O, say not they must soon be old,—

Their limbs prove faint, their breasts feel cold! Yet envy I that sylvan pair

More than my words express,The singular beauty of their lot,

And seeming happiness.

They have not been reduced to share
The painful pleasures of despair;
Their sun declines not in the sky,
Nor are their wishes cast,
Like shadows of the afternoon,

Repining towards the past:
With nought to dread or to repent,
The present yields them full content.
In solitude there is no crime;

Their actions all are free,

And passion lends their way of life
The only dignity;

And how can they have any cares?-
Whose interest contends with theirs?

IV.

The world, for all they know of it,
Is theirs-for them the stars are lit;
For them the earth beneath is green,

The heavens above are bright;

For them the moon doth wax and wane,
And decorate the night;

For them the branches of those trees
Wave music in the vernal breeze;
For them, upon that dancing spray,
The free bird sits and sings,
And glittering insects flit about

Upon delighted wings;

For them that brook, the brakes among,
Murmurs its small and drowsy song;
For them the many-colour'd clouds

Their shapes diversify,

And change at once, like smiles and frowns,

The expression of the sky.

For them, and by them, all is gay,
And fresh and beautiful as they :
The images their minds receive,

Their minds assimilate

To outward forms, imparting thus
The glory of their state.

V.

Could aught be painted otherwise

Than fair, seen through her star-bright eyes? He, too, because she fills his sight,

Each object falsely sees;

The pleasure that he has in her

Makes all things seem to please.
And this is love;-and it is life
They lead, that Indian and his wife.

SONG.

WE break the glass, whose sacred wine, To some beloved health we drain. Lest future pledges, less divine,

Should e'er the hallow'd toy profane;
And thus I broke a heart that pour'd
Its tide of feelings out for thee,
In draughts, by after-times deplored,
Yet dear to memory.

But still the old, impassion'd ways
And habits of my mind remain,
And still unhappy light displays

Thine image chamber'd in my brain, And still it looks as when the hours Went by like flights of singing birds, Or that soft chain of spoken flowers, And airy gems-thy words.

A HEALTH.

I FILL this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon;

To whom the better elements

And kindly stars have given A form so fair, that, like the air,

"Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,

Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burden'd bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears

The image of themselves by turns,-.
The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,

And of her voice in echoing hearts

A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill'd this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sea

The seeming paragon

Her health and would on earth there stood, Some more of such a frame,

That life might be all poetry,

And weariness a name.

256

THE VOYAGER'S SONG.*

SOUND trumpets, ho!-weigh anchor-loosen sail—
The seaward flying banners chide delay;
As if 't were heaven that breathes this kindly gale,
Our life-like bark beneath it speeds away.

Flit we, a gliding dream, with troublous motion,
Across the slumbers of uneasy ocean;
And furl our canvass by a happier land,
So fraught with emanations from the sun,
That potable gold streams through the sand
Where element should run.

Onward, my friends, to that bright, florid isle,
The jewel of a smoothe and silver sea,
With springs on which perennial summers smile
A power of causing immortality.

For Bimini;-in its enchanted ground,

The hallow'd fountains we would seek, are found;
Bathed in the waters of those mystic wells,
The frame starts up in renovated truth,
And, freed from Time's deforming spells,
Resumes its proper youth.

Hail, bitter birth!-once more my feelings all
A graven image to themselves shall make,
And, placed upon my heart for pedestal,
That glorious idol long will keep awake
Their natural religion, nor be cast
To earth by Age, the great Iconoclast.

As from Gadara's founts they once could come,
Charm-call'd, from these Love's genii shall arise,
And build their perdurable home,

MIRANDA, in thine eyes.

The envious years, which steal our pleasures, thou
Mayst call at once, like magic memory, back,
And, as they pass o'er thine unwithering brow,
Efface their footsteps ere they form a track.
Thy bloom with wilful weeping never stain,
Perpetual life must not belong to pain.

For me, this world has not yet been a place
Conscious of joys so great as will be mine,
Because the light has kiss'd no face
Forever fair as thine.

A PICTURE-SONG.

How may this little tablet feign
The features of a face,
Which o'er informs with loveliness,
Its proper share of space;
Or human hands on ivory,
Enable us to see

The charms, that all must wonder at,
Thou work of gods in thee!

But yet, methinks, that sunny smile
Familiar stories tells,

And I should know those placid eyes,

Two shaded crystal wells;

Nor can my soul, the limner's art

Attesting with a sigh,

Forget the blood that deck'd thy check,

As rosy clouds the sky.

They could not semble what thou art,
More excellent than fair,

As soft as sleep or pity is,

And pure as mountain-air;
But here are common, earthly hues,

To such an aspect wrought,
That none, save thine, can seem so like
The beautiful of thought.

The song I sing, thy likeness like,

Is painful mimicry

Of something better, which is now

A memory to me,

Who have upon life's frozen sea
Arrived the icy spot,

Where man's magnetic feelings show
Their guiding task forgot.

The sportive hopes, that used to chase
Their shifting shadows on,
Like children playing in the sun,
Are gone-forever gone;

And on a careless, sullen peace,

My double-fronted mind,

Like JANUS when his gates were shut,
Looks forward and behind.

APOLLO placed his harp, of old,

A while upon a stone,
Which has resounded since, when struck,

A breaking harp-string's tone;
And thus my heart, though wholly now,
From early softness free,

If touch'd, will yield the music yet,
It first received of thee.

THE OLD TREE.

AND is it gone, that venerable tree,
The old spectator of my infancy?—
It used to stand upon this very spot,
And now almost its absence is forgot.

I knew its mighty strength had known decay,
Its heart, like every old one, shrunk away,

But dreamt not that its frame would fall, ere mine
At all partook my weary soul's decline.

The great reformist, that each day removes
The old, yet never on the old improves,
The dotard, Time, that like a child destroys,

As sport or spleen may prompt, his ancient toys,
And shapes their ruins into something new-
Has planted other playthings where it grew.
The wind pursues an unobstructed course,
Which once among its leaves delay'd perforce;
The harmless Hamadryad, that of yore
Inhabited its bole, subsists no more;

Its roots have long since felt the ruthless plough—
There is no vestige of its glories now!
But in my mind, which doth not soon forget,
That venerable tree is growing yet;
Nourish'd, like those wild plants that feed on air,
By thoughts of years unconversant with care,
And visions such as pass ere man grows wholly
A fiendish thing, or mischief adds to folly.
I still behold it with my fancy's eye,
A vernant record of the days gone by:
I see not the sweet form and face more plain,
Whose memory was a weight upon my brain.
-Dear to my song, and dearer to my soul,
Who knew but half my heart, yet had the whole
Sun of my life, whose presence and whose flight
Its brief day caused, and never-ending night!
Must this delightless verse, which is indeed
The mere wild product of a worthless weed,
(But which, like sunflowers, turns a loving face
Towards the lost light, and scorns its birth and place,)
End with such cold allusion unto you,
To whom, in youth, my very dreams were true?
It must; I have no more of that soft kind,
My age is not the
same, nor is
my mind.

ΤΟ

'Twas eve; the broadly shining sun
Its long, celestial course had run;
The twilight heaven, so soft and blue,
Met earth in tender interview,
E'en as the angel met of yore
His gifted mortal paramour,
Woman, a child of morning then,—
A spirit still,-compared with men.
Like happy islands of the sky,
The gleaming clouds reposed on high,
Each fix'd sublime, deprived of motion,
A Delos to the airy ocean.
Upon the stirless shore no breeze
Shook the green drapery of the trees,
Or, rebel to tranquillity,

Awoke a ripple on the sea.

Nor, in a more tumultuous sound,

Were the work's audible breathings drown'd;

The low, strange hum of herbage growing,
The voice of hidden waters flowing,
Made songs of nature, which the ear
Could scarcely be pronounced to hear;
But noise had furl'd its subtle wings,
And moved not through material things,
All which lay calm as they had been
Parts of the painter's mimic scene.
'Twas eve; my thoughts belong to thee,
Thou shape of separate memory!
When, like a stream to lands of flame,
Unto my mind a vision came.
Methought, from human haunts and strife
Remote, we lived a loving life;
Our wedded spirits seem'd to blend
In harmony too sweet to end,
Such concord as the echoes cherish
Fondly, but leave at length to perish.
Wet rain-stars are thy lucid eyes,
The Hyades of earthly skies,
But then upon my heart they shone,
As shines on snow the fervid sun.
And fast went by those moments bright,
Like meteors shooting through the night;
But faster fleeted the wild dream

That clothed them with their transient beam.
Yet love can years to days condense,
And long appear'd that life intense;
It was, to give a better measure
Than time, a century of pleasure.

ELYSIUM.

SHE dwelleth in Elysium; there,
Like Echo, floating in the air;
Feeding on light as feed the flowers,
She fleets away uncounted hours,
Where halcyon Peace, among the bless'd,
Sits brooding o'er her tranquil nest.

She needs no impulse; one she is,
Whom thought supplies with ample bliss:
The fancies fashion'd in her mind
By Heaven, are after its own kind;
Like sky-reflections in a lake,
Whose calm no winds occur to break.

Her memory is purified,

And she seems never to have sigh'd:
She hath forgot the way to weep;
Her being is a joyous sleep;
The mere imagining of pain,
Hath pass'd, and cannot come again.

Except of pleasure most intense
And constant, she hath lost all sense;
Her life is day without a night,
An endless, innocent delight;
No chance her happiness now mars
Howe'er Fate twine her wreaths of stars.

And palpable and pure, the part
Which pleasure playeth with her heart;
For every joy that seeks the maid,
Foregoes its common painful shade
Like shapes that issue from the grove
Arcadian, dedicate to Jove.

TO H

THE firstlings of my simple song
Were offer'd to thy name;
Again the altar, idle long,

In worship rears its flame.
My sacrifice of sullen years,
My many hecatombs of tears,

No happier hours recall

Yet may thy wandering thoughts restore To one who ever loved thee more

Than fickle Fortune's all.

