POVERTY AND KNOWLEDGE.

Ан, dearest, we are young and strong,
With ready heart and ready will
To tread the world's bright paths along ;
But poverty is stronger still.

Yet, my dear wife, there is a might
That may bid poverty defiance,
The might of knowledge; from this night
Let us on her put our reliance.

Armed with her sceptre, to an hour

We may condense whole years and ages ;

Bid the departed, by her power,

Arise, and talk with seers and sages.

Her word, to teach us, may bid stop
The noonday sun; yea, she is able
To make an ocean of a drop,

Or spread a kingdom on our table.

In her great name we need but call

Scott, Schiller, Shakspeare, and, behold!

The suffering Mary smiles on all,

And Falstaff riots as of old.

Then, wherefore should we leave this hearth,
Our books, and all our pleasant labors,
If we can have the whole round earth,
And still retain our home and neighbours ?

Why wish to roam in other lands?

Or mourn that poverty hath bound us? We have our hearts, our heads, our hands, Enough to live on, friends around us,

And, more than all, have hope and love.
Ah, dearest, while those last, be sure
That, if there be a God above,

We are not and cannot be poor!

HOME.

No, it is not a poet's dream,

It does not live in thought alone; For here, by Housatonic's stream, Home, as she wrote of it, is known.

Here, where round every rock and peak Clings some tradition dim and hoary, And every valley seems to speak

Of the lost Indian's pride and glory;

Where the pure mists long linger nigh,
Like guardian Naiads to the rills,
And the vast shades flit silently,
As giant spectres, o'er the hills;

Where neither slaves nor nobles bend,
But all in love aid one another;
Where every stranger is a friend,

And every honest man a brother;

Where all gives proof of woman's power, The might of nature, not of art;

And day by day, and hour by hour
Heart clingeth closer still to heart ;

Here is a home, a HOME in truth,
One that can chase away the ills
Of age, and lend new joy to youth,—
A holy home among the hills.

Here may we see a stronger bond
Than interest, ambition, pelf,
Which, reaching to the world beyond,
Still makes a world within itself.

For though to few the power is given.
To guide, to govern, or to move,
Yet unto each all-bounteous Heaven
Holds out the God-like power to love.

Long may that flame within us burn,

As here each bounding heart it fills, Although we never should return

To this sweet home among the hills.

Stockbridge, August, 1836.

THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

It was a mother and her child ;
She hushed him with a lullaby,
And as she sung he smiled.
Her hair lay carelessly and wild
Upon a sun-burnt brow ;

But there was beauty in her eye,

It lives, it burns before me now,

That might all time and change defy ;-
Such beauty is not born to die.