How oft he smiled and bowed to Jonathan ! 'Twas a great Governor; thou too shalt be Great in thy turn, and wide shall spread thy fame And swiftly; furthest Maine shall hear of thee, And cold New Brunswick gladden at thy name, And, faintly through its sleets, the weeping isle That sends the Boston folks their cod shall smile. For thou shalt forge vast railways, and shalt heat Thou shalt make mighty engines swim the sea, The moving soul of many a spinning-jenny, Then we will laugh at winter when we hear The grim old churl about our dwellings rave: Thou, from that "ruler of the inverted year,” Shalt pluck the knotty sceptre Cowper gave, And pull him from his sledge, and drag him in, And melt the icicles from off his chin. THE NEW MOON. WHEN, as the garish day is done, 'Tis passing sweet to mark, Few are the hearts too cold to feel The sight of that young crescent brings And childhood's purity and grace, The captive yields him to the dream And painfully the sick man tries Most welcome to the lover's sight That sweetest is the lovers' walk, And tenderest is their murmured talk, And there do graver men behold And thoughts and wishes not of earth Like that new light in heaven. OCTOBER. Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath! When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, And the year smiles as it draws near its death. Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay In the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a good old age released from care, Journeying, in long serenity, away. In such a bright, late quiet, would that I Might wear out life like thee, mid bowers and brooks, And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks, And music of kind voices ever nigh; And when my last sand twinkled in the glass, THE DAMSEL OF PERU. WHERE olive-leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew, There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru. Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air, 'Tis a song of love and valor, in the noble Spanish tongue, For she has bound the sword to a youthful lover's side, And sent him to the war the day she should have been his bride, A white hand parts the branches, a lovely face looks forth, That white hand is withdrawn, that fair sad face is gone, But see, along that mountain-slope, a fiery horseman ride; Mark his torn plume, his tarnished belt, the sabre at his side. I His spurs are buried rowel-deep, he rides with loosened rain, There's blood upon his charger's flank and foam upon the mane He speeds him toward the olive-grove, along that shaded hill: God shield the helpless maiden there, if he should mean her ill And suddenly that song has ceased, and suddenly I hear THE AFRICAN CHIEF. CHAINED in the market-place he stood, That shrunk to hear his name- Vainly, but well, that chief had fought, Yet pride, that fortune humbles not, The scars his dark broad bosom wore Showed warrior true and brave; A prince among his tribe before, He could not be a slave. |