Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue-blue- as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean° wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.

SONG OF MARION'S MEN

OUR band is few but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;

The British soldier trembles

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When Marion's name is told. Our fortress is the good greenwood,

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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.

Woe 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,

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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 gathered

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

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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.

THE CROWDED STREET

LET me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face;

Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.

They pass - to toil, to strife, to rest;
To halls in which the feast is spread;
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.

And some to happy homes repair,

Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,

With mute caresses shall declare

The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its light, is seen no more.

Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
And dreams of greatness in thine eye!
Go'st thou to build an early name,
Or early in the task to die?

Keen son of trade, with eager brow!
Who is now fluttering in thy snare?
Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,
Ör melt the glittering spires in air?

Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
The dance till daylight gleam again?
Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?
Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?

Some, famine-struck, shall think how long
The cold dark hours, how slow the light;
And some, who flaunt amid the throng,

Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.

Each, where his tasks or pleasures call,
They pass, and heed each other not.
There is who heeds, who holds them all,

In His large love and boundless thought.

These struggling tides of life that seem
In wayward, aimless course to tend,
Are eddies of the mighty stream
That rolls to its appointed end.°

THE SNOW-SHOWER°

STAND here by my side and turn, I pray,
On the lake below thy gentle eyes;
The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray,
And dark and silent the water lies;
And out of that frozen mist the snow
In wavering flakes begins to flow;
Flake after flake

They sink in the dark and silent lake.

See how in a living swarm they come

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From the chambers beyond that misty veil; 10 Some hover awhile in air, and some

Rush prone° from the sky like summer hail.

All, dropping swiftly or settling slow,

Meet, and are still in the depths below;

Flake after flake

Dissolved in the dark and silent lake.

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Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud,
Come floating downward in airy play,

Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd
That whiten by night the milky way°;

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