
Colla, nec insigni splendet per cingula morsu.
Sed nova si nigri videas miracula saxi,
Tunc superat pulchros cultus et quicquid Eois
Indus litoribus rubrâ scrutatur in algâ.

CLAUDIAN.

I SAT beside the glowing grate, fresh heaped With Newport coal, and as the flame grew

bright

-The many-colored flame-and played and

leaped,

I thought of rainbows and the northern light, Moore's Lalla Rookh, the Treasury Report, And other brilliant matters of the sort.

And last I thought of that fair isle which sent The mineral fuel; on a summer day

I saw it once, with heat and travel spent,

And scratched by dwarf oaks in the hollow

way;

Now dragged through sand, now jolted over

stone

A rugged road through rugged Tiverton.

And hotter grew the air, and hollower grew The deep-worn path, and horror-struck, I

thought,

Where will this dreary passage lead me to?

This long dull road, so narrow, deep, and hot? I looked to see it dive in earth outright; I looked-but saw a far more welcome sight.

Like a soft mist upon the evening shore,

At once a lovely isle before me lay,

Smooth and with tender verdure covered o'er,

As if just risen from its calm inland bay; Sloped each way gently to the grassy edge, And the small waves that dallied with the sedge.

The barley was just reaped—its heavy sheaves

Lay on the stubble field-the tall maize stood Dark in its summer growth, and shook its leaves

And bright the sunlight played on the young

wood

For fifty years ago, the old men say,

The Briton hewed their ancient groves away.

I saw where fountains freshened the green land, And where the pleasant road, from door to

door,

With rows of cherry-trees on either hand,

VOL. I.-10

Went wandering all that fertile region o'erRogue's Island once-but when the rogues were

dead,

Rhode Island was the name it took instead.

Beautiful island! then it only seemed

A lovely stranger-it has grown a friend.

I gazed on its smooth slopes, but never dreamed How soon that green and quiet isle would

send

The treasures of its womb across the sea,
To warm a poet's room, and boil his tea.

Dark anthracite ! that reddenest on my hearth, Thou in those island mines didst slumber

long;

But now thou art come forth to move the earth,

And put to shame the men that mean thee

wrong.