Like summer's beam, and summer's stream, Float on, in joy, to meet A calmer sea, where storms shall cease- TO THE DEAD. How many now are dead to me That live to others yet! How many are alive to me Who crumble in their graves, nor see That sickening, sinking look, which we Till dead can ne'er forget. Beyond the blue seas, far away, Most wretchedly alone, Where stone on stone shut out the day, In his lone dungeon shone. Dead to the world, alive to me, Though months and years have pass'd; In a lone hour, his sigh to me Comes like the hum of some wild bee, As when I saw him last. And one with a bright lip, and cheek, And eye, is dead to me. How pale the bloom of his smooth cheek! His lip was cold-it would not speak: THE INDIAN SUMMER. WHAT is there saddening in the autumn leaves? Have they that "green and yellow melancholy" That the sweet poet spake of?-Had he seen Our variegated woods when first the frost Turns into beauty all October's charmsWhen the dread fever quits us-when the storms Of the wild equinox, with all its wet, Has left the land, as the first deluge left it, With a bright bow of many colours hung Upon the forest tops-he had not sighed. The moon stays longest for the hunter now: The trees cast down their fruitage, and the blithe And busy squirrel hoards his winter store: While man enjoys the breeze that sweeps along The bright, blue sky above him, and that bends Magnificently all the forest's pride, Or whispers through the evergreens, and asks, "What is there saddening in the autumn leaves?" STANZAS. THE dead leaves strew the forest's walk, I learn'd a clear and wild-toned note, There perch'd, and raised her song for me. Too mild the breath of southern sky, Finds leaves too green and buds too fair; No mountain top, with sleety hair, Bends o'er the snows its reverend head. Go there, with all the birds, and seek A happier clime, with livelier flight, Kiss, with the sun, the evening's check, And leave me lonely with the night. I'll gaze upon the cold north light, And mark where all its glories shone,See that it all is fair and bright, Feel-that it all is cold and gone. S. G. GOODRICH. BORN in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in 1795. He is best known as the author of the large number of juvenile works, written under the signature of Peter Parley. His poems were published in 1836. LAKE SUPERIOR. "FATHER OF LAKES!" thy waters bend Boundless and deep, the forests weave Pale Silence, mid thy hollow caves, Sends the hoarse wolf-notes of thy woods. Nor can the light canoes, that glide Across thy breast, like things of air, Chase from thy lone and level tide Yet round this waste of wood and wave, The thunder riven oak that flings The gnarled and braided boughs, that show The very echoes round this shore, Have caught a strange and gibbering tone; Wave of the wilderness, adieu! And fill these awful solitudes! Thou hast no tale to tell of man God is thy theme. Ye sounding cavesWhisper of Him, whose mighty plan Deems as a bubble all your waves! |