BY WASHINGTON ALLSTON.
Он, pour upon my soul again
That sad, unearthly strain,
That seems from other worlds to plain;
Thus falling, falling from afar,
As if some melancholy star
Had mingled with her light her sighs
And dropp'd them from the skies.
No-never came from aught below
This melody of woe,
That makes my heart to overflow
As from a thousand gushing springs
Unknown before; that with it brings
This nameless light—if light it be→
That veils the world I see,
For all I see around me wears
The hue of other spheres ;
And something blent with smiles and tears
Comes from the very air I breathe.
Oh, nothing, sure, the stars beneath,
Can mould a sadness like to this-
So like angelic bliss.
So, at that dreamy hour of day
When the last lingering ray
Stops on the highest cloud to play-
So thought the gentle Rosalie
As on her maiden revery
First fell the strain of him who stole
In music to her soul,
THE PEBBLE AND THE ACORN.
BY HANNAH F. GOULD.
"I AM a Pebble! and yield to none!"
Were the swelling words of a tiny stone!-
"Nor time nor seasons can alter me;
I am abiding, while ages flee.
The pelting hail, and the drizzling rain,
Have tried to soften me, long, in vain;
And the tender dew has sought to melt
Or touch my heart; but it was not felt.
There's none that can tell about my birth,
For I'm as old as the big round earth.
The children of men arise, and pass
Out of the world like the blades of grass;
And many a foot on me has trod,
That's gone from sight, and under the sod.
I am a Pebble! but who art thou,
Rattling along from the restless bough?"
The Acorn was shock'd at this rude salute,
And lay for a moment abash'd and mute;
She never before had been so near
This gravelly ball, the mundane sphere;
And she felt for a time at a loss to know
How to answer a thing so coarse and low.
But to give reproof of a nobler sort
Than the angry look, or the keen retort,
At length she said in a gentle tone,
"Since it has happen'd that I am thrown
From the lighter element where I grew,
Down to another so hard and new,
THE PEBBLE AND THE ACORN.
And beside a personage so august,
Abased, I will cover my head with dust,
And quickly retire from the sight of one
Whom time, nor season, nor storm, nor sun,
Nor the gentle dew, nor the grinding heel
Has ever subdued, or made to feel!"
And soon in the earth she sunk away,
From the comfortless spot where the Pebble lay.
But it was not long ere the soil was broke
By the peering head of an infant oak!
And, as it arose, and its branches spread,
The Pebble look'd up, and, wondering, said,
"A modest Acorn,-never to tell
What was enclosed in its simple shell!
That the pride of the forest was folded up
In the narrow space of its little cup!
And meekly to sink in the darksome earth,
Which proves that nothing could hide her worth!
And, O! how many will tread on me,
To come and admire the beautiful tree,
Whose head is towering towards the sky,
Above such a worthless thing as I!
Useless and vain, a cumberer here,
I have been idling from year to year.
But never, from this, shall a vaunting word
From the humbled Pebble again be heard,
Till something without me or within,
Shall show the purpose for which I've been!"
The Pebble its vow could not forget,
And it lies there wrapp'd in silence yet!
8*
BY ALBERT PIKE.
OH thou delicious Spring!
Nursed in the lap of thin and subtle showers, Which fall from clouds that lift their snowy wing From odorous beds of light-infolded flowers,
And from enmass'd bowers,
That over grassy walks their greenness fling,
Come, gentle Spring!
Thou lover of young wind,
That cometh from the invisible upper sea
Beneath the sky, which clouds, its white foam, bind, And, settling in the trees deliciously,
Makes young leaves dance with glee,
Even in the teeth of that old sober hind,
Winter unkind,
Come to us; for thou art
Like the fine love of children, gentle Spring!
Touching the sacred feeling of the heart,
Or like a virgin's pleasant welcoming;
And thou dost ever bring
A tide of gentle but resistless art
Upon the heart.
Red Autumn from the south
Contends with thee: alas! what may he show?
What are his purple-stain'd and rosy mouth
And browned cheeks, to thy soft feet of snow,
And timid, pleasant glow,
Giving earth-piercing flowers their primal growth,
And greenest youth?
Gay Summer conquers thee;
And yet he has no beauty such as thine:
What is his ever-streaming, fiery sea,
To the pure glory that with thee doth shine?
Thou season most divine,
What may his dull and lifeless minstrelsy
Compare with thee?
Come, sit upon the hills,
And bid the waking streams leap down their side,
And green the vales with their slight-sounding rills;
And when the stars upon the sky shall glide,
And crescent Dian ride,
I too will breathe of thy delicious thrills,
On grassy hills.
Alas! bright Spring, not long
Shall I enjoy thy pleasant influence;
For thou shalt die the summer heat among, Sublimed to vapour in his fire intense,
And, gone for ever hence,
Exist no more: no more to earth belong,
Except in song.
So I who sing shall die:
Worn unto death, perchance, by care and sorrow ;
And, fainting thus with an unconscious sigh,
Bid unto this poor body a good morrow,
Which now sometimes I borrow,
And breathe of joyance keener and more high,
Ceasing to sigh!
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