THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN NEW ENGLAND.

"Look now abroad! Another race has filled

Those populous borders-wide the wood recedes, And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are tilled; The land is full of harvest and green meads."

THE breaking waves dashed high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark

The hills and waters o'er,

BRYANT.

When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear ;—

They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard and the sea;

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white wave's foam; And the rocking pines of the forest roared— This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band;—
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?—
Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—
They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trode.

They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God.

THE SPIRIT'S MYSTERIES.

"And slight, withal, may be the things which bring Back on the heart the weight which it would fling Aside for ever ;-it may be a sound

A tone of music-summer's breath, or spring

A flower-a leaf-the ocean-which may wound-
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound."
Childe Harold.

THE power that dwelleth in sweet sounds to waken
Vague yearnings, like the sailor's for the shore,
And dim remembrances, whose hue seems taken

From some bright former state, our own no more;
Is not this all a mystery? Who shall say

Whence are those thoughts, and whither tends their way?

The sudden images of vanished things

That o'er the spirit flash, we know not why;
Tones from some broken harp's deserted strings,
Warm sunset hues of summers long gone by;
A rippling wave-the dashing of an oar-
A flower-scent floating past our parents' door;

A word-scarce noted in its hour perchance,
Yet back returning with a plaintive tone;
A smile-a sunny or a mournful glance,

Full of sweet meanings now from this world flown;
Are not these mysteries when to life they start,
And press vain tears in gushes from the heart?

And the far wanderings of the soul in dreams,
Calling up shrouded faces from the dead,
And with them bringing soft or solemn gleams,
Familiar objects brightly to o'erspread;
And wakening buried love, or joy, or fear-

These are night's mysteries-who shall make them clear?

And the strange inborn sense of coming ill,
That ofttimes whispers to the haunted breast,
In a low tone which nought can drown or still,
'Midst feasts and melodies a secret guest;
Whence doth that murmur wake, that shadow fall?
Why shakes the spirit thus? 'Tis mystery all!

Darkly we move-we press upon the brink
Haply of viewless worlds, and know it not;
Yes! it may be, that nearer than we think

Are those whom death has parted from our lot!

Fearfully, wondrously, our souls are made-
Let us walk humbly on, but undismayed!

Humbly-for knowledge strives in vain to feel
Her way amidst these marvels of the mind;
Yet undismayed-for do they not reveal

The immortal being with our dust entwined?
So let us deem! and e'en the tears they wake
Shall then be blest, for that high nature's sake.

THE DEPARTED.

"Thou shalt lie down

With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise-the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre."

AND shrink ye from the way

To the spirit's distant shore?—

Earth's mightiest men, in armed array,

Are thither gone before.

The warrior-kings, whose banner

Flew far as eagles fly,

BRYANT.

They are gone where swords avail them not,

From the feast of victory.

And the seers who sat of yore

By Orient palm or wave,

They have passed with all their starry lore

Can ye still fear the grave?

We fear! we fear! the sunshine

Is joyous to behold,

And we reck not of the buried kings,

Nor the awful seers of old.

Ye shrink! the bards whose lays

Have made your deep hearts burn,

They have left the sun, and the voice of praise,
For the land whence none return.

And the beautiful, whose record

Is the verse that cannot die,

They too are gone, with their glorious bloom,
From the love of human eye.

Would ye not join that throng

Of the earth's departed flowers,
And the masters of the mighty song
In their far and fadeless bowers?

Those songs are high and holy,

But they vanquish not our fear:

Not from our path these flowers are gone-
We fain would linger here!

Linger then yet awhile,

As the last leaves upon the bough!—
Ye have loved the light of many a smile
That is taken from you now.

There have been sweet singing voices

In your walks, that now are still;

There are seats left void in your earthly homes,
Which none again may fill.

Soft eyes are seen no more,

That made spring-time in your heart,

Kindred and friends are gone before-
And ye still fear to part?

We fear not now, we fear not!

Though the way through darkness bends ;
Our souls are strong to follow them,
Our own familiar friends!

THE PALM TREE.1

IT waved not through an eastern sky,
Beside a fount of Araby;

It was not fanned by southern breeze
In some green isle of Indian seas;
Nor did its graceful shadow sleep
O'er stream of Afric, lone and deep.

But fair the exiled palm-tree grew
'Midst foliage of no kindred hue;
Through the laburnum's dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of orient mould,
And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,

Purpled the moss-beds at its feet.

Strange looked it there' The willow streamed
Where silvery waters near it gleamed.

The lime-bough lured the honey-bee

To murmur by the desert's tree,

And showers of snowy roses made

A lustre in its fan-like shade.

There came an eve of festal hours

Rich music filled that garden's bowers;
Lamps, that from flowering branches hung,
On sparks of dew soft colour flung;

1 This incident is, I think, recorded by De Lille, in his poem of Les Jardins.

And bright forms glanced-a fairy show-
Under the blossoms to and fro.

But one, a lone one, midst the throng,
Seemed reckless all of dance or song:
He was a youth of dusky mien,
Whereon the Indian sun had been,
Of crested brow and long black hair-
A stranger, like the palm-tree, there.

And slowly, sadly, moved his plumes,
Glittering athwart the leafy glooms.
He passed the pale-green olives by,
Nor won the chestnut flowers his eye;
But when to that sole palm he came,
Then shot a rapture through his frame !

To him, to him its rustling spoke-
The silence of his soul it broke !
It whispered of his own bright isle,
That lit the ocean with a smile;
Ay, to his ear that native tone

Had something of the sea-wave's moan!

His mother's cabin-home, that lay
Where feathery cocoas fringed the bay;
The dashing of his brethren's oar-
The conch-note heard along the shore;
All through his wakening bosom swept--
He clasped his country's tree, and wept!

Oh! scorn him not! The strength whereby
The patriot girds himself to die,

The unconquerable power which fills

The freeman battling on his hills,

These have one fountain deep and clear

The same whence gushed that childlike tear!

THE CHILD'S LAST SLEEP.

SUGGESTED BY A MONUMENT OF CHANTREY'S.

THOU sleepest-but when wilt thou wake, fair child? When the fawn awakes in the forest wild?

When the lark's wing mounts with the breeze of morn?
When the first rich breath of the rose is born?-

Lovely thou sleepest! yet something lies
Too deep and still on thy soft-sealed eyes;
Mournful, though sweet, is thy rest to see-
When will the hour of thy rising be?

Not when the fawn wakes-not when the lark
On the crimson cloud of the morn floats dark.