FOREST RILL.

Young Naiad of the sparry grot,
Whose azure eyes before me burn,
In what sequestered lonely spot
Lies hid thy flower-enwreathed urn?
Beneath what mossy bank enshrined,
Within what ivy-mantled nook,
Sheltered alike from sun and wind,
Lies hid thy source, sweet murmuring brook?

Deep buried lies thy airy shell
Beneath thy waters clear;
Far echoing up the woodland dell
Thy wind-swept harp I hear.
I catch its soft and mellow tones
Amid the long grass gliding,
Now broken 'gainst the rugged stones,
In hoarse, deep accents chiding.

The wandering breeze that stirs the grove,
In plaintive moans replying,
To every leafy bough above
His tender tale is sighing;
Ruffled beneath his viewless wing
Thy wavelets fret and wimple,
Now forth rejoicingly they spring
In many a laughing dimple.

To nature's timid lovely queen
Thy sylvan haunts are known;
She seeks thy rushy margin green
To weave her flowery zone;
Light waving o'er thy fairy flood
In all their vernal pride,
She sees her crown of opening buds
Reflected in the tide.

On—on!—for ever brightly on!
Thy lucid waves are flowing,
Thy waters sparkle as they run,
Their long, long journey going;
Bright flashing in the noon-tide beam
O'er stone and pebble breaking,
And onward to some mightier stream
Their slender tribute taking.

Oh such is life! a slender rill,
A stream impelled by Time;
To death's dark caverns flowing still,
To seek a brighter clime.
Though blackened by the stains of earth,
And broken be its course,
From life's pure fount we trace its birth,
Eternity its source!

While floating down the tide of years,
The Christian will not mourn her lot;
There is a hand will dry her tears,
A land where sorrows are forgot.
Though in the crowded page of time
The record of her name may die,
'Tis traced in annals more sublime,
The volume of Eternity!

TO WATER LILIES.

Beautiful flowers! with your petals bright,
Ye float on the waves like spirits of light,
Wooing the zephyr that ruffles your leaves
With a gentle sigh, like a lover that grieves,
When his mistress, blushing, turns away
From his pleading voice and impassioned lay.

Beautiful flowers! the sun's westward beam,
Still lingering, plays on the crystal stream,
And ye look like some Naiad's golden shrine,
That is lighted up with a flame divine;
Or a bark in which love might safely glide,
Impelled by the breeze o'er the purple tide.

Beautiful flowers! how I love to gaze
On your glorious hues, in the noon-tide blaze,
And to see them reflected far below
In the azure waves, as they onward flow;
When the spirit who moves them sighing turns
Where his golden crown on the water burns.

Beautiful flowers! in the rosy west
The sun has sunk in his crimson vest,
And the pearly tears of the weeping night
Have spangled your petals with gems of light,
And turned to stars every wandering beam
Which the pale moon throws on the silver stream.

Beautiful flowers!—yet a little while,
And the sun on your faded buds shall smile;
And the balm-laden zephyr that o'er you sighed
Shall scatter your leaves o'er the glassy tide,
And the spirit that moved the stream shall spread
His lucid robe o'er your watery bed.

Beautiful flowers! our youth is as brief
As the short-lived date of your golden leaf.
The summer will come, and each amber urn,
Like a love-lighted torch, on the waves shall burn;
But when the first bloom of our life is o'er
No after spring can its freshness restore,
But faith can twine round the hoary head
A garland of beauty when youth is fled!

AUTUMN.

Autumn, thy rushing blast
Sweeps in wild eddies by,
Whirling the sear leaves past,
Beneath my feet, to die.
Nature her requiem sings
In many a plaintive tone,
As to the wind she flings
Sad music, all her own.

The murmur of the rill
Is hoarse and sullen now,
And the voice of joy is still
In grove and leafy bough.
There's not a single wreath,
Of all Spring's thousand flowers,
To strew her bier in death,
Or deck her faded bowers.

I hear a spirit sigh
Where the meeting pines resound,
Which tells me all must die,
As the leaf dies on the ground.
The brightest hopes we cherish,
Which own a mortal trust,
But bloom awhile to perish
And moulder in the dust.

Sweep on, thou rushing wind,
Thou art music to mine ear,
Awakening in my mind
A voice I love to hear.
The branches o'er my head
Send forth a tender moan;
Like the wail above the dead
Is that sad and solemn tone.

Though all things perish here,
The spirit cannot die,
It owns a brighter sphere,
A home in yon fair sky.
The soul will flee away,
And when the silent clod
Enfolds my mouldering clay,
Shall live again with God;

Where Autumn's chilly blast
Shall never strip the bowers,
Or icy Winter cast
A blight upon the flowers;
But Spring, in all her bloom,
For ever flourish there,
And the children of the tomb
Forget this world of care.—

The children who have passed
Death's tideless ocean o'er,
And Hope's blest anchor cast
On that bright eternal shore;
Who sought, through Him who bled
Their erring race to save,
A Sun, whose beams shall shed
A light upon the grave!

