Where weary man may find
The bliss for which he sighs,
Where sorrow never lives,
And friendship never dies?
The loud waves, rolling in perpetual flow,
Stopp'd for awhile, and sigh'd, to answer
And thou, serenest moon,
That with such holy face
Dost look upon the earth
Asleep in night's embrace,
Tell me, in all thy round,
Hast thou not seen some spot
Where miserable man
Might find a happier lot?
Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in wo,
And a voice sweet, but sad, responded "No!"
Tell me, my secret soul,
Oh! tell me, Hope and Faith,
Is there no resting-place
From sorrow, sin, and death:
Is there no happy spot
Where mortals may be bless'd,
Where grief may find a balm,
And weariness a rest?
Faith, Hope, and Love-best boons to mortals givenWaved their bright wings, and whisper'd "Yes, in heaven!"
WAITING FOR THE HARVESTERS.
By N. P. WILLIS, the American poet.
AND there she sat in ripen'd loveliness,
An English mother joying in her babes,
Whose life was bright before her, and whose lips
Were breaking into language with the sweet
And lovely sentences they learn so soon.
Her face was very beautiful, and Mirth
Was native on her lip; but ever now,
As a sweet tone delighted her, the smile
Went melting into sadness, and the lash
Droop'd gently to her eye, as if it knew
Affection was too chaste a thing for mirth.
It was the time for harvest, and she sat
Awaiting one. A breath of scented hay
Was in the air, and from the distance came
The noise of sickles, and the voices sent
Out on the stillness of the quiet moon,
And the low waters, coming like the strain
Of a pervading melody, stole in
And made all music. "Twas a holiness
Of Nature's making, and I lifted up
My heart to heaven, and in my gladness pray'd
That if a heart were sad, or if a tear
Were living upon earth, it might be theirs
To go abroad in Nature, and to see
A mother and her gentle babes like these.
From the columns of a contemporary, where it was published anonymously, although we have no doubt that some eminent name ought to have been attached to it, we cut the following fanciful little poem:
"Brother Ayoub, there is wild work going on at the other end of the world: so says the Shell. I hear the tramp of armies." "Whence came it, Caled, son of Caled? Is it a talisman? "From Serendib; fished up by a pearl diver at the full of the moon. If a rose-stalk was broken a thousand leagues off, I should hear it." -Arab Legend.
INFANT, take this little shell-
There is in it a sea spell;
Not a mermaid wild and sweet,
Sitting in her coral seat,
Till the sun has past his noon,
But doth fill it with a tune,
That all ocean's tales doth tell;
Listen, infant, to the spell!
Listen! hark! that distant roar,
Now the ocean sweeps the shore,
In some stormy Indian bay,
Full ten thousand miles away;
Oh! that distant dying groan!
There some noble ship hath gone!
Now the sullen roar hath died;
Hush'd the storm, and smooth the tide.
Infant! hark, that sullen song!
Now, with savage trump and gong,
By the tropic's burning wave,
Goes some monarch to his grave,
Hark! the clashing shield and lance,
Frantic shout and magic dance:
Mix'd with cries from hearts that weep:
All is past and all is sleep!
Infant, try once more the spell,
Hark! Is that the thunder peal?
No: the wilder, deeper roar,
Tells of flame, and tells of gore.
Far beneath the western sun
Is some battle lost and won:
Grass shall grow on many a bier,
Ere of that dark day we hear.
Infant, list the spell again;
Oh, that low and lovely strain!
Now upon some Grecian isle
Sunset sheds its golden smile;
And the rose-crown'd maiden bands
Dance in chorus on the sands,
Silver surge and purple sky
Echoing the harmony.
Infant, take no more the shell!
Listen to the sounds that swell
In the morning's perfumed breath;
In the day's delicious death;
In the starlight, sweet and dim ;
In all Nature's glorious hymn;
Earth beneath and heaven above,
All is loveliness-one love.
Ben Arthur, or the Cobbler, rises in great majesty and grandeur at the head of Loch Long to the height of 2, 400 feet-his fantastic peak cracked and shattered into every conceivable form. From one point it resembles the figure of a cobbler. Hence the popular name of the mountain.-Tourists' Guide.
FAR away! up, in his rocky throne,
The gaunt old Cobbler dwells alone.
Around his head the lightnings play
Where he sits with his lapstone, night and day,
No one seeth his jerking awl,
No one heareth his hammer fall;
But what he doth when mists enwrap
The bald and barren mountain-top,
And cover him up from the sight of man,
No one knoweth-or ever can.
Oft in the night, when storms are loud,
He thunders from the drifting cloud,
And sends his voice o'er sea and lake
To bid his brother Bens awake;
And Lomond, Lawers, and Venue,
Answer him back with wild halloo;
And Cruachan shouts from his splinter'd peaks,
And the straths respond when the monarch speaks;
And hill with hill and Ben with Ben,
Talk wisdom-meaningless to men.
And oft he sings, this Cobbler old,
And his voice rings loud from his summits cold,
And the north wind helps him with organ-swell,
And the rush of streams as they leap the fell.
But none interprets right or wrong
The pith and burden of his
Save one, a weird and crazy wight,
Oppress'd with the gift of the second sight,
Who tells the shepherds of Glencroe
What the Cobbler thinks of our world below.
"Cobble?" he saith, "we cobble all,
Wise and simple, great and small.
The king from under his golden crown,
Over his troubled realm looks down,
For the state machine is out of gear,
And grates and creaks on the people's ear:
'Cobble it up!' he cries, forlorn,
To last us till to-morrow morn;
'Twill serve my time if that be done-
Cobble and patch—and let it run!'
"And statesmen look-the cold and proud-
On the sweating, moiling, groaning crowd,
And hear the murmur hoarse and deep,
Of the discontent that will not sleep;
And half reluctant, half afraid,
To touch the ills themselves have made,
They take the bristle and awl in hand,
And cobble, cobble, through the land.
'Strike your hammers, wax your thumbs,
After us the deluge comes!'
"The sage puts out his sleepy head,
From the hole in the wall where he was bred,
And looks at the world, that seems to him
To be going wrong in the foglight dim.
'A shoe!' quoth he,' an ancient shoe,
Letting the mire and the water through.
I can mend it, I opine,
I've the leather, the wax, the twine;
I'm the man for the public weal,
Patch and cobble it, toe and heel!'
"From ancient days till Time's last hour
Your cobblers have been men of power.
Your Alexander, who was he?
As great a cobbler as could be.
And who your kings of later birth,
The lords and demigods of earth ?—
Your Tamerlanes, and Ghengis-Khans,
Your Peters, Pauls, and Suleimans?
And great Napoleons, red with gore?
Cobblers! cobblers! nothing more!
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