MOONLIGHT IN ITALY THERE's not a breath the dewy leaves to stir; There's not a cloud to spot the sapphire sky; All Nature seems a silent worshipper: While saintly Dian, with great, argent eye, Looks down as lucid from the depths on high As she to Earth were Heaven's interpreter; Each twinkling little star shrinks back, too shy Its lesser glory to obtrude by her Who fills the concave and the world with light; And ah! the human spirit must unite Or be the only discord in this night, Alfred Billings Street THE SETTLER His echoing axe the settler swung Amid the sea-like solitude, And rushing, thundering, down flung The Titans of the wood; were And still the settler labored there, His shout and whistle woke the air, As cheerily he plied His garden spade, or drove his share Along the hillock's side. He marked the fire-storm's blazing flood He marked the rapid whirlwind shoot And darkening thick the day His gaunt hound yelled, his rifle flashed, The grim bear hushed its savage growl, In blood and foam the panther gnashed Humble the lot, yet his the race, When Liberty sent forth her cry, Who thronged in Conflict's deadliest place, To fight to bleed-to die! And noon is hot, and barn-roofs gleam When Eve her domes of opal fire Still merriest of the merry birds, Your sparkle is unfading, - What cadences of bubbling mirth, Coherent measure with them! O could I share, without champagne Your drunken jargon through the fields, Your fine Anacreontic glee, Nay, let me not profane such joy No wine of earth could waken songs O boundless self-contentment, voiced And drowns our earth-born troubles! Hope springs with you: I dread no more Despondency and dulness; For Good Supreme can never fail That gives such perfect fulness. The life that floods the happy fields With song and light and color Will shape our lives to richer states, And heap our measures fuller. STANZA FROM AN EARLY POEM THOUGHT is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught. THE PINES AND THE SEA BEYOND the low marsh-meadows and the beach, Seen through the hoary trunks of windy pines, The long blue level of the ocean shines. The distant surf, with hoarse, complaining speech, Out from its sandy barrier seems to reach; And while the sun behind the woods de clines, The moaning sea with sighing boughs combines, And waves and pines make answer, each to each. O melancholy soul, whom far and near, An old refrain, too much, too long thine own: 'Tis thy mortality infects thine ear; The mournful strain was in thyself alone. THE IDLER Jones Very I IDLE stand that I may find employ, Such as my Master when He comes will give; I cannot find in mine own work my joy, But wait, although in waiting I must live; My body shall not turn which way it will, a task, |