SONG. Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow Reflects the day-dawn cold and clear, The hunter of the west must go In depth of woods to seek the deer. His rifle on his shoulder placed, His stores of death arranged with skill, His moccasins and snow-shoes laced,Why lingers he beside the hill? Far, in the dim and doubtful light, And oft he turns his truant eye, And pauses oft, and lingers near; But when he marks the reddening sky, He bounds away to hunt the deer. TO A WATERFOWL. WHITHER, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, The desert and illimitable air, Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, Will lead my steps aright. GREEN RIVER. WHEN breezes are soft and skies are fair, And hie me away to the woodland scene, Yet pure its waters-its shallows are bright With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light, And clear the depths where its eddies play, And dimples deepen and whirl away, And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill, The quivering glimmer of sun and rill With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown, Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone. Oh, loveliest there the spring days come, With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum; The flowers of summer are fairest there, And freshest the breath of the summer air; In silence and sunshine glides away. Yet fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide, And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill, |