THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown

and sear.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy
day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately
sprang and stood

In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;

1

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague

on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And

now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days

will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late

he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one,
like that young friend of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

ROMERO.

WHEN freedom, from the land of Spain, By Spain's degenerate sons was driven, Who gave their willing limbs again

To wear the chain so lately riven;

Romero broke the sword he wore"Go, faithful brand," the warrior said, "Go, undishonoured, never more

The blood of man shall make thee red:

I grieve for that already shed;
And I am sick at heart to know,

That faithful friend and noble foe
Have only bled to make more strong
The yoke that Spain has worn so long.
Wear it who will, in abject fear—
I wear it not who have been free;

The perjured Ferdinand shall hear

No oath of loyalty from me"

Then, hunted by the hounds of power,

Romero chose a safe retreat,

Where bleak Nevada's summits tower

Above the beauty at their feet.

There once, when on his cabin lay
The crimson light of setting day,
When even on the mountain's breast
The chainless winds were all at rest,
And he could hear the river's flow
From the calm paradise below;

Warmed with his former fires again,

He framed this rude but solemn strain:

I.

"Here will I make my home-for here at least I see,

Upon this wild Sierra's side, the steps of Liberty;

Where the locust chirps unscared beneath the unpruned lime, And the merry bee doth hide from man the spoil of the mountain thyme;

Where the pure winds come and go, and the wild vine gads

at will,

An outcast from the haunts of men, she dwells with Nature still.

II.

"I see the valleys, Spain! where thy mighty rivers run, And the hills that lift thy harvests and vineyards to the sun, And the flocks that drink thy brooks and sprinkle all the green, Where lie thy plains, with sheep-walks seamed, and oliveshades between:

I see thy fig-trees bask, with the fair pomegranate near,

And the fragrance of thy lemon-groves can almost reach me here.

III.

Fair-fair-but fallen Spain! 'tis with a swelling heart, That I think on all thou mightst have been, and look at what

thou art;

But the strife is over now, and all the good and brave,

That would have raised thee up, are gone, to exile or the grave. Thy fleeces are for monks, thy grapes for the convent feast, And the wealth of all thy harvest-fields for the pampered lord and priest.

IV.

"But I shall see the day—it will come before I die—

I shall see it in my silver hairs, and with an age-dimmed eye;When the spirit of the land to liberty shall bound,

As yonder fountain leaps away from the darkness of the ground: And to my mountain cell, the voices of the free

Shall rise, as from the beaten shore the thunders of the sea."