In silence, round me-the perpetual work For ever. Written on thy works I read The lesson of thy own eternity. Lo! all grow old and die—but see again, The freshness of her far beginning lies And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth From thine own bosom, and shall have no end. There have been holy men who hid themselves Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived The generation born with them, nor seemed Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks Around them ;-and there have been holy men M But let me often to these solitudes Retire, and in thy presence reassure My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods 'OH FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS." Он fairest of the rural maids! Thy birth was in the forest shades; Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky, Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child, Were ever in the sylvan wild; The twilight of the trees and rocks Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene The forest depths, by foot unpressed, "I BROKE THE SPELL THAT HELD ME LONG." I BROKE the spell that held me long, Shall waste my prime of years no more, I broke the spell-nor deemed its power Ah, thoughtless! how could I forget Its causes were around me yet? For wheresoe'er I looked, the while, Was nature's everlasting smile. Still came and lingered on my sight Of flowers and streams the bloom and light, And glory of the stars and sun; And these and poetry are one. They, ere the world had held me long, Recalled me to the love of song. JUNE. I GAZED upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round, And thought that when I came to lie Within the silent ground, 'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, A cell within the frozen mould, A coffin borne through sleet, And icy clods above it rolled, While fierce the tempests beat Away! I will not think of these- And be the damp mould gently pressed Into |