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TO THE MOUNTAIN WINDS.

"There may not long be fetters,

Where the white Alps have their towers;
Unto eagle-homes, if the arrow comes,
The chain is not for ours!"

It is she! She is come like a dayspring beam, She that so mournfully shadow'd his dream! With her shining eyes and her buoyant form, She is come! her tears on his cheek are warm; And O! the thrill in that weeping voice!

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My brother, my brother! come forth, rejoice!"

-Poet! the land of thy love is free,
-Sister! thy brother is won by thee!

TO THE MOUNTAIN WINDS.

"How divine

The liberty, for frail, for mortal man,
To roam at large among unpeopled glens,
And mountainous retirements, only trod
By devious footsteps! - Regions consecrate
To oldest time! And reckless of the storm
That keeps the raven quiet in his nest,
Be as a presence or a motion-One
Among the many there."

WORDSWORTH.

MOUNTAIN Winds! oh! whither do ye call me?
Vainly, vainly would my steps pursue!
Chains of care to lower earth enthral me,
Wherefore thus my weary spirit woo?

Oh! the strife of this divided being!

Is there peace where ye are borne on high?
Could we soar to your proud eyries fleeing,
In our hearts would haunting memories die?
Those wild places are not as a dwelling
Whence the footsteps of the loved are gone!
Never from those rocky halls came swelling
Voice of kindness in familiar tone!

Surely music of oblivion sweepeth

In the pathway of your wanderings free;
And the torrent, wildly as it leapeth,
Sings of no lost home amidst its glee.

There the rushing of the falcon's pinion
Is not from some hidden pang to fly;
All things breathe of power and stern dominion-
Not of hearts that in vain yearnings die.

Mountain winds! oh! is it, is it only

Where man's trace hath been that so we pine? Bear me up, to grow in thought less lonely, Even at nature's deepest, loneliest shrine!

Wild, and mighty, and mysterious singers!

At whose tone my heart within me burns;
Bear me where the last red sunbeam lingers,
Where the waters have their secret urns!

There to commune with a loftier spirit
Than the troubling shadows of regret;
There the wings of freedom to inherit,

Where the enduring and the wing'd are met.

THE PROCESSION.

Hush, proud voices, gentle be your falling!

Woman's lot thus chainless may not be;

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Hush! the heart your trumpet sounds are calling, Darkly still may grow-but never free!

THE PROCESSION.

"The peace which passeth all understanding,' disclosed itself in her looks and movements. It lay on her countenance like a steady unshadowed moonlight." COLERIDGE.

THERE were trampling sounds of many feet,
And music rush'd through the crowded street;
Proud music, such as tells the sky

Of a chief return'd from victory.

There were banners to the winds unroll'd,
With haughty words on each blazon'd fold;
High battle-names, which had rung of yore,
When lances clash'd on the Syrian shore.

Borne from their dwellings, green and lone,
There were flowers of the woods on the pathway

strown;

And wheels that crush'd as they swept along

Oh! what doth the violet amidst the throng?

I saw where a bright procession pass'd
The gates of a minster old and vast;

And a king to his crowning place was led,
Through a sculptured line of the warrior dead.
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I saw, far gleaming, the long array

Of trophies, on those high tombs that lay,
And the colour'd light, that wrapp'd them all,
Rich, deep, and sad, as a royal pall.

But a lowlier grave soon won mine eye
Away from th' ancestral pageantry:
A grave by the lordly minster's gate
Unhonour'd, and yet not desolate.

It was but a dewy greensward bed,
Meet for the rest of a peasant head;
But Love-oh! lovelier than all beside !-
That lone place guarded and glorified.

For a gentle form stood watching there,
Young-but how sorrowfully fair!
Keeping the flowers of the holy spot,
That reckless feet might profane them not.

Clear, pale and clear, was the tender cheek,
And her eye, though tearful, serenely meek;
And I deem'd, by its lifted gaze of love,

That her sad heart's treasure was all above.

For alone she seem'd 'midst the throng to be,
Like a bird of the waves far away at sea;
Alone, in a mourner's vest array'd,
And with folded hands, e'en as if she pray'd.

It faded before me, that masque of pride,
The haughty swell of the music died;
Banner, and armour, and tossing plume,
All melted away in the twilight's gloom.

THE BROKEN LUTE.

But that orphan form, with its willowy grace,

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And the speaking prayer in that pale, calm face, Still, still o'er my thoughts in the night-hour glide

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'Midst forms that breathed from the pictured walls; But a glow of beauty like her own,

There had no dream of the painter thrown.

Lit from within was her noble brow,

As an urn, whence rays from a lamp may flow;
Her young, clear cheek, had a changeful hue,
As if ye might see how the soul wrought through;
And every flash of her fervent eye

Seem'd the bright wakening of Poesy.

Even thus it was!-from her childhood's years

A being of sudden smiles and tears

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