"INNOCENT CHILD AND SNOW-WHITE FLOWER." INNOCENT child and snow-white flower! White as those leaves, just blown apart, Guilty passion and cankering care Never have left their traces there. Artless one! though thou gazest now O'er the white blossom with earnest brow, Soon will it tire thy childish eye; Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by. Throw it aside in thy weary hour, Throw to the ground the fair white flower; Yet, as thy tender years depart, Keep that white and innocent heart. TO THE RIVER ARVE. SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR THE FOOT OF MONT BLANO, NOT from the sands or cloven rocks, Born where the thunder and the blast, With heaven's own beam and image shine. Yet stay; for here are flowers and trees; Warm rays on cottage roofs are here, And laugh of girls, and hum of bees Here linger till thy waves are clear. Thou heedest not-thou hastest on; From steep to steep thy torrent falls, Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone, It rests beneath Geneva's walls. Rush on-but were there one with me That loved me, I would light my hearth Here, where with God's own majesty Are touched the features of the earth. By these old peaks, white, high, and vast, Still rising as the tempests beat, Here would I dwell, and sleep, at last, Among the blossoms at their feet. TO COLE, THE PAINTER, DEPARTING FOR EUROPE. A SONNET. THINE eyes shall see the light of distant skies: Such as on thine own glorious canvas lies; Rocks rich with summer garlands-solemn streams— Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams— Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves. Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest-fair, But different-everywhere the trace of men, Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air, Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight, TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN. THOU blossom bright with autumn dew, Thou comest not when violets lean Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. Thou wait st late and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near his end. Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye I would that thus, when I shall see |