202

TO A WITHERED TREE IN JUNE.

Where you may freely slake your thirst,
With none to make afraid.

There's many a wandering stream that flows
From Cheviot's terraced side,
Yet not one drop of warrior's gore
Distains its crystal tide.

For Scotia from her hills hath come,
And Albion o'er the Tweed,

To give the mountain breeze the feuds
That made their noblest bleed:

And, like two friends, around whose hearts
Some dire estrangement run,

Love all the better for the past,

And sit them down as one.

SIGOURNEY

TO A WITHERED TREE IN JUNE.

DESOLATE tree, why are thy branches bare ? What hast thou done,

To win strange winter from the summer air, Frost from the sun?

Thou wert not churlish in thy palmier year
Unto the herd;

Tenderly gav'st thou shelter to the deer,
Home to the bird;

And ever, once, the earliest of the grove,

Thy smiles were gay:

Opening thy blossoms, with the haste of love, To the young May.

Then did the bees, and all the insect wings,
Around thee gleam;

Feaster and darling of the gilded things
That dwell i' the beam.

Thy liberal course, poor prodigal, is sped;
How lonely now:

How bird and bee, light parasites, have fled
The leafless bough;

Tell me, sad tree, why are thy branches bare! What hast thou done,

To win strange winter from the summer air, Frost from the sun?

"Never," replied that forest hermit lone, (Old truth and endless!)

"Never for evil done, but fortune flown, Are we left friendless.

"Yet wholly, nor for winter, nor for storm,

Doth love depart,

We are not all forsaken till the worm

Creeps to the heart!

204

THE EARLY SETTLERS.

"Ah, nought without-within thee, if decay

Can heal or hurt thee!

Nor boots it if thy heart itself betray,

Who may desert thee !"

BULWER.

THE EARLY SETTLERS.

How strange a dream it seems to me,
To me now grey and old,
To ponder over hours,-since which
Full fifty years have rolled;
But busy memory opens yet

Her thickly crowded page,
Whose characters I still can trace
Undimmed by toil or age.

More vivid far those pictures be

Than scenes more new and nigh,

For youth's warm records, they are stamped

With memory's deepest die:

Again I see that far-off land,

And hear the city's din,

And her, the gentle fair-hair'd girl,

Again in thought I win.

Our heritage was youth and love,

And hope with fairy wand,

(Ah! princes oft would change for these
Their sceptre, gold, and land,)

But time, which beauty makes or mars,
Hath silver'd her fair hair,

And dimm'd her eye, yet still I read
Affection's language there.

Where, then, primeval forests stood,
The yellow corn now bends,
And, with the nearer hum of bees,
Yon mill's harsh music blends!
Our grandchild's children prattle round,
While I muse o'er our lot,
Beneath the shadow of the tree
I planted on this spot:

The giant hills, which only heard
The wild bird's lonely shriek,

Now echo back on every side,

The language Britons speak!

There's something glorious in such thoughts

Which banishes regret,

Howe'er it chance that memory now

Forbids me to forget.

And here these aged limbs shall rest
When death's rude grasp shall come;

206

SUNSET'S FLEETING TRAIN.

The founder of a vigorous race

Needs no mausoleum!

"Twill soothe that hour to know I leave

A happy prosperous band;

My blessing rest upon the soil

That is their Father-land!

CAMILLA TOULMIN.

SUNSET'S FLEETING TRAIN.

Now to his palace in the west
The king of day returns to rest;
Not as when first he rose to sight,
Soaring through the fields of space,
Gladdening all things with the light
Of his ever beaming face;

Nor when, too bright for mortal eyes,
His noon-tide splendour filled the exulting skies;
Around his car of glittering sheen

No more the dancing hours are seen;
Of all that faithless fleeting train,
True to their sovereign none remain;
High seated on his fiery throne,
He rides triumphant, but alone.
Meantime the gorgeous car of state

Through heaven's wide champaign slopes its

downward flight: