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His pulses quicken: for a rude old door
Is open'd by the wind: he sees the floor,
Strew'd with white sand, on which he used to trace
His boyhood's battles, and assign a place
To charging hosts, and give the Indian yell,
And shout to hear his hoary grandsire tell
How he had fought with savages, whose breath
He felt upon his cheek like mildew till his death.
Hark! that sweet song, how full of tenderness !
Oh! who would breathe in this voluptuous press
Of lulling thoughts! so soothing and so low,
Like singing fountains in their faintest flow:
It is as if some holy, lovely thing,
Within our very hearts were murmuring.
The soldier listens, and his arms are press'd
In thankfulness, and trembling on his breast:
Now, on the very window where he stands
Are seen a clambering infant's rosy hands:
And now-ah Heaven! blessings on that smile!
Stay, soldier, stay! oh linger yet a while!
An airy vision now appears, with eyes
As tender as the blue of weeping skies:
Yet sunny in their radiance, as that blue
When sunset glitters on its falling dew:
With form-all joy and dance-as bright and free
As youthful nymph of mountain liberty,
Or naked angels dream'd by poesy:

A blooming infant to her heart is press'd,
And ah! a mother's song is lulling it to rest.
A single bound! our chief is standing by,
Trembling from head to foot with ecstasy; [love!
"Bless thee!" at length he murinur'd, "bless thee,
My wife! my boy !" Their eyes are raised above.
His soldier's tread of sounding strength is gone,
A choking transport drowns his manly tone.
He sees the closing of that mild blue eye,
His bosom echoes to a faint low cry:

His glorious boy springs freshly from his sleep;

Shakes his thin sun-curls, while his eyebeams leap

As half in fear, along the stranger's dress,
Then, half advancing, yields to his caress:
Then peers beneath his locks, and seeks his eye
With the clear look of radiant infancy,

The cherub smile of love, the azure of the sky.
The stranger now is kneeling by the side
Of that young mother, watching for the tide
Of her returning life: it comes: a glow
Goes faintly, slowly o'er her cheek and brow:
A rising of the gauze that lightly shrouds
A snowy breast, like twilight's melting clouds,
In nature's pure, still eloquence, betrays

The feelings of the heart that reels beneath his gaze.

ROBERT M. CHARLTON.

TO THE RIVER OGEECHEE.

Oн wave that glidest swiftly
On thy bright and happy way,
From the morning until evening,
And from twilight until day,
Why leapest thou so joyously,
While coldly on thy shore
Sleeps the noble and the gallant heart,
For aye and evermore?

Or dost thou weep, oh river,

And is this bounding wave,
But the tear thy bosom sheddeth
As a tribute o'er his grave?
And when, in midnight's darkness,
The winds above thee moan,
Are they mourning for our sorrows,
Do they sigh for him that's gone?

Keep back thy tears, then, river,
Or, if they must be shed,
Let them flow but for the living,
They're needless for the dead.

His soul shall dwell in glory,
Where bounds a brighter wave,
But our pleasures, with his troubles,
Are buried in the grave.

JONES VERY.

TO THE CANARY-BIRD.

I CANNOT hear thy voice with others' ears,
Who make of thy lost liberty a gain;
And in thy tale of blighted hopes and fears
Feel not that every note is born with pain.
Alas! that with thy music's gentle swell
Past days of joy should through thy memory
throng,

And each to thee their words of sorrow tell,
While ravish'd sense forgets thee in thy song.
The heart that on the past and future feeds,
And pours in human words its thoughts divine,
Though at each birth the spirit inly bleeds,
Its song may charm the listening ear like thine,
And men with gilded cage and praise will try
To make the bard, like thee, forget his native sky.

THE TREE.

I LOVE thee when thy swelling buds appear,
And one by one their tender leaves unfold,
As if they knew that warmer suns were near,
Nor longer sought to hide from winter's cold;
And when with darker growth thy leaves are seen
To veil from view the early robin's nest,
I love to lie beneath thy waving screen
With limbs by summer's heat and toil oppress'd;

And when the autumn winds have stripp'd thee bare,

And round thee lies the smooth untrodden snow, When naught is thine that made thee once so fair, I love to watch thy shadowy form below,

And through thy leafless arms to look above On stars that brighter beam when most we need their love.

THE WIND-FLOWER.

THOU lookest up with meek, confiding eye
Upon the clouded smile of April's face,
Unharm'd, though Winter stands uncertain by,
Eying with jealous glance each opening grace.
Thou trustest wisely! in thy faith array'd,
More glorious thou than Israel's wisest king;
Such faith was his whom men to death betray'd,
As thine who hear'st the timid voice of Spring,
While other flowers still hide them from her call,
Along the river's brink and meadow bare.
Thee will I seek beside the stony wall,

And in thy trust with childlike heart would share,
O'erjoyed that in thy early leaves I find

A lesson taught by him who loved all human kind.

THE SON.

FATHER, I wait thy word. The sun doth stand
Beneath the mingling line of night and day,
A listening servant, waiting thy command
To roll rejoicing on its silent way;

The tongue of Time abides the appointed hour,
Till on our ear its solemn warnings fall;
The heavy cloud withholds the pelting shower,
Then every drop speeds onward at thy call;

The bird reposes on the yielding bough, With breast unswollen by the tide of song, So does my spirit wait thy presence now To pour thy praise in quickening life along, Chiding with voice divine man's lengthen'd sleep, While round the Unutter'd Word and Love their vigils keep.

ENOCH.

I LOOK'D to find a man who walk'd with God,
Like the translated patriarch of old;

Though gladden'd millions on his footstool trod,
Yet none with him did such sweet converse hold;
I heard the wind in low complaint go by,
That none its melodies like him could hear;
Day unto day spoke wisdom from on high,
Yet none, like David, turn'd a willing ear;
God walk'd alone unhonour'd through the earth;
For him no heart-built temple open stood;
The soul, forgetful of her nobler birth,

Had hewn him lofty shrines of stone and wood,
And left unfinish'd and in ruins still
The only temple he delights to fill.

THE LIVING GOD.

THERE is no death with Thee! Each plant and tree
In living haste their stems push onward still;
The pointed blade, each rooted trunk we see,
In various movement all attest thy will.
The vine must die when its long race is run,
The tree must fall when it no more can rise;
The worm has at its root his task bugun,
And hour by hour his steady labour plies;

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