And now, farewell!-and although here
Men hate the source of pain,
I hold thee and thy follies dear,

Nor of thy faults complain.
For my misused and blighted powers,
My waste of miserable hours,

I will accuse thee not:

The fool who could from self depart,
And take for fate one human heart,
Deserved no better lot.

I reck of mine the less, because
In wiser moods I feel

A doubtful question of its cause
And nature, on me steal-

An ancient notion, that time flings

Our pains and pleasures from his wings

With much equality

And that, in reason, happiness
Both of accession and decrease
Incapable must be.

UNWISE, or most unfortunate,
My way was; let the sign,
The proof of it, be simply this-

Thou art not, wert not mine!
For 'tis the wont of chance to bless
Pursuit, if patient, with success;
And envy may repine,

That, commonly, some triumph must
Be won by every lasting lust.

How I have lived imports not now;
I am about to die,

Else I might chide thee that my life
Has been a stifled sigh;

Yes, life; for times beyond the line
Our parting traced, appear not mine,
Or of a world gone by;
And often almost would evince,
My soul had transmigrated since.
Pass wasted flowers; alike the grave,
To which I fast go down,
Will give the joy of nothingness
To me, and to renown:
Unto its careless tenants, fame
Is idle as that gilded name,

Of vanity the crown,
Helvetian hands inscribe upon
The forehead of a skeleton.
List the last cadence of a lay,
That, closing as begun,
Is govern'd by a note of pain,
O, lost and worshipp'd one!

None shall attend a sadder strain,
Till MEMNON's statue stand again
To mourn the setting sun,-
Nor sweeter, if my numbers seem
To share the nature of their theme.

SERENADE.

Look out upon the stars, my love,

And shame them with thine eyes, On which, than on the lights above, There hang more destinies. Night's beauty is the harmony

Of blending shades and light;
Then, lady, up,-look out, and be
A sister to the night!-

Sleep not!-thine image wakes for aye
Within my watching breast:

Sleep not!-from her soft sleep should fly,
Who robs all hearts of rest.

Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break,
And make this darkness gay

With looks, whose brightness well might make
Of darker nights a day.

THE WIDOW'S SONG.

I BURN no incense, hang no wreath
O'er this, thine early tomb:

Such cannot cheer the place of death,

But only mock its gloom.

Here odorous smoke and breathing flower

No grateful influence shed;

They lose their perfume and their power, When offer'd to the dead.

And if, as is the Afghaun's creed,

The spirit may return,

A disembodied sense, to feed

On fragrance, near its urn

It is enough, that she, whom thou
Didst love in living years,

Sits desolate beside it now,
And falls these heavy tears.

SONG.

I NEED not name thy thrilling name,
Though now I drink to thee, my dear,
Since all sounds shape that magic word,
That fall upon my ear,-MARY;
And silence, with a wakeful voice,
Speaks it in accents loudly free,
As darkness hath a light that shows
Thy gentle face to me,-MARY.

I pledge thee in the grape's pure soul,
With scarce one hope, and many fears,
Mix'd, were I of a melting mood,

With many bitter tears,--MARY— I pledge thee, and the empty cup Emblems this hollow life of mine, To which, a gone enchantment, thou No more wilt be the wide,-MARY.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, one of the most eminent authors of this country, was born in Boston about the year 1803. After obtaining his bachelor's degree at Harvard College, he studied theology, and was settled over the Second Unitarian Church in his native city, but subsequently abandoned the pulpit on account of having adopted the Quaker opinion in regard to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; and has since lived in retirement, devoting his time to the study of literature and philosophy.

66

Mr. EMERSON has been a contributor to the North American Review" and the "Christian Examiner," and was two years editor of "The Dial," a literary and philosophical magazine printed in Boston. He has published a work entitled "Nature;" a collection of "Orations," and two volumes of " Essays," all of which have peculiar and extraordinary merits. The first collection of his Poems was published in Boston in the beginning of 1847. Many of them bear the unquestionable marks of genius.

EACH IN ALL.

LITTLE thinks in the field yon red-cloak'd clown
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
And the heifer that lows in the upland farm
Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm;

The sexton tolling his bell at noon

Dreams not that great NAPOLEON

Stops his horse, and lists with delight,

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbour's creed hath lent,
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even,——
He sings the song, but it pleases not now,
For I did not bring home the river and sky,
He sang to my ear, these sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore-
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetch'd my sea-born treasures home,
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.
Nor rose, nor stream, nor bird is fair,
Their concord is beyond compare.

The lover watch'd his graceful maid

As mid the virgin train she stray'd,
Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by that snow-white quire.

At last, she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage,-

The gay enchantment was undone,—

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

"GOOD-BYE, PROUD WORLD!"
GOOD-BYE, proud world! I'm going home,
Thou art not my friend; I am not thine:
Too long through weary crowds I roam :--
A river ark on the ocean brine,
Too long I am toss'd like the driven foam
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace:
To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
To supple office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,-
Good-bye, proud world, Im going home.

I go to seek my own hearth-stone
Bosom'd in yon green hills alone;
A secret lodge in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies plann'd,
Where arches green, the livelong day
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And evil men have never trod

A spot that is sacred to thought and God.