Blue seas that roll on gorgeous coasts renown'd,
By night shall sparkle where thy prow makes way,
Strange creatures of the abyss that none may sound
In thy broad wake shall play.

From hills unknown, in mingled joy and fear,
Free dusky tribes shall pour, thy flag to mark ;-
Blessings go with thee on thy lone career!
Hail, and farewell, thou bark!

A long farewell!-Thou wilt not bring us back
All whom thou bearest far from home and hearth!
Many are thine, whose steps no more shall track
Their own sweet native earth!

Some wilt thou leave beneath the plantain's shade,
Where through the foliage Indian suns look bright;
Some in the snows of wintry regions laid,

By the cold northern light.

And some, far down below the sounding wave,

Still shall they lie, though tempests o'er them sweep.
Never may flower be strewn above their grave,
Never may sister weep!

And thou-the billow's queen-even thy proud form
On our glad sight no more perchance may swell;
Yet God alike is in the calm and storm-
Fare-thee-well, bark! farewell!

THE LAST TREE OF THE FOREST.

WHISPER, thou Tree, thou lonely Tree,
One, where a thousand stood!

Well might proud tales be told by thee,
Last of the solemn wood!

Dwells there no voice amidst thy boughs,
With leaves yet darkly green?
Stillness is round, and noontide glows
Tell us what thou hast seen.

"I have seen the forest shadows lie
Where men now reap the corn;
I have seen the kingly chase rush by,
Through the deep glades at morn.

* With the glance of many a gallant spear,
And the wave of many a plume,

And the bounding of a hundred deer,

It hath lit the woodland's gloom.

"I have seen the knight and his train ride past,
With his banner borne on high;

O'er all my leaves there was brightness cast
From his gleaming panoply.

THE STREAMS.

"The pilgrim at my feet hath laid
His palm branch 'midst the flowers,
And told his beads, and meekly pray'd,
Kneeling, at vesper-hours.

"And the merry-men of wild and glen,
In the green array they wore,

Have feasted here, with the red wine's cheer,
And the hunter's song of yore.

"And the minstrel, resting in my shade,
Hath made the forest ring

With the lordly tales of the high Crusade,
Once loved by chief and king.

"But now the noble forms are gone
That walk'd the earth of old;
The soft wind hath a mournful tone,
The sunny light looks cold.
"There is no glory left us now,
Like the glory with the dead:-
I would that where they slumber low
My latest leaves were shed!"

Oh! thou dark Tree, thou lonely Tree,
That mournest for the past!
A peasant's home in thy shades I see,
Embower'd from every blast.

A lovely and a mirthful sound

Of laughter meets mine ear;

For the poor man's children sport around
On the turf, with nought to fear.

And roses lend that cabin's wall
A happy summer glow :

And the open door stands free to all,
For it recks not of a foe.

And the village bells are on the breeze

That stirs thy leaf, dark Tree!

How can I mourn, 'midst things like these,
For the stormy past, with thee?

THE STREAMS.

The power, the beauty, and the majesty,

That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,

Or chasms and watery depths; all those have vanish'd!
They live no longer in the faith of heaven,
But still the heart doth need a language!"

251

COLERIDGE'S Wallenstein

YE have been holy, O founts and floods!
Ye of the ancient and solemn woods,

Ye that are born of the valleys d ́ep,

With the water-flowers on your breast asleep,
And ye that gush from the souding caves-
Hallow'd have been your waves.

Hallow'd by man, in his dreams of old
Unto beings not of this mortal mould
Viewless, and deathless, and wondrous powers
Whose voice be heard in his lonely hours,
And sought with its fancied sound to still
The heart earth could not fill.

Therefore the flowers of bright summers gone,
O'er your sweet waters, ye streams! were thrown;
Thousand of gifts to the sunny sea

Have ye swept along, in your wanderings free,
And thrill'd to the murmur of many a vow-
Where all is silent now!

Nor seems it strange that the heart hath been
So link'd in love to your margins green;
That still, though ruin'd, your early shrines
In beauty gleam through the southern vines,
And the ivied chapels of colder skies,

On your wild banks arise.

For the loveliest scenes of the glowing earth,

Are those bright streams! where your springs have birth, Whether their cavern'd murmur fills,

With a tone of plaint, the hollow hills,

Or the glad sweet laugh of their healthful flow
Is heard 'midst the hamlets low.

