To load the May-wind's restless wings,
When, from the orchard row, he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors;

A world of blossoms for the bee,
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,
We plant with the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,
And redden in the August noon,
And drop, when gentle airs come by,
That fan the blue September sky,

While children come, with cries of glee,
And seek them where the fragrant grass
Betrays their bed to those who pass,
At the foot of the apple-tree.

And when, above this apple-tree, The winter stars are quivering bright, And winds go howling through the night, firls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth, Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth,

And guests in prouder homes shall see, Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine And golden orange of the line,

The fruit of the apple-tree.

The fruitage of this apple-tree Winds and our flag of stripe and star Shall bear to coasts that lie afar, Where men shall wonder at the view, And ask in what fair groves they grew; And sojourners beyond the sea Shall think of childhood's careless day, And long, long hours of summer play, In the shade of the apple-tree.

Each year shall give this apple-tree
A broader flush of roseate bloom,
A deeper maze of verdurous gloom,
And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower,
The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower.
The years shall come and pass, but we
Shall hear no longer, where we lie,
The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh,
In the boughs of the apple-tree.

And time shall waste this apple-tree.
Oh, when its aged branches throw
Thin shadows on the ground below,
Shall fraud and force and iron will
Oppress the weak and helpless still?

What shall the tasks of mercy be,
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears

Ivy and amaranth, in a graceful sheaf, Twined with the laurel's fair, imperial leaf.

A simple name alone,

To the great world unknown,

Is graven here, and wild-flowers, rising round,

Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground,

Lean lovingly against the humble stone.

Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart No man of iron mould and bloody hands, Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands

The passions that consumed his restless heart;

But one of tender spirit and delicate frame,
Gentlest, in mien and mind,
Of gentle womankind,

Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame: One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made

Its haunts, like flowers by sunny brooks in May,

Yet, at the thought of others' pain, a shade Of sweeter sadness chased the smile

Her glory is not of this shadowy state,

Glory that with the fleeting season dies; But when she entered at the sapphire gate

What joy was radiant in celestial eyes! How heaven's bright depths with sounding welcomes rung,

And flowers of heaven by shining hands were flung!

And He who, long before,

Pain, scorn, and sorrow bore,

The Mighty Sufferer, with aspect sweet, Smiled on the timid stranger from his seat; He who returning, glorious, from the grave, Dragged Death, disarmed, in chains, a crouching slave.

See, as I linger here, the sun grows low; Cool airs are murmuring that the night

is near.

The matron whose sons are lying

In graves on a distant shore; The maiden, whose promised husband Comes back from the war no more?

I look on the peaceful dwellings
Whose windows glimmer in sight,
With croft and garden and orchard,
That bask in the mellow light;

And I know that, when our couriers
With news of victory come,
They will bring a bitter message
Of hopeless grief to some.

Again I turn to the woodlands,
And shudder as I see
The mock-grape's blood-red banner
Hung out on the cedar-tree;

And I think of days of slaughter,

And the night-sky red with flames, On the Chattahoochee's meadows,

And the wasted banks of the James.

Oh, for the fresh spring-season,

When the groves are in their prime, And far away in the future

Is the frosty autumn-time!

Oh, for that better season,

When the pride of the foe shall yield, And the hosts of God and Freedom

March back from the well-won field;

And the matron shall clasp her first-born
With tears of joy and pride;
And the scarred and war-worn lover
Shall claim his promised bride!

The leaves are swept from the branches; But the living buds are there,

With folded flower and foliage,

To sprout in a kinder air.

ROSLYN, October, 1864.

THE DEATH OF SLAVERY

O THOU great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years,

Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst wield

The scourge that drove the laborer to the field,

And turn a stony gaze on human tears,

Thy cruel reign is o'er;

Thy bondmen crouch no more In terror at the menace of thine eye; For He who marks the bounds of guilty power, Long-suffering, hath heard the captive's cry, And touched his shackles at the appointed hour,

And lo! they fall, and he whose limbs they galled

Stands in his native manhood, disenthralled.

A shout of joy from the redeemed is sent; Ten thousand hamlets swell the hymn of thanks;

Our rivers roll exulting, and their banks Send up hosannas to the firmament ! Fields where the bondman's toil No more shall trench the soil, Seem now to bask in a serener day; The meadow-birds sing sweeter, and the airs

Of heaven with more caressing softness play,

Welcoming man to liberty like theirs. A glory clothes the land from sea to sea, For the great land and all its coasts are free.

Within that land wert thou enthroned of late,

And they by whom the nation's laws were made,

And they who filled its judgment-seats.
obeyed

Thy mandate, rigid as the will of Fate.
Fierce men at thy right hand,
With gesture of command,

Gave forth the word that none might dare gainsay;

And grave and reverend ones, who loved

thee not,

Shrank from thy presence, and in blank dismay

Choked down, unuttered, the rebellious thought;

While meaner cowards, mingling with thy

train,

Proved, from the book of God, thy right to reign.

Great as thou wert, and feared from shore to shore,

The wrath of Heaven o'ertook thee in thy pride;