Or seemed to sigh, as oft their winged haste
Compelled their feet to roam.

lived

Thou may'st have

Beneath the light of later days, when man

With feet free-roving as the homeless wind,

Scaled the thick-mantled height, coursed plains unshorn,

Breaking the solitude of nature's haunt

With voice that seemed to blend, in one sweet strain,
The mingled music of the elements.

And when against his infant frame they rose,
Uncurbed, unawed by his yet feeble hand,
And when the muttering storm, and shouting wave,
And rattling thunder, mated, round him raged,
And seemed at times like dæmon foes to gird,
Thou may'st have won with gentle look his heart,
And stirred the first warm prayer of gratitude,
And been his first, his simplest altar-gift.
For thee, dark flower! the kindling sun can bring
No more the colors that it gave, nor morn,
With kindly kiss, restore thy breathing sweets:
Yet may the mind's mysterious touch recall
The bloom and fragrance of thy early prime:
For HE who to the lowly lily gave

A glory richer than to proudest king,
He painted not those darkly-shining leaves,
With blushes like the dawn, in vain; nor gave
To thee its sweetly-scented breath, to waste

Upon the barren air. E'en though thou stood.
Alone in nature's forest-home untrod,

The first-love of the stars and sighing winds,
The mineral holds with faithful trust thy form,
To wake in human hearts sweet thoughts of love,
Now the dark past hangs round thy memory.

TO THE CANARY BIRD.

I CANNOT hear thy voice with others' ears,
Who make of thy lost liberty a gain;
And in thy tale of blighted hopes and fears
Feel not that every note is born with pain.
Alas! that with thy music's gentle swell

Past days of joy should through thy memory
throng,

And each to thee their words of sorrow tell,
While ravished sense forgets thee in thy song.
The heart that on the past and future feeds,
And pours in human words its thoughts divine,
Though at each birth the spirit inly bleeds,
Its song may charm the listening ear like thine,
And men with gilded cage and praise will try
To make the bard like thee forget his native sky.

NATURE.

NATURE! my love for thee is deeper far
Than strength of words though spirit-born can tell;
For while I gaze they seem my soul to bar,
That in thy widening streams would onward swell
Bearing thy mirrored beauty on its breast,—
Now, through thy lonely haunts unseen to glide,
A motion that scarce knows itself from rest,
With pictured flowers and branches on its tide;
Then, by the noisy city's frowning wall,
Whose armed heights within its waters gleam,
To rush with answering voice to ocean's call,
And mingle with the deep its swollen stream,
Whose boundless bosom's calm alone can hold,
That heaven of glory in thy skies unrolled.

THE TREE.

I LOVE thee when thy swelling buds appear
And one by one their tender leaves unfold,
As if they knew that warmer suns were near,
Nor longer sought to hide from winter's cold;
And when with darker growth thy leaves are seen
To veil from view the early robin's nest,
I love to lie beneath thy waving skreen
With limbs by summer's heat and toil opprest;
And when the autumn winds have stript thee bare,
And round thee lies the smooth untrodden snow,
When nought is thine that made thee once so fair,
I love to watch thy shadowy form below,

And through thy leafless arms to look above

On stars that brighter beam when most we need their love.