SONG OF MARION'S MEN.

OUR band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles

When MARION's name is told.

Our fortress is the good green wood,

Our tent the cypress tree; We know the forest round us, As seamen know the sea.

We know its walls of thorny vines,

Its glades of reedy grass,

Its safe and silent islands

Within the dark morass.

Wo to the English soldiery

That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear:
When, waking to their tents on fire,
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us

Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
A mighty host behind,

And hear the tramp of thousands
Upon the hollow wind.

Then sweet the hour that brings release
From danger and from toil:

We talk the battle over,

And share the battle's spoil.

The woodland rings with laugh and shout, As if a hunt were up,

And woodland flowers are gather'd

To crown the soldier's cup.

With merry songs we mock the wind

That in the pine-top grieves, And slumber long and sweetly,

On beds of oaken leaves.

Well knows the fair and friendly moon

The band that MARION leads

The glitter of their rifles,

The scampering of their steeds.
Tis life to guide the fiery barb
Across the moonlight plain;
"Tis life to feel the night-wind

That lifts his tossing mane.

A moment in the British camp―
A moment-and away
Back to the pathless forest,
Before the peep of day.

Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs,
Their hearts are all with MARION,
For MARION are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band
With kindliest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.

For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more,
Till we have driven the Briton
Forever from our shore.

TO THE PAST.

Thou unrelenting Past!

Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, And fetters, sure and fast,

Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn,

Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom;
And glorious ages gone

Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth,

Youth, manhood, age, that draws us to the ground. And last, man's life on earth,

Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years,

Thou hast my earlier friends-the good-the kind, Yielded to thee with tears—

The venerable form-the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring

The lost ones back-yearns with desire intense, And struggles hard to wring

Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

In vain thy gates deny

All passage, save to those who hence depart;
Nor to the streaming eye

Thou givest them back-nor to the broken heart.

In thy abysses hide

Beauty and excellence unknown-to thee

Earth's wonder and her pride Are gather'd, as the waters to the sea.

Labours of good to man,

Unpublish'd charity-unbroken faith

Love, that midst grief began,

And grew with years, and falter'd not in death.

Full many a mighty name

Lurks in thy depths, unutter'd, unrevered;
With thee are silent fame,

Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappear'd.

Thine, for a space, are they—

Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last; Thy gates shall yet give way,

Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!

THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES.

Ar, this is freedom!-these pure skies
Were never stain'd with village smoke:
The fragrant wind, that through them flies,
Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.
Here, with my rifle and my steed,

And her who left the world for me,
I plant me, where the red deer feed
In the green desert-and am free.

For here the fair savannas know

No barriers in the bloomy grass;
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,
Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.
In pastures, measureless as air,

The bison is my noble game;
The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge; The bear, that marks my weapon's gleam, Hides vainly in the forest's edge; In vain the she-wolf stands at bay; The brinded catamount, that lies Hign in the boughs to watch his prey, Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane
Fling their huge arms across my way,
Gray, old, and cumber'd with a train

Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray!
Free stray the lucid streams, and find

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the fire, when frostwinds sere

The heavy herbage of the ground, Gathers his annual harvest here,

With roaring like the battle's sound,
And hurrying flames that sweep
the plain,
And smoke-streams gushing up the sky:
I meet the flames with flames again,
And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold
The boundless future in the vast
And lonely river, seaward roll'd.
Who feeds its founts with rain and dew?
Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue,
Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?

Broad are these streams-my steed obeys,
Plunges, and bears me through the tide.
Wide are these woods-I thread the maze
Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.
I hunt, till day's last glimmer dies

O'er woody vale and grassy height;
And kind the voice, and glad the eyes
That welcome my return at night.

AFTER A TEMPEST.

THE day had been a day of wind and storm;-
The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,-
And, stooping from the zenith, bright and warm
Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last.
I stood upon the upland slope, and cast
My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene,

Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast, And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green, With pleasant vales scoop'd out and villages be

tween.

