The wan, wild morning-glory
Dies by the road alone;
By the hill-path to the seaside
Wave myriad azure bells;
And over the grassy ramparts lean
The milky immortelles.
Hosts of gold-hearted daisies
Nod by the wayside bars;
The tangled thicket of green is set
With the aster's purple stars;
Beside the brook the gentian
Closes its fringéd eyes,
And waits the later glory
Of October's yellow skies.
Within the sea-washed meadow
The wild grape climbs the wall,
And from the o'er-ripe chestnuts
The brown burs softly fall.
I see the tall reeds shiver
Beside the salt sea marge;
I see the sea-bird glimmer,
Far out on airy barge.
I hear in the groves of Hingham
The friendly caw of the crow,
Till I sit again in Wachusett's woods,
In August's sumptuous glow.
The tiny boom of the beetle
Strikes the shining rocks below;
The gauzy oar of the dragon-fly
Is beating to and fro.
As the lovely ghost of the thistle
Goes sailing softly by;
Glad in its second summer
Hums the awakened fly;
The cumulate cry of the cricket
Pierces the amber noon;
In from the vast sea-spaces comes
The clear call of the loon;
Over and through it all I hear
Ocean's pervasive rune.
Against the warm sea-beaches
Rush the wavelets' eager lips;
Away o'er the sapphire reaches
Move on the stately ships.
Peace floats on all their pennons,
Sailing silently the main,
As if never human anguish,
As if never human pain,
Sought the healing draught of Lethe,
Beyond the gleaming plain.
Fair is the earth behind me,
Vast is the sea before,
Away through the misty dimness
Glimmers a further shore.
It is no realm enchanted,
It cannot be more fair
Than this nook of Nature's Kingdom,
With its spell of space and air.
Nantucket, Mass.
A SONG OF NANTUCKET.
IN the old whaling days, when a ship was homeward bound with a fair wind, it was a common saying among the men that the girls of Nantucket were pulling the rope to draw them home.
THE land breaks out, like a gleam of hope,
But its daughters no longer are pulling the rope
That's bringing her sailors home.
Her whalers lie rotting, and lone and drear,
Far in some foreign port:
They have laid there rusting for many a year,
Of water and wind the sport.
The decks are piled with the winter snows,
The men are scattered, -ah me!
No masthead echoes to " There she blows!"
Far out in the Okhotsk Sea.
But her hearts are as tried, and her men as true,
As, when trimming the distant sail,
They passed their lives on the waters blue,
In hunting the Bow Head Whale.
Her daughters are pure and sweet and fair,
And cheerful and kind and good,
And sparkling water and sparkling air
Shine out in their changeful mood.
HE sun is sinking from the sky
In calm and cloudless majesty;
And cooler hours, with gentle sway,
Succeed the fiery heat of day.
Forest and shore and rippling tide
Confess the evening's influence wide,
Seen lovelier in that fading light
That heralds the approaching night;
That magic coloring Nature throws,
To deck her beautiful repose,
When floating on the breeze of even,
Long clouds of purple streak the heaven,
With brighter tints of glory blending,
And darker hues of night descending,
While hastening to its shady rest
Each weary songster seeks its nest,
Chanting a last, a farewell lay,
As gloomier falls the parting day.
Broad Narragansett's bosom blue
Has shone with every varying hue;
The mystic alchemy of even
Its rich delusions all has given.
The silvery sheet unbounded spread,
First melting from the waters fled;
Next the wide path of beaten gold
Flashing with fiery sparkles rolled; -
As all its gorgeous glories died,
An amber tinge blushed o'er the tide;
Faint and more faint, as more remote,
The lessening ripples peaceful float;
And now, one ruby line alone
Trembles, is paler, and is gone,
And from the blue wave fades away
The last life-tint of dying day!
In darkness veiled, was seen no more
Canonicut's extended shore;
Each little isle, with bosom green,
Descending mists impervious screen;
One gloomy shade o'er all the woods
Of forest-fringed Aquetnet broods;
Where solemn oak was seen before
Beside the rival sycamore,
Or pine and cedar lined the height,
All in one livery brown were dight.
But lo! with orb serene on high,
The round moon climbs the eastern sky;
The stars all quench their feebler rays
Before her universal blaze.
Round moon! how sweetly dost thou smile
Above that green reposing isle,
Soft cradled in the illumined bay,
Where from its bank the shadows seem
Melting in filmy light away.
Far does thy tempered lustre stream,
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