That talked with me and soothed me. Then the chant

Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress
Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget
The thoughts that broke my peace; and I
began

To gather simples by the fountain's brink, 15 And lose myself in day-dreams. While I stood

In Nature's loneliness, I was with one
With whom I early grew familiar, one
Who never had a frown for me, whose voice
Never rebuked me for the hours I stole
From cares I loved not, but of which the
world

20

And all was white. The pure keen air abroad,

40

Albeit it breathed no scent of herb, nor heard
Love-call of bird nor merry hum of bee,
Was not the air of death. Bright mosses
crept

Over the spotted trunks, and the close buds
That lay along the boughs, instinct with life,
Patient, and waiting with the soft breath of
Spring,

Feared not the piercing spirit of the North. 45 The snow-bird twittered on the beechen bough;

And 'neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent

Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves, The partridge found a shelter. Through the

70

My heart is awed within me when I think 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, 75 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 Molder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost 80

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 him-

self

85

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 109
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, 115
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.
United States Literary Gazette,
April 1, 1825.

1824

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 wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,

25

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 tha young friend of ours,

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

30

I cannot forget with what fervid devotion I worshiped the visions of verse and of fame;

Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and

ocean.