Existence! 't is but toil and strife, -
Yet I'll not murmur or repine,
So that the sunset of my life,

Sweet day, be clear and calm as thine;
So that I take my last, long rest,
Dear native land, in thy loved breast:
Land of the gallant and the free!

My native, native land, my Tennessee!

Albert Pike.

WE

KANSAS.

THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS.

E cross the prairie as of old
The pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free!

We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedom's southern line,
And plant beside the cotton-tree
The rugged Northern pine!

We're flowing from our native hills
As our free rivers flow;

The blessing of our Mother-land

Is on us as we go.

We go to plant her common schools
On distant prairie swells,

And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells.

Upbearing, like the Ark of old,
The Bible in our van,

We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.

No pause, nor rest, save where the streams

That feed the Kansas run,

Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun!

We'll tread the prairie as of old
Our fathers sailed the sea,

And make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

ARKANSAS.

SUNSET IN ARKANSAS.

UNSET again! Behind the massy green

Of the continuous oaks the sun hath fallen, And his last rays have struggled through, between The leaf-robed branches, as hopes intervene Amid grave cares. The western sky is wallen With shadowy mountains, built upon the marge Of the horizon, from eve's purple sheen, And thin, gray clouds, that insolently lean

Their silver cones upon the crimson verge Of the high zenith, while their unseen base Is rocked by lightning. It will show its eye When dusky Night comes. Eastward, you can trace

No stain, no spot of cloud upon a sky,
Pure as an angel's brow.

The winds have folded up their swift wings now, And, all asleep, high up in their cloud-cradles lie.

Beneath the trees, the dusky, purple glooms.
Are growing deeper, more material,

In windless solitude. The young flower-blooms
Richly exhale their thin, invisible plumes

Of odor, which they yield not at the call
Of the hot sun. The birds all sleep within
Unshaken nests; save the gray owl, that booms
His plaintive cry, like one that mourns strange
dooms;

And the sad whippoorwill, with lonely din. There is a deep, calm beauty all around,

A heavy, massive, melancholy look,

A unison of lonely sight and sound,

Which touch us, till the soul can hardly brook
Its own sad feelings here.

They do not wring from the full heart a tear, But give us heavy thoughts, like reading a sad book.

BEHOLD

That down its sloping sides

Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall,

In rushing river-tides!

Yon stream, whose sources run
Turned by a pebble's edge,
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun
Through the cleft mountain-ledge.

The slender rill had strayed,

But for the slanting stone,

To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid
Of foam-flecked Oregon.

So from the heights of Will
Life's parting stream descends,

And, as a moment turns its slender rill,
Each widening torrent bends, -

From the same cradle's side,
From the same mother's knee, -

One to long darkness and the frozen tide,
One to the Peaceful Sca!

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

I

CALIFORNIA.

STAND beside the mobile sea;

And sails are spread, and sails are furled
From farthest corners of the world,
And fold like white wings wearily.
Steamships go up, and some go down
In haste, like traders in a town,
And seem to see and beckon all.
Afar at sea some white shapes flee,

With arms stretched like a ghost's to me,

And cloud-like sails far blown and curled,
Then glide down to the under-world.

As if blown bare in winter blasts
Of leaf and limb, tall naked masts
Are rising from the restless sea,
So still and desolate and tall,

I seem to see them gleam and shine
With clinging drops of dripping brine.
Broad still brown wings flit here and there,
Thin sea-blue wings wheel everywhere,
And white wings whistle through the air:
I hear a thousand sea-gulls call.

Behold the ocean on the beach
Kneel lowly down as if in prayer.
I hear a moan as of despair,

While far at sea do toss and reach
Some things so like white pleading hands.
The ocean's thin and hoary hair
Is trailed along the silvered sands,
At every sigh and sounding moan.
'Tis not a place for mirthfulness,
But meditation deep, and prayer,
And kneelings on the salted sod,
Where man must own is littleness
And know the mightiness of God.
The very birds shriek in distress
And sound the ocean's monotone.

Dared I but say a prophecy, As sang the holy men of old,