Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies,
With the very clouds!-ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
A whirling ocean that fills the wall

Of the crystal heaven, and buries all.
And I, cut off from the world, remain
Alone with the terrible hurricane.

New York, 1827.

"Talisman," 1828.

WILLIAM TELL.

HAINS may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee,

CH

TELL, of the iron heart! they could not tame! For thou wert of the mountains; they proclaim The everlasting creed of liberty.

That creed is written on the untrampled snow,

Thundered by torrents which no power can hold, Save that of God, when He sends forth His cold, And breathed by winds that through the free heaven blow.

Thou, while thy prison-walls were dark around,

Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught,
And to thy brief captivity was brought

A vision of thy Switzerland unbound.

The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened thee For the great work to set thy country free. New York, 1827.

THE PAST.

HOU unrelenting Past!

TH

Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, And fetters, sure and fast,

Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn,

Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone

Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth,

Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground,
And last, Man's Life on earth,
Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years;

Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind,
Yielded to thee with tears-

The venerable form, the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring

The lost ones back-yearns with desire intense,
And struggles hard to wring

Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

In vain; thy gates deny

All passage save to those who hence depart;
Nor to the streaming eye

Thou giv'st them back-nor to the broken heart.

In thy abysses hide

Beauty and excellence unknown; to thee
Earth's wonder and her pride

Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;

Labors of good to man, Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,

Love, that midst grief began,

And grew with years, and faltered not in death.

Full many a mighty name
Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered;
With thee are silent fame,
Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.

Thine for a space are they

Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last:

Thy gates shall yet give way,

Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!

All that of good and fair

Has gone into thy womb from earliest time,
Shall then come forth to wear

The glory and the beauty of its prime.

They have not perished-no!

Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet,
Smiles, radiant long ago,

And features, the great soul's apparent seat.

All shall come back; each tie

Of pure affection shall be knit again;
Alone shall Evil die,

And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.

And then shall I behold

Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung,
And her, who, still and cold,

Fills the next grave-the beautiful and young.