The stork alone,

As an anchorite,

Tells to himself his dreary rite.

No cloud is strewn

O'er the frozen sky;
To a spirit tune

Their lullaby

The oaks around chant dismally.

Not a living man

Moves on the moor;

No soul that can

Opes now the door,

But silent fear haunts the wild shore.

Bad spirits sail

On the cloudy rack,

The dark turns pale

In their blasting track,

Where they touch the frost is sooty black.

The marsh grass thin

Shivers in fear,

Thistle-downs spin

From the thistle sere,

And shadows race o'er the levels drear.

Like silver shines

Each sea-shell worn.

The ridged sand-lines

By surges torn

Seem faery ramparts left and lorn.

A star down drops

From the sea on high,

Past the forest tops

To the lower sky,

Like a tear from a suffering angel's eye.

Icicles hoar

Split and descend;

On the freezing shore.
The frost kings rend

Their sheeny jewelry evermore.

Thomas Gold Appleton.

A

Birch Stream, Me.

BIRCH STREAM.

T noon, within the dusty town,

Where the wild river rushes down,
And thunders hoarsely all day long,
I think of thee, my hermit stream,
Low singing in thy summer dream,
Thine idle, sweet, old, tranquil song.

Northward, Katahdin's chasmed pile
Looms through thy low, long, leafy aisle;
Eastward, Olamon's summit shines;
And I upon thy grassy shore,
The dreamful, happy child of yore,
Worship before mine olden shrines.

Again the sultry noontide hush
Is sweetly broken by the thrush,
Whose clear bell rings and dies away
Beside thy banks, in coverts deep,
Where nodding buds of orchis sleep
In dusk, and dream not it is day.

Again the wild cow-lily floats
Her golden-freighted, tented boats,

In thy cool coves of softened gloom, O'ershadowed by the whispering reed, And purple plumes of pickerel-weed, And meadow-sweet in tangled bloom.

The startled minnows dart in flocks
Beneath thy glimmering amber rocks,
If but a zephyr stirs the brake ;
The silent swallow swoops, flash
Of light, and leaves, with dainty plash,
A ring of ripples in her wake.

Without, the land is hot and dim;
The level fields in languor swim,
Their stubble-grasses brown as dust;
And all along the upland lanes,
Where shadeless noon oppressive reigns,
Dead roses wear their crowns of rust.

Within, is neither blight nor death,
The fierce sun wooes with ardent breath,
But cannot win thy sylvan heart.
Only the child who loves thee long,

With faithful worship pure and strong,
Can know how dear and sweet thou art.

So loved I thee in days gone by,
So love I yet, though leagues may lie
Between us, and the years divide ;
A breath of coolness, dawn, and dew,-
A joy forever fresh and true,

Thy memory doth with me abide.

Anna Boynton Averill.

Block Island (Manisees), R. I.

THE ISLAND.

HE island lies nine leagues away.

THE

Along its solitary shore,

Of craggy rock and sandy bay,

No sound but ocean's roar,

Save where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home, Her shrill cry coming through the sparkling foam.

But when the light winds lie at rest,
And on the glassy, heaving sea,

The black duck, with her glossy breast,
Sits swinging silently,

How beautiful! no ripples break the reach,

And silvery waves go noiseless up the beach.

And inland rests the green, warm dell;

The brook comes tinkling down its side;
From out the trees the sabbath bell
Rings cheerful, far and wide,

Mingling its sounds with bleatings of the flocks,
That feed about the vale amongst the rocks.

Nor holy bell nor pastoral bleat

In former days within the vale;

Flapped in the bay the pirate's sheet;
Curses were on the gale;

Rich goods lay on the sand, and murdered men;
Pirate and wrecker kept their revels then.

Richard Henry Dana.

L

THE PALATINE.

EAGUES north, as fly the gull and auk,
Point Judith watches with eye of hawk;
Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk!

Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken,
With never a tree for Spring to waken,
For tryst of lovers or farewells taken,

Circled by waters that never freeze,
Beaten by billow and swept by breeze,
Lieth the island of Manisees,

Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold
The coast lights up on its turret old,
Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould.