LIFE.

OH Life! I breathe thee in the breeze,

I feel thee bounding in my veins,

I see thee in these stretching trees,

These flowers, this still rock's mossy stains.

This stream of odours flowing by

From clover-field and clumps of pine,

This music, thrilling all the sky,

From all the morning birds, are thine.

Thou fill'st with joy this little one,

That leaps and shouts beside me here,

Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run

Through the dark woods like frighted deer.

Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes
Insect and bird, and flower and tree,
From the low trodden dust, and makes

Their daily gladness, pass from me—

Pass, pulse by pulse, till o'er the ground

These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain,

And this fair world of sight and sound

Seem fading into night again?

The things, oh LIFE! thou quickenest, all
Strive upwards toward the broad bright sky,
Upward and outward, and they fall

Back to earth's bosom when they die.

All that have borne the touch of death,
All that shall live, lie mingled there,
Beneath that veil of bloom and breath,
That living zone 'twixt earth and air.

There lies my chamber dark and still,
The atoms trampled by my feet,
There wait, to take the place I fill

In the sweet air and sunshine sweet.

Well, I have had my turn, have been
Raised from the darkness of the clod,

And for a glorious moment seen

The brightness of the skirts of God;

And knew the light within my breast,
Though wavering oftentimes and dim,

The power, the will, that never rest,
And cannot die, were all from him.

Dear child! I know that thou wilt grieve To see me taken from thy love,

Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve, and scatter flowers above.

And weep,

Thy little heart will soon be healed,
And being shall be bliss, till thou

To younger forms of life must yield
The place thou fill'st with beauty now.

When we descend to dust again,

Where will the final dwelling be
Of Thought and all its memories then,
My love for thee, and thine for me?

66

EARTH'S CHILDREN CLEAVE TO EARTH."

EARTH'S children cleave to Earth-her frail

Decaying children dread decay.

Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale,
And lessens in the morning ray:
Look, how, by mountain rivulet,
It lingers as it upward creeps,
And clings to fern and copsewood set
Along the green and dewy steeps:
Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings
To precipices fringed with grass,
Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings,
And bowers of fragrant sassafras.

Yet all in vain-it passes still

From hold to hold, it cannot stay,

And in the very beams that fill

The world with glory, wastes away,

Till, parting from the mountain's brow,
It vanishes from human eye,
And that which sprung of earth is now

A portion of the glorious sky.

THE HUNTER'S VISION.

UPON a rock that, high and sheer,

Rose from the mountain's breast,

A weary hunter of the deer

Had sat him down to rest,

And bared to the soft summer air
His hot red brow and sweaty hair.

All dim in haze the mountains lay, With dimmer vales between; And rivers glimmered on their way, By forests faintly seen;

While ever rose a murmuring sound, From brooks below and bees around.

He listened, till he seemed to hear
A strain, so soft and low,
That whether in the mind or ear

The listener scarce might know. With such a tone, so sweet and mild, The watching mother lulls her child.