Where shaded fountains send their streams,
With joyous music in their flow.

GOD of the dark and heavy deep!

The waves lie sleeping on the sands, Till the fierce trumpet of the storm

Hath summoned up their thundering bands;
Then the white sails are dashed like foam,
Or hurry, trembling, o'er the seas,
Till, calmed by Thee, the sinking Gale
Serenely breathes, "Depart in peace."

GOD of the forest's solemn shade!
The grandeur of the lonely tree,
That wrestles singly with the gale,

Lifts up admiring eyes to Thee;
But more majestic far they stand,

When, side by side, their ranks they form, To wave on high their plumes of green, And fight their battles with the storm.

GOD of the light and viewless air!

Where summer breezes sweetly flow, Or, gathering in their angry might,

The fierce and wintry tempests blow; All-from the Evening's plaintive sigh,

That hardly lifts the drooping flower, To the wild Whirlwind's midnight cry, Breathe forth the language of thy power.

GOD of the fair and open sky!

How gloriously above us springs The tented dome, of heavenly blue, Suspended on the rainbow's rings!

Each brilliant star, that sparkles through,
Each gilded cloud, that wanders free
In evening's purple radiance, gives
The beauty of its praise to Thee.
GOD of the rolling orbs above!

Thy name is written clearly bright
In the warm day's unvarying blaze,
Or evening's golden shower of light.
For every fire that fronts the sun,

And every spark that walks alone
Around the utmost verge of heaven,

Were kindled at thy burning throne.

GOD of the world! the hour must come,
And Nature's self to dust return;
Her crumbling altars must decay,

Her incense-fires shall cease to burn;
But still her grand and lovely scenes
Have made man's warmest praises flow;
For hearts grow holier as they trace
The beauty of the world below.

Sumner Lincoln Fairfield.

AN EVENING SONG OF PIEDMONT.

A

VE MARIA! 'tis the midnight hour,

The starlight wedding of the earth and heaven, When music breathes its perfume from the flower, And high revealings to the heart are given;

Soft o'er the meadows steals the dewy air

Like dreams of bliss; the deep-blue ether glows,
And the stream murmurs round its islets fair
The tender night-song of a charmed repose.
Ave MARIA! 'tis the hour of love,

The kiss of rapture, and the linked embrace,
The hallowed converse in the dim, still grove,
The elysium of a heart-revealing face,
When all is beautiful-for we are blest;
When all is lovely-for we are beloved;
When all is silent—for our passions rest;
When all is faithful-for our hopes are proved.

Ave MARIA! 'tis the hour of prayer,

Of hushed communion with ourselves and Heaven, When our waked hearts their inmost thoughts declare, High, pure, far-searching, like the light of even; When hope becomes fruition, and we feel

The holy earnest of eternal peace,

That bids our pride before the Omniscient kneel,
That bids our wild and warring passions cease.

Ave MARIA! Soft the vesper hymn

Floats through the cloisters of yon holy pile,
And, mid the stillness of the night-watch dim,
Attendant spirits seem to hear and smile!
Hark! hath it ceased? The vestal seeks her cell,
And reads her heart-a melancholy tale!

A song of happier years, whose echoes swell

O'er her lost love, like pale Bereavement's wail.

Ave MARIA! let our prayers ascend

From them whose holy offices afford

No joy in heaven on earth without a friend—
That true, though faded image of the LORD!
For them in vain the face of Nature glows,
For them in vain the sun in glory burns;
The hollow breast consumes in fiery woes,
And meets despair and death where'er it turns.
Ave MARIA! in the deep pine-wood,

On the clear stream, and o'er the azure sky,
Bland Midnight smiles, and starry Solitude
Breathes hope in every breeze that wanders by.
Ave MARIA! may our last hour come

As bright, as pure, as gentle, Heaven! as this!
Let Faith attend us smiling to the tomb,

And Life and Death are both the heirs of bliss!

Grenville Mellen.

ON SEEING AN EAGLE PASS NEAR ME IN AUTUMN

TWILIGHT.

AIL on, thou lone, imperial bird,

SAIL

Of quenchless eye and tireless wing;

How is thy distant coming heard,

As the night's breezes round thee ring!
Thy course was 'gainst the burning sun
In his extremest glory. How!
Is thy unequalled daring done,

Thou stoop'st to earth so lowly now?

Or hast thou left thy rocking dome,
Thy roaring crag, thy lightning pine,

To find some secret, meaner home,
Less stormy and unsafe than thine?
Else why thy dusky pinions bend
So closely to this shadowy world,
And round thy searching glances send,
As wishing thy broad pens were furled ?

Yet lonely is thy shattered nest,

Thy eyry desolate, though high;
And lonely thou, alike at rest,
Or soaring in the upper sky.

The golden light that bathes thy plumes
On thine interminable flight,
Falls cheerless on earth's desert tombs,

And makes the North's ice-mountains bright.

So come the eagle-hearted down,

So come the high and proud to earth,
When life's night-gathering tempests frown
Over their glory and their mirth :
So quails the mind's undying eye,

That bore, unveiled, Fame's noontide sun;

So man seeks solitude, to die,

His high place left, his triumphs done.

So, round the residence of Power,

A cold and joyless lustre shines,

And on life's pinnacles will lower

Clouds, dark as bathe the eagle's pines.

But, oh, the mellow light that pours

From God's pure throne—the light that saves!

It warms the spirit as it soars,

And sheds deep radiance round our graves.