COME, dearest, to my heart. My soul and thine
A strange, ethereal, soft attraction feel:
Where'er I rove, my thoughts to thee incline;
Whate'er my purpose, still to thee I steal;
If in the temple to my God I kneel,
My prayers for pardon blend with prayers for thee;
If on my senses slumber sets her seal,
My dreaming spirit seeks thee, wild and free;
If in each other's presence blessed we stand,
Nearer and nearer still with smiles we move, Soul melts with soul, as hand is joined in hand, And throb and thrill attest the loadstar, love,Bright, burning mystery! unknown to art,
But ever gently thus attracting heart to heart.
JEDIDIAH VINCENT HUNTINGTON.
ON READING BRYANT'S POEM OF "THE WINDS."
YE winds! whose various voices in his lay
That bard interpreted, your utterance mild,
Nor less your ministration, fierce and wild,
Of those resistless laws which ye obey
In your apparent lawlessness, - O, say,
will-less agency reviled
Is not your
When it is likened unto what is styled
By such unwise, The Spirit of the Day?
Not all the islands by tornadoes swept,
E'er knew such ruin as befalls a state,
When not the winds of God, but mortal breath, With threatening sweetness of melodious hate, Assaults the fabrics reverent ages kept
To shelter ancient loyalty and faith.
O FRIEND! whose genial spirit, by the gift
Of a most bounteous nature, flings a shower
Of magic light along life's shadowed hour;
As when day's sovereign lord, behind the rift
Of summer's brooding cloud, but looks, to lift
Incumbent heaviness from earth and sky,
With the bright beam of his exulting eye;
Think not the spirit's course, whose silent drift
Flows on more calmly than the sparkling stream,
Is sad though thoughtful, or must therefore seem
From secret care, to need some healing shrift;
Thine be, forever fresh and never coy,
The soul's bright mood; — yet not less cheerful deem
The steadfast lustre of a sober joy!
STANCH at thy post, to meet life's common doom,
It scarce seems death, to die as thou hast died;
Thy duty done, thy truth, strength, courage, tried,
And all things ripe for the fulfilling tomb!
A crown would mock thy hearse's sable gloom,
Whose virtues raised thee higher than a throne,
Whose faults were erring nature's, not his own,
Such be thy sentence, writ with fame's bright plume,
Amongst the good and great; for thou wast great,
In thought, word, deed, — like mightiest ones of old, —
Full of the honest truth which makes men bold,
Wise, pure, firm, just ;— the noblest Roman's state
Became not more a ruler of the free,
Than thy plain life, high thoughts, and matchless con
'T WOULD seem the Fairies, to excite surprise
Among us mortals, had endowed Adele
With baby-sprites that frolicked in her eyes,
As erst they did upon some lily-bell:
So gay and arch the lovely maiden seems,
My heart recalls the creature of its dreams
In days that now are past, - the long-ago,
When in my sleep I saw her, graceful, play
Among the violets and roses gay,
In flowery vales where now the thistles grow. The beauty of my dreams has come again, And Joy is ringing out pale Sorrow's knell, The chimes are echoed in this simple strain ; Wilt thou accept it, beautiful Adele?
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