MORAL. You see the point? Don't be too quick To break bad habits: better stick, Like the Mission folk, to your arsenic. ON A CONE OF THE BIG TREES. Sequoia Gigantea. BROWN foundling of the Western wood, Thou bring'st me back the halcyon days The journey lapped in autumn haze, The sweet fatigue that seemed a pleasure, The morning ride, the noonday halt, The blazing slopes, the red dust rising, And then the dim, brown, columned vault, With its cool, damp, sepultural spicing. M Once more I see the rocking masts That scrape the sky, their only tenant The jay-bird that in frolic casts From some high yard his broad blue pennant. I see the Indian files that keep Their places in the dusty heather, Their red trunks standing ankle deep In moccasins of rusty leather. I see all this, and marvel much That thou, sweet woodland waif, art able To keep the company of such As throng thy friend's-the poet's-table: The latest spawn the press hath cast,The "modern Pope's," "the later Byron's," Why e'en the best may not outlast Thy poor relation,-Sempervirens. Thy sire saw the light that shone On many a royal gilded throne And deed forgotten in the present; He saw the age of sacred trees And Druid groves and mystic larches ; On a Cone of the Big Trees. And saw from forest domes like these The builder bring his Gothic arches. And must thou, foundling, still forego Adjusted to thy new condition ? Not hidden in the drifted snows, But under ink drops idly spattered, And leaves ephemeral as those That on thy woodland tomb were scattered. Yet lie thou there, O friend! and speak Though life is all that thou dost seek, The purpose of their high creation, If their poor tenements avail For worldly show and ostentation. 163 A SANITARY MESSAGE. LAST night, above the whistling wind, A fusillade upon the roof, A tattoo on the pane: The key-hole piped; the chimney-top A warlike trumpet blew ; Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife, A softer voice stole through. "Give thanks, O brothers!" said the voice, "That He who sent the rains Hath spared your fields the scarlet dew In brighter verdure rise; But, oh the rain that gave it life Sprang first from human eyes. |