Or whether, ye gladden the desert sands

With a joyous music to pilgrim bands,

And a flash from under some ancient rock,

Where a shepherd-king might have watch'd his flock,
Where a few lone palm-trees lift their heads,
And a green Acacia spreads.

Or whether, in bright old lands renown'd,
The laurels thrill to your first-born sound,
And the shadow, flung from the Grecian pine,
weeps with the breeze o'er your gleaming line,
And the tall reeds whisper to your waves,
Beside heroic graves.

Voices and lights of the lonely place!
By the freshest fern your path we trice:
By the brightest cups on the emerald moss,
Whose fairy goblets the turf emboss,
By the rainbow_glancing of insect wings,
In a thousand mazy rings.

There sucks the bee, for the richest flowers
Are all your own through the summer hours;

THE VOICE OF THE WIND.

There the proud stag his fair image knows,
Traced on your glass beneath alder-boughs,
And the Halcyon's breast, like the skies array'd,
Gleams through the willow-shade.

But the wild sweet tales, that with elves and fays
Peopled your banks in the olden days,
And the memory left by departed love,
To your antique founts in glen and grove,
And the glory born of the poet's dreams-

These are your charms, bright streams'

Now is the time of your flowery rites,
Gone by with its dances and young delights:
From your marble urns ye have burst away,
From your chapel-cells to the laughing day;
Low lie your altars with moss o'ergrown,

And the woods again are lone.

Yet holy still be your living springs,
Haunts of all gentle and gladsome things!

Holy, to converse with nature's lore,

That gives the worn spirit its youth once more,
And to silent thoughts of the love divine,
Making the heart a shrine!

THE VOICE OF THE WIND.

253

"There is nothing in the wide world so like the voice of a spirit." Gray's Letters.

OH! many a voice is thine, thou Wind! full many a voice is thine,

[sign From every scene thy wing o'ersweeps thou bear'st a sound and A minstrel wild and strong thou art, with a mastery all thine [tone. And the spirit is thy harp, O Wind! that gives the answering

own,

Thou hast been across red fields of war, where shiver'd helmets lie, [sky; And thou bringest thence the thrilling note of a clarion in the A rustling of proud banner-folds, a peal of stormy drums,— All these are in thy music met, as when a leader comes.

Thou hast been o'er solitary seas,

back

and from their wastes brought

Each noise of waters that awoke in the mystery of thy trackThe chime of low soft southern waves on some green palmy

shore,

The hollow roll of distant surge, the gather'd billows' roar.

Thou art come from forests dark and deep, thou mighty rushing Wind!

And thou bearest all their unisons in one full swell combined; VOL. II.-22

The restless pines, the moaning stream, all hidden things and

free,

Of the dim old sounding wilderness, have lent their soul to thee.

Thou art come from cities lighted up for the conqueror passing
by,
Thou art wafting from their streets a sound of haughty revelry;
The rolling of triumphant wheels, the harpings in the hall
The far-off shout of multitudes, are in thy rise and fall.

Thou art come from kingly tombs and shrines, from ancient
minsters vast,
[hath pass'd;
Through the dark aisles of a thousand years thy lonely wing
Thou hast caught the anthem's billowy swell, the stately dirge's
[slumber gone.

tone, For a chief, with sword, and shield, and helm, to his place of

Thou art come from long-forsaken homes, wherein our young days flew, [kind, the true; Thou hast found sweet voices lingering there, the loved, the Thou callest back those melodies, though now all changed and

fled

Be still, be still, and haunt us not with music from the dead!

Are all these notes in thee, wild wind? these many notes in

thee?

Far in our own unfathom'd souls their fount must surely be; Yes! buried, but unsleeping, there thought watches, memory lies, [harmonies. From whose deep urn the tones are pour'd through all earth's

THE VIGIL OF ARMS.*

A SOUNDING step was heard by night
In a church where the mighty slept,
As a mail-clad youth, till morning's light,
'Midst the tombs his vigil kept.

He walk'd in dreams of power and fame,

He lifted a proud, bright eye,

For the hours were few that withheld his name

From the roll of chivalry.

Down the moonlit aisles he paced alone,

With a free and stately tread;

And the floor gave back a muffled tone

From the couches of the dead:

*The candidate for knighthood was under the necessity of keeping watch, the night before his inauguration, in a church, and com. pletely armed. This was called "the Vigil of Arms."