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TO A CHILD.

DEAR child! how radiant on thy mo

ther's knee,

With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,

Thou gazest at the painted tiles,
Whose figures grace,

With many a grotesque form and face,
The ancient chimney of thy nursery!
The lady with the gay macaw,
The dancing girl, the brave bashaw
With bearded lip and chin;
And, leaning idly o'er his gate,
Beneath the imperial fan of state,
The Chinese mandarin.

With what a look of proud command
Thou shakest in thy little hand
The coral rattle with its silver bells,
Making a merry tune!

Thousands of years in Indian seas
That coral grew, by slow degrees,
Until some deadly and wild monsoon
Dashed it on Coromandel's sand!
Those silver bells

Reposed of yore, As shapeless ore,

Far down in the deep-sunken wells
Of darksome mines,

In some obscure and sunless place,
Beneath huge Chimborazo's base,
Or Potosi's o'erhanging pines!
And thus for thee, O little child,
Through many a danger and escape,
The tall ships passed the stormy cape;
For thee in foreign lands remote,
Beneath the burning, tropic skies,
The Indian peasant, chasing the wild
goat,

Himself as swift and wild,

In falling, clutched the frail arbute,
The fibres of whose shallow root,
Uplifted from the soil, betrayed
The silver veins beneath it laid,
The buried treasures of dead centuries.

But, lo! thy door is left ajar!
Thou hearest footsteps from afar!
And, at the sound,
Thou turnest round

With quick and questioning eyes,
Like one who, in a foreign land,
Beholds on every hand

Some source of wonder and surprise!
And, restlessly, impatiently,
Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free.
The four walls of thy nursery
Are now like prison-walls to thee.
No more thy mother's smiles,
No more the painted tiles,
Delight thee, nor the playthings on
the floor,

That won thy little, beating heart before;

Thou strugglest for the door.
open
Through these once solitary halls
Thy pattering footstep falls.
The sound of thy merry voice
Makes the old walls
Jubilant, and they rejoice
With the joy of thy young heart,
O'er the light of whose gladness
No shadows of sadness
From the sombre background of

memory start.

Once, ah, once, within these walls,
One whom memory oft recalls,
The Father of his Country dwelt.
And yonder meadows broad and damp
The fires of the besieging camp
Encircled with a burning belt.
Up and down these echoing stairs,
Heavy with the weight of cares,
Sounded his majestic tread;
Yes, within this very room
Sat he in those hours of gloom,
Weary both in heart and head.

But what are these grave thoughts to

thee?

Out, out! into the open air!

Thy only dream is liberty,

Thou carest little how or where.

I see thee eager at thy play,

Now shouting to the apples on the tree, With cheeks as round and red as they; And now among the yellow stalks, Among the flowering shrubs and plants,

As restless as the bee.
Along the garden-walks,

The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels

I trace,

And see at every turn how they efface
Whole villages of sand-roofed tents,
That rise like golden domes

Above the cavernous and secret homes
Of wandering and nomadic tribes of

ants.

Ah, cruel little Tamerlane,
Who, with thy dreadful reign,
Dost persecute and overwhelm

These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm!

What! tired already! with those suppliant looks,

And voices more beautiful than a poet's
books,

Or murmuring sound of water as it flows,
Thou comest back to parley with repose!
This rustic seat in the old apple-tree,
With its o'erhanging golden canopy
Of leaves illuminate with autumnal

hues,

As at the touch of Fate!
Into those realms of love and hate,
Into that darkness blank and drear,
By some prophetic feeling taught,
I launch the bold, adventurous thought,
Freighted with hope and fear;
As upon subterranean streams,
In caverns unexplored and dark,
Men sometimes launch a fragile bark,
Laden with flickering fire,

And watch its swift-receding beams,
Until at length they disappear,
And in the distant dark expire.

By what astrology of fear or hope
Dare I to cast thy horoscope!
Like the new moon thy life appears
A little strip of silver light,
And widening outward into night
The shadowy disk of future years;
And yet upon its outer rim,
A luminous circle faint and dim,
And scarcely visible to us here,
Rounds and completes the perfect sphere,
A prophecy and intimation,

And shining with the argent light of A pale and feeble adumbration,

dews,

Shall for a season be our place of rest.
Beneath us, like an oriole's pendent

nest,

From which the laughing birds have

taken wing,

By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.

