Of the great miracle that still goes on
In silence, round me- —the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished yet renewed

Forever.

Written on thy works, I read

The lesson of thy own eternity.

Lo! all grow old and die—but see, again,
How on the faltering footsteps of Decay
Youth presses-ever gay and beautiful Youth,
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost
One of Earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,

And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch-enemy, Death-yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's throne-the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe

Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.
There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave

Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them;-and there have been holy men
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.

But let me often to these solitudes

Retire, and in thy presence reassure

My feeble virtue.

Here its enemies,

The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink,

And tremble and are still. O God! when Thou

Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,
With all the waters of the firmament,

The swift, dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great Deep and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Its cities-who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad, unchained elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate
In these calm shades thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.

THE

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

HE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown

and sere.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie

dead;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs

the jay,

And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers

Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of

ours.

The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer

glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty

stood

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the

plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter

home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The South Wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance

late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wo 1 and by the stream no

more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of

ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.

FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream,

A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap

With which the Roman master crowned his slave
When he took off the gyves.
A bearded man,

Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailèd hand

Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred

With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs

Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;

They could not quench the life thou hast from Heaven.
Merciless Power has dug thy dungeon deep,

And his swart armourers, by a thousand fires,

Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound, The links are shivered, and the prison-walls

Fall outward terribly thou springest forth,

:

As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.

Thy birthright was not given by human hands:
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,
While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him,
To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes; and thou with him didst draw
The earliest furrow on the mountain-side,
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself,
Thy enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye,
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.

Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years,
But he shall fade into a feebler age;

Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares,
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap
His withered hands, and from their ambush call
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send
Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms,
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words
To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth,
Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread,
That grow to fetters; or bind down thy arms

With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh! not yet
Mayst thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by
Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids
In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps,
And thou must watch and combat till the day
Of the new earth and heaven.