AMONG THE FIR-TREES.

189

And the choirs of waves on the long-drawn sands, too well I hear in their strain

The throb of our human anguish deep, where triumph wrestles with pain.

But neither passion nor sorrow I hear in this rhythmic steady course,

Only the movement resistless and strong of some all-pervading Force;

The one universal Life which moves the whole of the outward plan,

Which throbs in winds, and waters, and flowers, in insect, and bird, and man.

Oh, would that the unknown finer touch which makes us other than those

Did not hold us so far asunder in soul from their

harmony and repose!

The self-same fountain doth life and growth to us and to them impart,

But only at moments we taste and know the peace which is Nature's heart.

And yet it may be that long, long hence, when æons of effort have pass'd,

We shall come-not blindly impelled, but free-to the orbit of order at last,

And a finer peace shall be wrought out of pain than the stars in their courses know!

Ah me! but my soul is in sorrow till then, and the feet of the years are slow! Fraser's Magazine.

TH

A SEA DREAM.

HE waves are glad in breeze and sun : The rocks are fringed with foam ; I walk once more a haunted shore, A stranger, yet at home,—

A land of dreams I roam.

Is this the wind, the soft sea wind
That stirred thy locks of brown ?
Are these the rocks whose mosses knew
The trail of thy light gown,

Where boy and girl sat down?

I see the gray fort's broken wall,
The boats that rocked below;
And, out at sea, the passing sails
We saw so long ago

Rose red in morning's glow.

The freshness of the early time
On every breeze is blown ;
As glad the sea, as blue the sky,—
The change is ours alone;
The saddest is my own.

A stranger now, a world-worn man,
Is he who bears my name ;
But thou, methinks, whose mortal life
Immortal youth became,

Art evermore the same.

Thou art not here, thou art not there,
Thy place I cannot see ;

A SEA DREAM.

I only know that where thou art
The blessed angels be,

And heaven is glad for thee.

Forgive me if the evil years
Have left on me their sign;
Wash out, O soul so beautiful,
The many stains of mine
In tears of love divine!

I could not look on thee and live,
If thou wert by my side;
The vision of a shining one,

The white and heavenly bride,
Is well to me denied.

But turn to me thy dear girl-face
Without the angel's crown,
The wedded roses of thy lips,

Thy loose hair rippling down
In waves of golden brown.

191

Look forth once more through space and time,
And let thy sweet shade fall

In tenderest grace of soul and form
On memory's frescoed wall.

A shadow, and yet all!

Draw near, more near, forever dear!
Where'er I rest or roam,
Or in the city's crowded streets,

Or by the blown sea-foam,
The thought of thee is home!

J. G. Whittier.

TH

FROM EACH AND ALL."

HE delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave ;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.

I wiped away the weeds and foam,

I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.
Emerson.

OF

AMONG THE ROCKS.

H, good, gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth ;

Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. R. Browning.

H

THE EAGLE.

E clasps the crag with hookèd hands ;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Tennyson.

TRAVELLER'S SONG.

193

M

TO THE WEST WIND.

AKE me thy lyre, even as the forest is :

What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My Spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Shelley.

FRO

TRAVELLER'S SONG.

ROM the mountains to the champaign,
By the glens and hills along,

Comes a rustling and a tramping,

Comes a motion as of song:
And this undetermined roving

Brings delight and brings good heed;

And thy striving be't with Loving,
And thy living, be't in Deed!

Keep not standing, fixed and rooted,
Briskly venture, briskly roam :