As the kings of the cloud-crowned pyramid,
Their noteless bones in oblivion hid,

Ye slumber unmarked mid the desolate main,
While the wonder and pride of your works remain.

TO A WATERFOWL.

BY W. C. BRYANT.

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,~~~
The desert and illimitable air,—

Lone wandering, but not lost.

TO MY COMPANIONS.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end,

95

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He, who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

TO MY COMPANIONS.

[From the Collegian.]

MINE ancient chair-thy wide embracing arms
Have clasped around me even from a boy ;
Hadst thou a voice to speak of years gone by,
Thine were a tale of sorrow and of joy,
of fevered hopes and ill-foreboding fears,
And smiles unseen, and unrecorded tears.

96

TO MY COMPANIONS.

And thou my table-though unwearied time
Hath set his signet on thine altered brow,
Still can I see thee in thy spotless prime,

And in my memory thou art living now; Soon must thou slumber with forgotten things, The peasant's ashes and the dust of kings.

Thou melancholy mug-thy sober brown

Hath something pensive in its evening hue, Not like the things that please the tasteless clown With gaudy streaks of orange and of blue ; And I must love thee, for thou art mine own, Pressed by my lip, and pressed by mine alone.

My broken mirror-faithless, yet beloved,
Thou who canst smile and smile alike on all,
Oft do I leave thee, oft again return,

I scorn the siren, but obey the call;

I hate thy falsehood, while I fear thy truth,
But most I love thee, flattering friend of youth.

Primeval carpet-every well-worn thread
Has slowly parted with its virgin dye;
I saw thee fade beneath the ceaseless tread,
Fainter and fainter in mine anxious eye;
So flies the color from the brightest flower,
And heaven's own rainbow lives but for an hour

I love you all-there radiates from our own
A soul that lives in every shape we see.