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And all we shrink from now may seem
No new revealing;

Familiar as our childhood's stream,
Or pleasant memory of a dream

The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing.

Serene and mild the untried light
May have its dawning;

And, as in Summer's northern night
The evening and the dawn unite,

The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning.

I sit alone: in foam and spray

Wave after wave

Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray,
Shoulder the broken tide away,

Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave.

What heed I of the dusty land
And noisy town?

I see the mighty deep expand

From its white line of glimmering sand

To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down!

In listless quietude of mind,
I yield to all

The change of cloud and wave and wind,
And passive on the flood reclined,

I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall

But look, thou dreamer!-wave and shore
In shadow lie;

The night-wind warns me back once more
To where my native hill-tops o'er

Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky

LINES.

So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!
I bear with me

No token stone nor glittering shell,
But long and oft shall Memory tell

51

Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea

LINES,

WRITTEN ON HEARING OF THE DEATH OF SILAS WRIGHT, OF NEW YORK

As they who, tossing midst the storm at night,
While turning shoreward, where a beacon shone,
Meet the walled blackness of the heaven alone,
So, on the turbulent waves of party tossed,
In gloom and tempest, men have seen thy light
Quenched in the darkness. At thy hour of noon,
While life was pleasant to thy undimmed sight,
And, day by day, within thy spirit grew
A holier hope than young Ambition knew,
As through thy rural quiet, not in vain,
Pierced the sharp thrill of Freedom's cry of pain,
Man of the millions, thou art lost too soon!
Portents at which the bravest stand aghast-
The birth-throes of a Future, strange and vast,
Alarm the land; yet thou, so wise and strong,
Suddenly summoned to the burial bed,

Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long,
Hear'st not the tumult surging overhead.
Who now shall rally Freedom's scattering host?
Who wear the mantle of the leader lost?

Who stay the march of slavery? He, whose voice Hath called thee from thy task-field, shall not lack

Yet bolder champions, to beat bravely back The wrong which, through his poor ones, reaches Him:

Yet firmer hands shall Freedom's torchlights trin, And wave them high across the abysmal black, Till bound, dumb millions there shall see them and rejoice.

10th mo., 1847.

LINES,

ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPTS PRESENTED TO A FRIEND

'Tis said that in the Holy Land

The angels of the place have blessed

The pilgrim's bed of desert sand,
Like Jacob's stone of rest.

That down the hush of Syrian skies

Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight sings The song whose holy symphonies

Are beat by unseen wings;

Till starting from his sandy bed,

The wayworn wanderer looks to see The halo of an angel's head

Shine through the tamarisk-tree.

So through the shadows of my way
Thy smile hath fallen soft and clear,

So at the weary close of day

Hath seemed thy voice of cheer.

That pilgrim pressing to his goal
May pause not for the vision's sake,
Yet all fair things within his soul
The thought of it shall wake;

LINES.

The graceful palm-tree by the well,
Seen on the far horizon's rim;
The dark eyes of the fleet gazelle,
Bent timidly on him;

53

Each pictured saint, whose golden hair
Streams sunlike through the convent's gloom;
Pale shrines of martyrs young and fair,

And loving Mary's tomb;

And thus each tint or shade which falls
From sunset cloud or waving tree,
Along my pilgrim path recalls

The pleasant thought of thee.

Of one, in sun and shade the same,
In weal and woe my steady friend,
Whatever by that holy name
The angels comprehend.

Not blind to faults and follies, thou
Hast never failed the good to see,
Nor judged by one unseemly bough
The upward-struggling tree.

These light leaves at thy feet I lay—
Poor common thoughts on common things,
Which time is shaking, day by day,
Like feathers from his wings-

Chance shootings from a frail life-tree,
To nurturing care but little known,
Their good was partly learned of thee,
Their folly is my own.

That tree still clasps the kindly mould,
Its leaves still drink the twilight dew,
And weaving its pale green with gold,
Still shines the sunlight through.

There still the morning zephyrs play,
And there at times the spring bird sings,
And mossy trunk and fading spray
Are flowered with glossy wings.

Yet, even in genial sun and rain,
Root, branch, and leaflet fail and fade;
The wanderer on its lonely plain
Ere long shall miss its shade.

Oh, friend beloved, whose curious skill
Keeps bright the last year's leaves and flowers,
With warm, glad summer thoughts to fill
The cold, dark, winter hours!

Pressed on thy heart, the leaves I bring
May well defy the wintry cold,
Until, in Heaven's eternal spring,
Life's fairer ones unfold.

THE REWARD.

Wão, looking backward from his manhood's prime,
Sees not the spectre of his misspent time ?
And, through the shade

Of funeral cypress planted thick behind,
Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind
From his loved dead?

Who bears no trace of passion's evil force?
Who shuns thy sting, oh terrible Remorse ?—
Who does not cast

On the thronged pages of his memory's book,
At times, a sad and half reluctant look,

Regretful of the Past?

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