every flower the wreathes summer If heaven had but assigned us Is born beneath that kindling eye. To live and die in scenes like this, Where'er we turn Thy glories shine, AS SLOW OUR SHIP, As slow our ship her foamy track Against the wind was cleaving, With some we've left behind us! As travellers oft look back, at eve, Still faint behind them glowing,- GEORGE P. MORRIS. WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE! WOODMAN, spare that tree! That old familiar tree, Oh, what begetteth all this storm of bliss, But Death himself, who, crying solemnly, Even from the heart of sweet forgetfulness, Bids us, "Rejoice! lest pleasureless ye die. Within a little time must ye go by. Stretch forth your open hands, and, while ye live, Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give ?" [From the Earthly Paradise.] O FAIR midspring, besung so oft and oft, How can I praise thy loveliness enow? Thy sun that burns not and thy breezes soft That o'er the blossoms of the orchard blow, Some weight from off my fluttering mirth to lift ? -Now when far bells are ringing, "Come again, Come back, past years! why will ye pass in vain ?" [From the Earthly Paradise.] DEAD lonely night, and all streets quiet now, Thin o'er the moon the hindmost cloud swims past Of that great rack that brought us up the snow; On earth, strange shadows o'er the snow are cast; Pale stars, bright moon, swift cloud, make heaven so vast, That earth, left silent by the wind of night, Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height. The thousand things that 'neath the Ah! through the hush the looked-for Ah! life of all the year, why yet do I, Amid thy snowy blossoms' fragrant drift, midnight clangs! And then, e'en while its last stroke's solemn drone In the cold air by unlit windows hangs, Out break the bells above the year foredone, Change, kindness lost, love left unloved alone; Till their despairing sweetness makes thee deem Thou once wert loved, if but amidst a dream. [love, Oh, thou who clingest still to life and Though naught of good, no God thou mayst discern, Though naught that is, thine utmost woe can move, Though no soul knows wherewith thine heart doth yearn, Yet, since thy weary lips no curse can learn, [away, Cast no least thing thou lovedst once Striving my pleasure from my pain Since yet, perchance, thine eyes shall Still long for that which never draweth nigh, to sift, see the day. |