THE REAPERS' SONG.

The harvest is nodding on valley and plain,
To the scythe and the sickle its treasures must yield;
Through sunshine and shower we have tended the grain;
'Tis ripe to our hand!—to the field—to the field!
If the sun on our labours too warmly should smile,
Why a horn of good ale shall the long hours beguile.
Then, a largess! a largess!—kind stranger, we pray,
We have toiled through the heat of the long summer day!

With his garland of poppies red August is here,
And the forest is losing its first tender green;
Pale Autumn will reap the last fruits of the year,
And Winter's white mantle will cover the scene.
To the field!—to the field! whilst the Summer is ours
We will reap her ripe corn—we will cull her bright flowers.
Then, a largess! a largess! kind stranger, we pray,
For your sake we have toiled through the long summer day.

Ere the first blush of morning is red in the skies,
Ere the lark plumes his wing, or the dew drops are dry,
Ere the sun walks abroad, must the harvestman rise,
With stout heart, unwearied, the sickle to ply:
He exults in his strength, when the ale-horn is crown'd,
And the reapers' glad shouts swell the echoes around.
Then, a largess! a largess!—kind stranger, we pray,
For your sake we have toiled through the long summer day!

WINTER.

Majestic King of storms! around
Thy wan and hoary brow
A spotless diadem is bound
Of everlasting snow:
Time, which dissolves all earthly things,
O'er thee hath vainly waved his wings!

The sun, with his refulgent beams,
Thaws not thy icy zone;
Lord of ten thousand frozen streams,
That sleep around thy throne,
Whose crystal barriers may defy
The genial warmth of summer's sky.

What human foot shall dare intrude
Beyond the howling waste,
Or view the untrodden solitude,
Where thy dark home is placed;
In those far realms of death where light
Shrieks from thy glance and all is night?

The earth has felt thine iron tread,
The streams have ceased to flow,
The leaves beneath thy feet lie dead,
And keen the north winds blow:
Nature lies in her winding sheet
Of dazzling snow, and blinding sleet.

Thy voice has chained the troubled deep;
Within thy mighty hand,
The restless world of waters sleep
On Greenland's barren strand.
Thy stormy heralds, loud and shrill,
Have bid the foaming waves lie still.

Where lately many a gallant prow
Spurned back the whitening spray,
An icy desert glitters now,
Beneath the moon's wan ray:
Full many a fathom deep below
The dark imprisoned waters flow.

How gloriously above thee gleam
The planetary train,
And the pale moon with clearer beam
Chequers the frost-bound plain;
The sparkling diadem of night
Circles thy brow with tenfold light.

I love thee not—yet when I raise
To heaven my wondering eyes,
I feel transported at the blaze
Of beauty in the skies,
And laud the power that, e'en to thee,
Hath given such pomp and majesty!

I turn and shrink before the blast
That sweeps the leafless tree,
Careering on the tempest past,
Thy snowy wreath I see;
But Spring will come in beauty forth
And chase thee to the frozen north!

FANCY AND THE POET.

POET.

Enchanting spirit! at thy votive shrine
I lowly bend one simple wreath to twine;
O come from thy ideal world and fling
Thy airy fingers o'er my rugged string;
Sweep the dark chords of thought and give to earth
The wild sweet song that tells thy heavenly birth—

FANCY.

Happiness, when from earth she fled,
I passed on her heaven-ward flight,—
"Take this wreath," the spirit said,
"And bathe it in floods of light;
To the sons of sorrow this token give,
And bid them follow my steps and live!"

I took the wreath from her radiant hand,
Each flower was a silver star;
I turned this dark earth to a fairy land,
When I hither drove my car;
But I wove the wreath round my tresses bright,
And man only saw its reflected light.

Many a lovely dream I've given,
And many a song divine,
But never—oh never!—that wreath from heaven
Shall mortal temples twine.
Hope and love in the chaplet glow:
'Tis all too bright for a world of woe!

POET.

Hist—Beautiful spirit! why silent so soon?
My soul drinks each word of thy magical tune;
My lyre owns thy touch, and its tremulous strings
Still vibrate beneath the soft play of thy wings!
Resume thy sweet lay, and reveal, ere we part,
Thy home, lovely spirit,—and say what thou art.

FANCY.

The gleam of a star which thou canst not see,
Or an eye 'neath its sleeping lid,
The tune of a far off melody,
The voice of a stream that's hid;
Such must I still remain to thee,
A wonder and a mystery.

I live in the poet's dream,
I flash on the painter's eye,
I dwell in the moon's pale beam,
In the depths of the star-lit sky;
I traverse the earth, the air, the main,
And bind young hearts in my golden chain.