There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
The cottage homes of England!
By thousands on her plains
They are smiling o'er the silv'ry brook,
And round the hamlet fanes ;
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.
The free fair homes of England!
Long, long in hut and hall
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall.
And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flow'ry sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God.
NDER the green hedges after the snow,
There do the dear little violets grow,
Hiding their modest and beautiful heads
Under the hawthorn or soft mossy beds.
Sweet as the roses and blue as the sky,
Down there do the dear little violets lie,
Hiding their heads where they scarce may be seen,
By the leaves you may know where the violet hath
HE lovely young Lavinia once had friends,
And fortune smiled deceitful, on her birth ;
For, in her helpless years, depriv'd of all,
Of every stay, save innocence and Heaven,
She, with her widowed mother, feeble, old,
And poor, lived in a cottage, far retired
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty, concealed.
Together thus they shunned the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion, and low-minded pride;
Almost on nature's common bounty fed,
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,
Content and careless of to-morrow's fate.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose,
When the dew wets its leaves: unstained and pure
As is the lily, or the mountain snow :
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers:
Or when the mournful tale her mother told,
Of what her faithless fortune promis'd once,
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star
Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace
Sat fair proportion'd on her polished limbs,
Veiled in a simple robe; their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorned, adorned the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close embowering woods.
As in the hollow breast of Apennine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild;
So flourished, blooming, and unseen by all,
The young Lavinia.
AIR daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early rising sun
Has not attained her noon :
Stay stay,
Until the hastening day
Has run
But to the evening song;
And having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you;
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you or anything.
As your hours do, and dry
Like to the summer's rain,
Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
MAIDENHOOD.
AIDEN, with the meek brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies,
Like the dusk in evening skies!
Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!
Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet !
Gazing with a timid glance
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse !
Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.
Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?
Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?
Hear'st thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more
Deafened by the cataract's roar ?
Oh, thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands-life hath snares
Care and age come unawares !
Like the swell of some sweet tune,
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.
Childhood is the bough, where slumbered
Birds and blossoms many numbered;
Age, that bough with snows encumbered.
Gather, then, each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.
Bear a lily in thy hand;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.
Oh, that dew! like balm, shall steal
Into wounds that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal.
'TIS THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER.
IS the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!
I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
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