TO A FLYING SWAN. She silvers the landscape, and crowds the stream Then wheeling her flight through the gladden'd air, 47 TO A FLYING SWAN AT MIDNIGHT, IN THE VALE OF THE HURON.* BY LEWIS L. NOBLE. Он, what a still, bright night! It is the sleep See, while the groves shadow the shining lake, I hear the dew-drop twang upon the pool. Hark, hark, what music! from the rampart hills, While all is hush and silent but the heart, * The river Huron rises in the interior of Michigan, and flows into Lake Erie. Its clear waters gave it the name of its more mighty kinsman, Lake Huron. 48 TO A FLYING SWAN. E'en thou hast human sympathies for heaven, When to a rarer height thou wheelest up, And hither, haply, thou wilt shape thy neck; And settle, like a silvery cloud, to rest, If thy wild image, flaring in the abyss, Startle thee not aloft. Lone aeronaut, That catchest, on thine airy looking-out, Glassing the hollow darkness, many a lake, Lay, for the night, thy lily bosom here. There is the deep unsounded for thy bath, The shallow for the shaking of thy quills, The dreamy cove, or cedar-wooded isle, With galaxy of water-lilies, where, Like mild Diana 'mong the quiet stars, 'Neath over-bending branches thou wilt move, Till early warblers shake the crystal shower, And whistling pinions warn thee to thy voyage. But where art thou !-lost,-spirited away To bowers of light by thy own dying whispers? Or does some billow of the ocean-air, TO A FLYING SWAN. In its still roll around from zone to zone, The Swan - how strong her great wing times the silence ! She passes over high and quietly. Now peals the living clarion anew; Thou bright, swift river of the bark canoe, Ah! thou wilt not stoop: Old Huron, haply, glistens on thy sky. The chasing moon-beams, glancing on thy plumes, Into the pale Aurora fading. There! Sinks gently back upon her flowery couch The startled Night;-tinkle the damp wood-vaults 49 THE LITTLE BEACH-BIRD. BY RICHARD H. DANA. THOU little bird, thou dweller by the sea, O'er the waves dost thou fly? Oh, rather, bird, with me Through the fair land rejoice! Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale, Thy cry is weak and scared, As if thy mates had shared The doom of us: Thy wail- Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge, Restless and sad, as if, in strange accord With the motion and the roar Of waves that drive to shore, One spirit did ye urge➡ The Mystery-the Word. Of thousands, thou both sepulchre and pall, A tale of mourning tells- His sinless glory fled. Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring THE FAMILY MEETING. Thy spirit never more. Come, quit with me the shore, For gladness and the light, Where birds of summer sing. THE FAMILY MEETING. BY CHARLES SPRAGUE. WE are all here! Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, who hold each other dear. Our old familiar hearth we 're found: We're not all here! Some are away—the dead ones dear, We're not all here, 51 |