And robs the widow - he who spreads abroad
Polluted hands in mockery of prayer,

Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look
On what is written, yet I blot not out
The desultory numbers - let them stand,
The record of an idle revery.

"EARTH'S CHILDREN CLEAVE TO

EARTH."

EARTH'S children cleave to earth - her frail
Decaying children dread decay.

Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale,
And lessens in the morning ray:

Look, how, by mountain rivulet,
It lingers, as it upward creeps,
And clings to fern and copsewood set
Along the green and dewy steeps:
Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings
To precipices fringed with grass,
Dark maple where the wood-thrush sings,
And bowers of fragrant sassafras.

From hold to hold, it cannot stay,

And in the very beams that fill

The world with glory, wastes away,

Till, parting from the mountain's brow,
It vanishes from human eye,
And that which sprung of earth is now
A portion of the glorious sky.

23-L & B-BB

TO A WATERFOWL.

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near,

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain

flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone

Will lead my steps aright.

THE BATTLE-FIELD.

ONCE this soft turf, this rivulet's sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and armed hands

Encountered in the battle cloud.

Ah! never shall the land forget

How gushed the life-blood of her brave -
Gushed, warm with hope and valor yet,
Upon the soil they fought to save.

Now all is calm and fresh and still,
Alone the chirp of flitting bird,

And talk of children on the hill,

And bell of wandering kine, are heard.

No solemn host goes trailing by

The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain;

Men start not at the battle cry ;

Oh, be it never heard again!

Soon rested those who fought - but thou,
Who minglest in the harder strife

For truths which men receive not now,

Thy warfare only ends with life.