MUSKETAQUID.

BECAUSE I was content with these poor fields,
Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,

And granted me the freedom of their state,
And in their secret senate have prevailed

With the dear dangerous lords that rule our life,
Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
And pitying through my solitary wont

Shot million rays of thought and tenderness.

For me in showers, in sweeping showers, the spring
Visits the valley :-break away the clouds,

I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air,
And loiter willing by yon loitering stream.
Sparrows far off, and, nearer, yonder bird
Blue-coated, flying before, from tree to tree,
Courageous sing a delicate overture,

To lead the tardy concert of the

year. Onward, and nearer draws the sun of May, And wide around the marriage of the plants Is sweetly solemnized; then flows amain The surge of summer's beauty; dell and crag, Hollow and lake, hill side, and pine arcade, Are touched with genius. Yonder ragged cliff Has thousand faces in a thousand hours.

Here friendly landlords, men ineloquent,
Inhabit, and subdue the spacious farms.
Traveller! to thee, perchance, a tedious road,
Or soon forgotten picture,—to these men
The landscape is an armoury of powers,
Which, one by one, they know to draw and use.
They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work;
They prove the virtues of each bed of rock,
And, like a chemist 'mid his loaded jars,
Draw from each stratum its adapted use,
To drug their crops, or weapon their arts withal.
They turn the frost upon their chemic heap;
They set the wind to winnow vetch and grain;
They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime;
And, on cheap summit-levels of the snow,
Slide with the sledge to inaccessible woods,
O'er meadows bottomless. So, year by year,

They fight the elements with elements,

(That one would say, meadow and forest walked Upright in human shape to rule their like.)

And by the order in the field disclose,

The order regnant in the yeoman's brain.

What these strong masters wrote at large in miles,

I followed in small copy in my acre?

For there's no rood has not a star above it

The cordial quality of pear or plum

Ascends as gladly in a single tree,

As in broad orchards resonant with bees;

And every atom poises for itself,

And for the whole. The gentle Mother of all

Showed me the lore of colours and of sounds;

The innumerable tenements of beauty;

The miracle of generative force;

Far-reaching concords of astronomy

Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds;
Mainly, the linked purpose of the whole;

And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty,

The home of homes plain dealing Nature gave.

The polite found me impolite; the great

Would mortify me, but in vain :

I am a willow of the wilderness,

Loving the wind that bent me.

All my hurts My garden-spade can heal. A woodland walk, A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine,

Salve my worst wounds, and leave no cicatrice. For thus the wood-gods murmured in my ear, Dost love our manners? Canst thou silent lie? Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature pass Into the winter night's extinguished mood? Canst thou shine now, then darkle,

And being latent, feel thyself no less?

As when the all-worshipped moon attracts the eye, The river, hill, stems, foliage, are obscure,

Yet envies none, none are unenviable.

DIRGE.

KNOWS he who tills this lonely field

To reap its scanty corn,

What mystic fruit his acres yield

At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon,

The plain was full of ghosts,

I wandered up, I wandered down,

Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,

Pouring as wide a flood

As when my brothers long ago,

Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone, the holy ones, Who trod with me this lonely vale, The strong, star-bright companions

Are silent, low, and pale.