And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay! where are they? Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. The poetry of earth is never dead! When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills CHARLES WOLFE. 1791-1823. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE, Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the ramparts we hurried; We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Nor in sheet or in shroud we wound him ; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorrow; But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, But half of our heavy task was done, When the clock struck the hour for retiring, Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory: We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone in his glory. FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS. HER GRAVE. Where shall we make her grave? When shower and singing bird Harsh was the world to her : Balm for each ill! Low on sweet Nature's breast Murmur, glad waters! by; That green and mossy bed, Where on a gentle head Storms beat no more. What though for her in vain Yet still from where she lies Should blessed breathings rise, Therefore let song and dew Thence in the heart renew Life's vernal glow; And o'er that holy earth Scents of the violets' birth Still come and go! O then, where wild flowers wave Where shower and singing bird WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 1794-1878. TO A WATER-FOWL. 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. All day thy wings have fann'd At that far height the cold thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not weary to the welcome land, And soon that toil shall end: Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy shelter'd nest. Thou art gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallow'd up thy form; yet on my heart 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 THE FRINGED GENTIAN. Thou blossom! bright with autumn dew, Thou comèst not when violets lean Thou waitest late, and comest alone, Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye |