Ye have met, - ye have met, and the shores prolong
The liquid notes of your nuptial song.
Methinks ye wed, as the white man's son
And the child of the Indian king have done;
I saw thy bride, as she strove in vain,
To cleanse her brow from the carbon stain,
But she brings thee a dowry so rich and true
That thy love must not shrink from the tawny hue.
Her birth was rude, in a mountain cell,
And her infant freaks there are none to tell;
The path of her beauty was wild and free,
And in dell and forest she hid from thee;
But the day of her fond caprice is o'er,
And she seeks to part from thy breast no more.
Pass on in the joy of thy blended tide,
Through the land where the blessed Miquon1 died;
No red man's blood with its guilty stain
Hath cried unto God from that broad domain,
With the seeds of peace they have sown the soil,
Bring a harvest of wealth for their hour of toil.
On, on, through the vale where the brave ones sleep,
Where the waving foliage is rich and deep;
I have stood on the mountain and roamed through the
To the beautiful homes of the western men;
Yet naught in that realm of enchantment could see,
So fair as the vale of Wyoming to me.
HIS is the place where André met that death
Whose infamy was keenest of its throes,
And in this place of bravely yielded breath
His ashes found a fifty years' repose;
And then, at last, a transatlantic grave,
With those who have been kings in blood or fame,
As Honor here some compensation gave
For that once forfeit to a hero's name.
But whether in the Abbey's glory laid,
Or on so fair but fatal Tappan's shore,
Still at his grave have noble hearts betrayed
The loving pity and regret they bore.
In view of all he lost, - his youth, his love,
And possibilities that wait the brave,
Inward and outward bound, dim visions move
Like passing sails upon the Hudson's wave.
The country's Father! how do we revere
His justice,
Brutus-like in its decree,
With André-sparing mercy, still more dear
Had been his name, if that, indeed, could be!
Tarrytown, N. Y.
IN THE CHURCHYARD AT TARRYTOWN.
ERE lies the gentle humorist, who died.
In the bright Indian Summer of his fame!
A simple stone, with but a date and name,
Marks his secluded resting-place beside
The river that he loved and glorified.
Here in the autumn of his days he came,
But the dry leaves of life were all aflame
With tints that brightened and were multiplied.
How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
ENEATH these gold and azure skies,
The river winds through leafy glades,
Save where, like battlements, arise
The gray and tufted Palisades.
The fervor of this sultry time
Is tempered by the humid earth,
And zephyrs, born of summer's prime,
Give a delicious coolness birth.
They freshen this sequestered nook
With constant greetings bland and free;
The pages of the open book
All flutter with their wayward glee.
As quicker swell their breathings soft,
Cloud shadows skim along the field;
And yonder dangling woodbines oft
Their crimson bugles gently yield.
The tulip-tree majestic stirs,
Far down the water's marge beside,
And now awake the nearer firs,
And toss their ample branches wide.
How blithely trails the pendent vine!
The grain slope lies in green repose;
Through the dark foliage of the pine
And lofty elms, the sunshine glows.
Like sentinels in firm array
The trees-of-life their shafts uprear; Red cones upon the sumach play, And ancient locusts whisper near.
From wave and meadow, cliff and sky,
Let thy stray vision homeward fall;
Behold the mist-bloom floating nigh,
And hollyhock white-edged and tall;
Its gaudy leaves, though fanned apart,
Round thick and mealy stamens spring,
And nestled to its crimson heart,
The sated bees enamored cling.
Mark the broad terrace flecked with light,
That peeps through trellises of rose,
And quivers with a vague delight,
As each pale shadow comes and goes.
The near, low gurgle of the brook,
The wren's glad chirp, the scented hay, And e'en the watch-dog's peaceful look Our vain disquietudes allay.
Henry Theodore Tuckerman.
SLEEPY HOLLOW CHURCH AND IRVING'S GRAVE.
WO centuries have left their hoary trace
Upon yon ancient pile of weathered stone.
Triumphant church! It stands alone!
Militant no more, nor of the present race.
Its elder saints, called to celestial grace,
No longer now their sins bemoan.
No architectural fancy mars its wall,
Nor modern beauty frets its artless mould;
The truth is plain, 't is very old;
And as I enter through its silent hall,
From faded recollection I recall
The names its history has told.
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