The rain-drops glisten'd on the trees around,

Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirr'd, Save when a shower of diamonds to the ground Was shaken by the flight of startled bird;

For birds were warbling round, and bees were About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung [heard And gossip'd, as he hasten'd ocean-ward; To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung, And chirping from the ground the grasshopper

upsprung.

And from beneath the leaves that kept them dry Flew many a glittering insect here and there, And darted up and down the butterfly,

That seem'd a living blossom of the air. The flocks came scattering from the thicket, where The violent rain had pent them; in the way

Stroll'd groups of damsels frolicsome and fair; The farmer swung the scythe or turn'd the hay, And 'twixt the heavy swaths his children were at play.

It was a scene of peace—and, like a spell,
Did that serene and golden sunlight fall
Upon the motionless wood that clothed the fell,
And precipice upspringing like a wall,
And glassy river and white waterfall,
And happy living things that trod the bright
And beauteous scene; while far beyond them all,
On many a lovely valley, out of sight,
Was pour'd from the blue heavens the same soft,
golden light.

I look'd, and thought the quiet of the scene
An emblem of the peace that yet shall be,
When, o'er earth's continents and isles between,
The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea,
And married nations dwell in harmony;
When millions, crouching in the dust to one,

No more shall beg their lives on bended knee, Nor the black stake be dress'd, nor in the sun The o'erlabour'd captive toil, and wish his life were done.

Too long, at clash of arms amid her bowers

And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast, The fair earth, that should only blush with flowers And ruddy fruits; but not for aye can last The storm, and sweet the sunshine when 't is past. Lo, the clouds roll away-they break-they fly, And, like the glorious light of summer, cast O'er the wide landscape from the embracing sky, On all the peaceful world the smile of heaven

shall lie.

THE RIVULET.

THIS little rill that, from the springs Of yonder grove, its current brings, Plays on the slope a while, and then Goes prattling into groves again, Oft to its warbling waters drew My little feet, when life was new. When woods in early green were dress'd, And from the chambers of the west The warmer breezes, travelling out, Breathed the new scent of flowers about, My truant steps from home would stray, Upon its grassy side to play, List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn, And crop the violet on its brim, With blooming cheek and open brow, As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou.

And when the days of boyhood came, And I had grown in love with fame, Duly I sought thy banks, and tried My first rude numbers by thy side. Words cannot tell how bright and gay The scenes of life before me lay. Then glorious hopes, that now to speak Would bring the blood into my cheek, Pass'd o'er me; and I wrote, on high, A name I deem'd should never die.

Years change thee not. Upon yon hill
The tall old maples, verdant still,
Yet tell, in grandeur of decay,

How swift the years have pass'd away,
Since first, a child, and half-afraid,
I wander'd in the forest shade.
Thou, ever-joyous rivulet,
Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet;
And sporting with the sands that pave
The windings of thy silver wave,
And dancing to thy own wild chime,
Thou laughest at the lapse of time.
The same sweet sounds are in my ear
My early childhood loved to hear;
As pure thy limpid waters run,
As bright they sparkle to the sun;
As fresh and thick the bending ranks
Of herbs that line thy oozy banks;
The violet there, in soft May dew,
Comes up, as modest and as blue;
As green amid thy current's stress,
Floats the scarce-rooted water-cress;
And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen,
Still chirps as merrily as then.

Thou changest not-but I am changed,
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged;
And the grave stranger, come to see
The play-place of his infancy,
Has scarce a single trace of him
Who sported once upon thy brim.
The visions of my youth are past—
Too bright, too beautiful to last.
I've tried the world-it wears no more
The colouring of romance it wore.
Yet well has Nature kept the truth
She promised to my earliest youth:

The radiant beauty, shed abroad
On all the glorious works of Gon,
Shows freshly, to my sober'd eye,
Each charm it wore in days gone by.

