The ancient East shall welcome thee
To mighty marts beyond the sea,

And they who dwell where palm-groves sound
To summer winds the whole year round,
Shall watch, in gladness, from the shore,
The sails that bring thy glistening store.

THE NEW AND THE OLD.

NEW are the leaves on the oaken spray,
New the blades of the silky grass;
Flowers, that were buds but yesterday,
Peep from the ground where'er I pass.

These gay idlers, the butterflies,

Broke, to-day, from their winter shroud,
These soft airs, that winnow the skies,
Blow, just born, from the soft, white cloud

Gushing fresh in the little streams
What a prattle the waters make!
Even the sun, with his tender beams,
Seems as young as the flowers they wake.

Children are wading, with cheerful cries,
In the shoals of the sparkling brook,
Laughing maidens, with soft, young eyes,
Walk or sit in the shady nook.

What am I doing, thus alone,
In the glory of nature here,

Silver-haired, like a snow-flake thrown
On the greens of the springing year?

THE CLOUD ON THE WAY.

Only for brows unploughed by care,
Eyes that glisten with hope and mirth,
Checks unwrinkled, and unblanched hair,
Shines this holiday of the earth.

Under the grass, with the clammy clay,
Lie in darkness the last year's flowers,
Born of a light that has passed away,

Dews long dried and forgotten showers.

"Under the grass is the fitting home,"
So they whisper, " for such as thou,
When the winter of life is come,

Chilling the blood, and frosting the brow."

285

THE CLOUD ON THE WAY.

EEE before us, in our journey, broods a mist upon the ground;

Thither leads the path we walk in, blending with that gloomy bound.

Never eye hath pierced its shadows to the mystery they screen;

Those who once have passed within it never more on earth are seen.

Now it seems to stoop beside us, now at seeming distance lowers,

Leaving banks that tempt us onward bright with summer-green and flowers.

Yet it blots the way forever; there our journey ends at last;

Into that dark cloud we enter, and are gathered to the past.

Thou who, in this flinty pathway, leading through a stranger land,

Passest down the rocky valley, walking with me hand in hand,

Which of us shall be the soonest folded to that dim Unknown?

Which shall leave the other walking in this flinty path alone?

Even now I see thee shudder, and thy cheek is white with fear,

And thou clingest to my side as comes that darkness sweeping near.

"Here," thou sayst, "the path is rugged, sown with thorns that wound the feet;

But the sheltered glens are lovely, and the rivulet's song is sweet;

Roses breathe from tangled thickets; lilies bend from ledges brown;

Pleasantly between the pelting showers the sunshine gushes down;

Dear are those who walk beside us, they whose looks and voices make

All this rugged region cheerful, till I love it for their sake. Far be yet the hour that takes me where that chilly shadow lies,

From the things I know and love and from the sight of loving eyes."

So thou murmurest, fearful one; but see, we tread a rougher way;

Fainter grow the gleams of sunshine that upon the dark rocks play;

Rude winds strew the faded flowers upon the crags o'er which we pass;

Banks of verdure, when we reach them, hiss with tufts of withered grass.

One by one we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear;

One by one the kindly faces in that shadow disappear.

Yet upon the mist before us fix thine eyes with closer

view;

See, beneath its sullen skirts, the rosy morning giimmers through.

One whose feet the thorns have wounded passed that barrier and came back,

With a glory on His footsteps lighting yet the dreary track.

Boldly enter where He entered; all that seems but darkness here,

When thou once hast passed beyond it, haply shall be crystal-clear.

Viewed from that serener realm, the walks of human life may lie,

Like the page of some familiar volume, open to thine

eye;

Haply, from the overhanging shadow, thou mayst stretch an unseen hand,

To support the wavering steps that print with blood the rugged land.

Haply, leaning o'er the pilgrim, all unweeting thou art near,

Thou mayst whisper words of warning or of comfort in his ear,

Till, beyond the border where that brooding mystery bars the sight,

Those whom thou hast fondly cherished stand with thee in peace and light.

THE TIDES.

THE moon is at her full, and, riding high,

Floods the calm fields with light.

The airs that hover in the summer-sky
Are all asleep to-night.

There comes no voice from the great woodlands round
That murmured all the day;

Beneath the shadow of their boughs the ground
Is not more still than they.

But ever heaves and moans the restless Deep;

His rising tides I hear,

Afar I see the glimmering billows leap;

I see them breaking near.

Each wave springs upward, climbing toward the fai

Pure light that sits on high

Springs eagerly, and faintly sinks, to where
The mother waters lie.

Upward again it swells; the moonbeams show
Again its glimmering crest;

Again it feels the fatal weight below,

And sinks, but not to rest.

Again and yet again; until the Deep
Recalls his brood of waves;

And, with a sullen moan, abashed, they creep
Back to his inner caves.

Brief respite! they shall rush from that recess
With noise and tumult soon,

And fling themselves, with unavailing stress,
Up toward the placid moon.

Oh, restless Sea, that, in thy prison here,
Dost struggle and complain;

Through the slow centuries yearning to be near
To that fair orb in vain ;