Though stricken to the heart with winter's | And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,

Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passion-
ate cadence.

BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK.

ON sunny slope and beechen swell,
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down,
The glory, that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its golden leaves.

Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,
Around a far uplifted cone,

In the warm blush of evening shone;
An image of the silver lakes,
By which the Indian's soul awakes.

But soon a funeral hymn was heard

The tall, gray forest; and a band
Of stern in heart, and strong in hand,
Came winding down beside the wave,
To lay the red chief in his grave.

They sang, that by his native bowers
He stood, in the last moon of flowers,
And thirty snows had not yet shed
Their glory on the warrior's head;
But, as the summer fruit decays,
So died he in those naked days.

A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin
Covered the warrior, and within
Its heavy folds the weapons, made
For the hard toils of war, were laid;
The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds,
And the broad belt of shells and
beads.

Before, a dark-haired virgin train
Chanted the death dirge of the slain ;
Behind, the long procession came
Of hoary men and chiefs of fame,
With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,
Leading the war-horse of their chief.

Stripped of his proud and martial
dress,

Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless,
With darting eye, and nostril spread,
And heavy and impatient tread,
He came; and oft that eye so proud
Asked for his rider in the crowd.

They buried the dark chief; they freed
Beside the grave his battle steed;
And swift an arrow cleaved its way
To his stern heart! One piercing neigh
Arose, and, on the dead man's plain,

Where the soft breath of evening stirred | The rider grasps his steed again.

The veil of cloud was lifted, and below | Departs with silent pace! That spirit Glowed the rich valley, and the river's

flow

Was darkened by the forest's shade,
Or glistened in the white cascade;
Where upward, in the mellow blush of
day,

The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.

I heard the distant waters dash,
I saw the current whirl and flash,
And richly, by the blue lake's silver
beach,

The woods were bending with a silent

reach.

Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell,
The music of the village bell

moves

In the green valley, where the silver brook,

From its full laver, pours the white cascade;

And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,

Slips down through moss-grown stones
with endless laughter.

And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And
here, amid

The silent majesty of these deep woods,
Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts
from earth,

Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills;
And the wild horn, whose voice the wood-As
land fills,

Was ringing to the merry shout,
That faint and far the glen sent out,
Where, answering to the sudden shot,
thin smoke,

through thick-leaved branches, from the
dingle broke.

If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, if thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep

'hy heart from fainting and thy soul

from sleep,

Go to the woods and hills! No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

THE SPIRIT OF POETRY.

THERE is a quiet spirit in these woods, That dwells where'er the gentle southwind blows;

Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,

The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,

The leaves above their sunny palms out-
spread.

With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning

comes

O'er-riding the gray hills with golden
scarf;

Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled
Eve,

In mourning weeds, from out the western
gate,

to the sunshine and the pure, bright air

Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards

Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.

For them there was an eloquent voice in all

The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden

sun,

The flowers, the leaves, the river on its

way,

Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle

winds,

The swelling upland, where the sidelong

sun

Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,

Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,

Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,

The distant lake, fountains, and mighty

trees,

In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.

And this is the sweet spirit, that doth
fill

The world; and, in these wayward days
of youth,

My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly
forms

We worship in our dreams, and the soft
hues

That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds

EARLIER POEMS.

Within her tender

The heaven of April, with its changing light,

And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,

And on her lip the rich, red rose. hair

Her

Is like the summer tresses of the trees, When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek

Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her
breath,

It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, from the morning's dewy flowers, it