Won me to learn of her to bear
Sorrows, and pains, and all that wear
Our hearts-me-chained by sickness-taught,
"Prisoner to none the free of thought:"
A truth sublime, but slowly learned
By one who for earth's freshness yearned.
From open air and ample sky
Pent up, thus doomed for days to lie,
Was trial hard to me, a stranger
To long confinement,-me, a ranger
Through bare or leafy wood, o'er hil!,
O'er field, by shore, or by the rill
When taking hues from bending flowers,
Or stealing dark by crystal bowers
Built up by Winter on its bank,
Of branches shot from vapor dank:
And hard to sit, and see boys slide
O'er crusted plain stretched smooth and wide;
Or down the steep and shining drift,
With shout and call, shoot light and swift.
But I could stand at set of sun,
And see the snow he shone upon
Change to a path of glory,-see
The rainbow hues 'twixt him and me-
Orange, and green, and golden light:
I thought on that celestial sight,
That city seen by aged John,
City with walls of precious stone
Brighter and brighter grew the road
"Twixt me and the descending God-
Methought I could the path have trod.
Silent and slow the sun has gone,
And left me on the earth alone.
And gone's his path, like the steps of light
By angels trod at dead of night,
While Jacob slept. Around my room
The shadows deepen; while the gloom
Visits my soul, in converse high
Lifted but now, when heaven was nigh.
Why could not I, in spirit, raise
Pillar of Bethel to his praise
Who blessed me, and free worship pay,
Like Isaac's son upon his way?
Are holy thoughts but happy dreams
Chased by despair, as starry gleams
By clouds?-Nay, turn, and read thy mind;
Nay, look on Nature's face; thou'lt find
Kind, gentle graces, thoughts to raise
The tired spirit-hope and praise.
O, kind to me, in darkest hour
She led me forth with gentle power,
From lonely thought, from sad unrest,
To peace of mind, and to her breast
The son, who always loved her, pressed;
Called up the moon to cheer me; laid
Its silver light on bank and glade,
And bade it throw mysterious beams
O'er ice-clad hill-which steely gleams
Sent back-a knight who took his rest,
His burnished shield above his breast.
The fence of long, rough rails, that went
O'er trackless snows, a beauty lent:
Glittered each cold and icy bar
Beneath the moon like shafts of war.
And there a lovely tracery
Of branch and twig that naked tree
Of shadows soft and dim has wove,
And spread so gently, that above
The pure white snow it seems to float
Lighter than that celestial boat,
The silver-beaked moon, on air,—
Lighter than feathery gossamer;
As if its dark'ning touch, through fear,
It held from thing so saintly clear.
Thus Nature threw her beauties round me;
Thus, from the gloom in which she found me,
She won me by her simple graces,
She wooed me with her happy faces.
The day is closed; and I refrain
From further talk. But, if of pain
It has beguiled a weary hour;
If to my desert mind, like shower
That wets the parching earth, has come
A cheerful thought, and made its home
With me awhile; I'd have you share,
Who feel for me in ills I bear.
Lines occasioned by hearing a little Boy mock the Old South Clock, as it rung the Hour of Twelve.-MRS. CHILD.
Ay, ring thy shout to the merry hours:
Well may ye part in glee;
From their sunny wings they scatter flowers,
And, laughing, look on thee.
Thy thrilling voice has started tears:
It brings to mind the day
When I chased butterflies and years,-
And both flew fast away.
Then my glad thoughts were few and free;
They came but to depart,
And did not ask where heaven could be-
'Twas in my little heart.
I since have sought the meteor crown,
Which fame bestows on men:
How gladly would I throw it down,
To be so gay again!
But youthful joy has gone away;
In vain 'tis now pursued;
Such rainbow glories only stay
Around the simply good.
I know too much, to be as blessed
As when I was like thee;
My spirit, reasoned into rest,
Has lost its buoyancy.
Yet still I love the winged hours:
We often part in glee
And sometimes, too, are fragrant flowers
Their farewell gifts to me.
Hymn to the North Star.-BRYANT.
THE sad and solemn Night
Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light
Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires;
All through her silent watches, gliding slow,
Her constellations come, and round the heavens, and
Day, too, hath many a star
To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they :
Through the blue fields afar,
Unseen, they follow in his flaming way.
Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,
Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.
And thou dost see them rise,
Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.
Alone, in thy cold skies,
Thou keep'st thy old, unmoving station yet,
Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train,
Nor dip'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.
There, at Morn's rosy birth,
Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air;
And Eve, that round the earth
Chases the Day, beholds thee watching there;
There Noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls
The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.
Alike, beneath thine eye,
The deeds of darkness and of light are done;
High towards the star-lit sky
Towns blaze-the smoke of battle blots the sun
The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud
And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and clou
On thy unaltering blaze
The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,
And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;
And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.
And, therefore, bards of old,
Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,
Did in thy beams behold
A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright, eternal beacon, by whose ray
The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.
Connecticut.-F. G. HALLECK
From an unpublished Poem.
AND still her gray rocks tower above the sea
That murmurs at their feet, a conquered wave;
'Tis a rough land of earth, and stone, and tree,
Where breathes no castled lord or cabined slave;
Where thoughts, and tongues, and hands, are bold and free,
And friends will find a welcome, foes a grave;
And where none kneel, save when to Heaven they pray,
Nor even then, unless in their own way.
Theirs is a pure republic, wild, yet strong,
A" fierce democracie," where all are true
To what themselves have voted-right or wrong-
And to their laws, denominated blue;
(If red, they might to Draco's code belong;)
A vestal state, which power could not subdue,
Nor promise win-like her own eagle's nest,
Sacred-the San Marino of the west.
A justice of the peace, for the time being,
They bow to, but may turn him out next year:
They reverence their priest, but, disagreeing
In price or creed, dismiss him without fear;
They have a natural talent for foreseeing
And knowing all things ;—and should Park appear
From his long tour in Africa, to show
The Niger's source, they'd meet him with-We know.
They love their land, because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his majesty ;
A stubborn race, fearing and flattering none.
Such are they nurtured, suchy live and die :
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