A

NIRVANA.

LONG the scholar's glowing page

I read the Orient thinker's dream

Of things that are not what they seem,Of mystic chant and Soma's rage.

The sunlight flooding all the room
To me again was Indra's smile,
And on the hearth the blazing pile
For Agni's sake did fret and fume.

Yet most I read of who aspire

To win Nirvana's deep repose, Of that long way the Spirit goes To reach the absence of desire.

But through the music of my book
Another music smote my ear-
A tinkle silver-sweet and clear-
The babble of the mountain-brook.

"Oh! leave," it said, "your ancient seers; Come out into the woods with me; Behold an older mystery

Than Buddhist's hope or Brahman's fears!”

The voice so sweet I could but hear;

I sallied forth, with staff in hand,

While, mile on mile, the mountain-land Was radiant with the dying year.

I heard the startled partridge whirr,
And crinkling through the tender grass
I saw the stripèd adder pass,

Where dropped the chestnut's prickly burr.

I saw the miracle of life

From death upspringing evermore ;

The fallen tree a forest bore

Of tiny forms with beauty rife.

I gathered mosses rare and sweet,
The acorn in its carven cup:

'Mid heaps of leaves, wind-gathered up,

I trod with half-remorseful feet.

The maple's blush I made my own,
The sumac's crimson splendor bold,
The poplar's hue of paly gold,
The faded chestnut, crisp and brown.
I climbed the mountain's shaggy crest,
Where masses huge of molten rock,
After long years of pain and shock,
Fern-covered, from their wanderings rest.
Far, far below the valley spread

Its rich, roof-dotted, wide expanse ;
And further still the sunlight's dance

The amorous river gayly led.

But still, with all I heard or saw

There mingled thoughts of that old time,
And that enchanted eastern clime

Where Buddha gave his mystic law,—

MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSETT.

Till, wearied with the lengthy way,

I found a spot where all was still,
Just as the sun behind the hill
Was making bright the parting day.

On either side the mountains stood,
Masses of color rich and warm;

And over them in giant form
The rosy moon serenely glowed.

My heart was full as it could hold ;
The Buddha's paradise was mine;
My mountain-nook its inmost shrine,
The fretted sky its roof of gold.

Nirvana's peace my soul had found-
Absence complete of all desire-

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While the great moon was mounting higher, And deeper quiet breathed around.

7. W. Chadwick.

I

MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSETT.

WOULD I were a painter, for the sake

Of a sweet picture, and of her who led, A fitting guide, with reverential tread, Into that mountain mystery. First a lake Tinted with sunset; next the wavy lines

Of far-receding hills; and yet more far, Monadnock lifting from his night of pines His rosy forehead to the evening star.

Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachusett laid

His head against the West, whose warm light made
His aureole; and o'er him, sharp and clear,
Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching stayed,
A single level cloud-line, shone upon
By the fierce glances of the sunken sun,

Menaced the darkness with its golden spear!

So twilight deepened round us. Still and black
The great woods climbed the mountain at our back;
And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day
On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay,

The brown old farm-house like a bird's-nest hung.
With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred:
The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard,
The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well,
The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell;
Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed; the gate
Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weight
Of sun-brown children, listening, while they swung,
The welcome sound of supper-call to hear;

And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung.

Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we took,

Praising the farmer's home. He only spake,

Looking into the sunset o'er the lake,

Like one to whom the far-off is most near; "Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look : I love it for my good old mother's sake,

Who lived and died here in the peace of God!"

THE CATHEDRAL.

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The lesson of his words we pondered o'er, As silently we turned the eastern flank Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest sank, Doubling the night along our rugged road : We felt that man was more than his abode,—The inward life than Nature's raiment more; And the warm sky, the sun-down tinted hill, The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and dim Before the saintly soul whose human will

Meekly in the Eternal footsteps trod,

Making her homely toil and household ways
An earthly echo of the song of praise

Swelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim.

J. G. Whittier.

THE CATHEDRAL.

HELF over shelf the mountain rose;

SHELF

And, as we climbed, they seemed the stair

That scales a minster's wall to seek

Some high-hid cell of prayer.

And every stair was carpeted
With mosses soft of gray and green,
Where gold and crimson arabesques
Trailed in and out between.

Up, up, o'er ferny pavements still
And dim mosaics of the wood,

The rocky terraces we trod,

Till on the heights we stood.