A few brief years shall pass away,
And I, all trembling, weak, and gray,
Bow'd to the earth, which waits to fold
My ashes in the embracing mould,
(If haply the dark will of fate
Indulge my life so long a date,)
May come for the last time to look
Upon my childhood's favourite brook.
Then dimly on my eye shall gleam
The sparkle of thy dancing stream;
And faintly on my ear shall fall
Thy prattling current's merry call;
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright
As when thou met'st my infant sight.

And I shall sleep-and on thy side,
As ages after ages glide,

Children their early sports shall try,
And pass to hoary age, and die.
But thou, unchanged from year to year,
Gayly shalt play and glitter here;
Amid young flowers and tender grass
Thy endless infancy shalt pass;
And, singing down thy narrow glen,
Shalt mock the fading race of men.

JUNE.

I GAZED upon the glorious sky
And the green mountains round;
And thought, that when I came to lie

Within the silent ground,

"T were pleasant, that in flowery June, When brooks sent up a cheerful tune,

And groves a joyous sound, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, The rich, green mountain turf should break.

A cell within the frozen mould,

A coffin borne through sleet,
And icy clods above it roll'd,

While fierce the tempests beat-
Away! I will not think of these-
Blue be the sky and soft the breeze,
Earth green beneath the feet,
And be the damp mould gently press'd
Into my narrow place of rest.

There, through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,

And thick, young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.

The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale, close beside my cell;

The idle butterfly

Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife-bee and humming bird.

And what, if cheerful shouts, at noon,
Come, from the village sent,
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,
With fairy laughter blent?

And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothed lovers walk in sight

Of my low monument?

I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

I know, I know I should not see

The season's glorious show, Nor would its brightness shine for me, Nor its wild music flow; But if, around my place of sleep, The friends I love should come to weep, They might not haste to go. Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom Should keep them lingering by my tomb. These to their soften'd hearts should bear The thought of what has been, And speak of one who cannot share

The gladness of the scene;
Whose part, in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,

Is that his grave is green;
And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear, again, his living voice.

TO THE EVENING WIND.

SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day! Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow; Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, Riding all day the wild blue waves till now, Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,

And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee To the scorch'd land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone-a thousand bosoms round

Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And languishing to hear thy welcome sound,

Lies the vast inland, stretch'd beyond the sight. Go forth, into the gathering shade; go forth,God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth! Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The wide, old wood from his majestic rest,

Summoning, from the innumerable boughs, The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast: Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the

grass.

Stoop o'er the place of graves, and softly sway
The sighing herbage by the gleaming stone;
That they who near the churchyard willows stray,
And listen in the deepening gloom, alone,
May think of gentle souls that pass'd away,
Like thy pure breath, into the vast unknown,
Sent forth from heaven among the sons of men,
And gone into the boundless heaven again.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head

To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moisten'd curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep;

And they who stand about the sick man's bed,
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,
And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.
Go-but the circle of eternal change,

Which is the life of nature, shall restore,
With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range
Thee to thy birth-place of the deep once more
Sweet odours in the sea-air, sweet and strange,

Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore; And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

LINES ON REVISITING THE COUNTRY

I STAND upon my native hills again,
Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky,
With garniture of waving grass and grain,

Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie, While deep the sunless glens are scoop'd between, Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,
And ever restless feet of one, who, now,
Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year;
There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow,
As breaks the varied scene upon her sight,
Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light.

For I have taught her, with delighted eye,
To gaze upon the mountains, to behold,
With deep affection, the pure, ample sky,

And clouds along its blue abysses roll'd,
To love the song of waters, and to hear
The melody of winds with charmed ear.

Here, I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat,
Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air;
And where the season's milder fervours beat,

And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear The song of bird, and sound of running stream, Am come a while to wander and to dream.

Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun! thou canst not wake,

In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen. The maize leaf and the maple bough but take,

From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green. The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray, Sweeps the blue streams of pestilence away.