Dream-like the waters of the rivers gleam;

A sailless vessel drops adown the

stream,

And like it, to a sea as wide and deep,
Thou driftest gently down the tides of
sleep.

O child! O new-born denizen
Of life's great city! on thy head
The glory of the morn is shed,
Like a celestial benison !
Here at the portal thou dost stand,
And with thy little hand
Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
I see its valves expand,

Of the great world of light, that lies
Behind all human destinies.

Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught,
Should be to wet the dusty soil
With the hot tears and sweat of toil,-
To struggle with imperious thought,
Until the overburdened brain,
Weary with labour, faint with pain,
Like a jarred pendulum, retain
Only its motion, not its power,-
Remember, in that perilous hour,
When most afflicted and oppressed,
From labour there shall come forth rest.

And if a more auspicious fate
On thy advancing steps await,
Still let it ever be thy pride
To linger by the labourer's side,
With words of sympathy or song
To cheer the dreary march along
Of the great army of the poor,
O'er desert sand, or dangerous moor.
Nor to thyself the task shall be
Without reward; for thou shalt learn
The wisdom early to discern

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And far in the hazy distance

Of that lovely night in June, The blaze of the flaming furnace Gleamed redder than the moon. Among the long, black rafters

The wavering shadows lay,

And the current that came from the

ocean

Seemed to lift and bear them away; As, sweeping and eddying through them,

Rose the belated tide,

And, streaming into the moonlight,

The sea-weed floated wide.

And like those waters rushing

Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o'er me
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, O, how often,

In the days that had gone by,

I had stood on that bridge of midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often, O, how often,

I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river

On its bridge with wooden piers, Like the odour of brine from the ocean Comes the thought of other years.

And I think how many thousands

Of care-encumbered men,

Each bearing his burden of sorrow, Have crossed the bridge since then.

I see the long procession

Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,

And the old subdued and slow!

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THE SEA-DIVER.

My way is on the bright blue sea,
My sleep upon the rocky tide;
And many an eye has followed me,
Where billows clasp the worn sea-side.
My plumage bears the crimson blush,
When ocean by the sun is kissed!
When fades the evening's purple flush,
My dark wing cleaves the silver mist.
Full many a fathom down beneath

The bright arch of the splendid deep,
My ear has heard the sea-shell breathe
O'er living myriads in their sleep.
They rested by the coral throne,
And by the pearly diadem,
Where the pale sea-grape had o'ergrown
The glorious dwelling made for them.

At night upon my storm-drenched wing,
I poised above a helmless bark,
And soon I saw the shattered thing

Had passed away and left no mark.
And when the wind and storm had done,
A ship that had rode out the gale,
Sunk down without a signal-gun,

And none was left to tell the tale.
I saw the pomp of day depart—
The cloud resign its golden crown,
When to the ocean's beating heart

The sailor's wasted corse went down.
Peace be to those whose graves are made
Beneath the bright and silver sea!
Peace that their relics there were laid,
With no vain pride and pageantry.

THE INDIAN HUNTER.

WHEN the summer harvest was gathered in,
And the sheaf of the gleaner grew white and thin,
And the ploughshare was in its furrow left,
Where the stubble land had been lately cleft.
An Indian hunter, with unstrung bow,

Looked down where the valley lay stretched below.

He was a stranger there, and all that day
Had been out on the hills, a perilous way,

But the foot of the deer was far and fleet,

And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter's feet,

And bitter feelings passed o'er him then,

As he stood by the populous haunts of men.

The winds of autumn came over the woods,
As the sun stole out from their solitudes;
The moss was white on the maple's trunk,
And dead from its arms the pale vine shrunk,
And ripened the mellow fruit hung, and red
Where the tree's withered leaves around it shed.
The foot of the reaper moved slow on the lawn,
And the sickle cut down the yellow corn;
The mower sung loud by the meadow side,
Where the mists of evening were spreading wide;
And the voice of the herdsman came up the lea,
And the dance went round by the greenwood tree.

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