The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of all The wide earth knows-when, in the sultry time,

He stoops him from his vast, cerulean hall,

He seems the breath of a celestial clime; As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow, Health and refreshment on the world below.

THE OLD MAN'S COUNSEL.

AMONG our hills and valleys, I have known
Wise and grave men, who, while their diligent
hands

Tended or gather'd in the fruits of earth,
Were reverent learners in the solemn school
Of Nature. Not in vain to them were sent
Seed-time and harvest, or the vernal shower
That darken'd the brown tilth, or snow that beat
On the white winter hills. Each brought, in turn,
Some truth; some lesson on the life of man,
Or recognition of the Eternal Mind,
Who veils his glory with the elements.

One such I knew long since, a white-hair'd man,
Pithy of speech, and merry when he would;
A genial optimist, who daily drew
From what he saw his quaint moralities.
Kindly he held communion, though so old,
With me, a dreaming boy, and taught me much,
That books tell not, and I shall ne'er forget.

The sun of May was bright in middle heaven,
And steep'd the sprouting forests, the green hills,
And emerald wheat-fields, in his yellow light.
Upon the apple tree, where rosy buds
Stood cluster'd, ready to burst forth in bloom,
The robin warbled forth his full, clear note
For hours, and wearied not. Within the woods,
Whose young and half-transparent leaves scarce

cast

A shade, gay circles of anemones

Danced on their stalks; the shad-bush, white with flowers,

Brighten'd the glens; the new-leaved butternut,
And quivering poplar, to the roving breeze
Gave a balsamic fragrance. In the fields,
I saw the pulses of the gentle wind

On the young grass. My heart was touch'd with joy,

At so much beauty, flushing every hour
Into a fuller beauty; but my friend,

The thoughtful ancient, standing at my side,

Gazed on it mildly sad. I ask'd him why.

66

Well may'st thou join in gladness," he replied,

"With the glad earth, her springing plants and

flowers,

And this soft wind, the herald of the green,
Luxuriant summer. Thou art young, like them,
And well mayst thou rejoice. But while the flight
Of seasons fills and knits thy spreading frame,
It withers mine, and thins my hair, and dims
These eyes, whose fading light shall soon be
quench'd

In utter darkness. Hearest thou that bird ?"

I listen'd, and from midst the depth of woods Heard the low signal of the grouse, that wears A sable ruff around his mottled neck: Partridge they call him by our northern streams, And pheasant by the Delaware. He beat 'Gainst his barr'd sides his speckled wings, and made

A sound like distant thunder; slow the strokes

At first, then fast and faster, till at length
They pass'd into a murmur, and were still.

"There hast thou," said my friend, "a fitting type
Of human life. 'Tis an old truth, I know,
But images like these will freshen truth.
Slow pass our days in childhood, every day
Seems like a century; rapidly they glide
In manhood, and in life's decline they fly;
Till days and seasons flit before the mind
As flit the snow-flakes in a winter storm,
Seen rather than distinguish'd. Ah! I seem
As if I sat within a helpless bark,

By swiftly-running waters hurried on
To shoot some mighty cliff. Along the banks
Grove after grove, rock after frowning rock,
Bare sands, and pleasant homesteads; flowery
nooks,

And isles and whirlpools in the stream, appear
Each after each; but the devoted skiff
Darts by so swiftly, that their images
Dwell not upon the mind, or only dwell
In dim confusion; faster yet I sweep
By other banks, and the great gulf is near.

"Wisely, my son, while yet thy days are long,
And this fair change of seasons passes slow,
Gather and treasure up the good they yield-
All that they teach of virtue, of pure thoughts,
And kind affections, reverence for thy Gon,
And for thy brethren; so, when thou shalt come
Into these barren years that fleet away
Before their fruits are ripe, thou mayst not bring
A mind unfurnish'd, and a wither'd heart."

Long since that white-hair'd ancient slept-but