And bore her home and chafed her tender limbs,
And strove, by all the simple arts they knew,

To make the chilled blood move, and win the breath
Back to her bosom; fruitlessly they strove;

The little maid was dead. In blank despair
They stood, and gazed at her who never more
Should look on them. "Why die we not with her?"
They said; "without her, life is bitterness."

Now came the funeral-day; the simple folk
Of all that pastoral region gathered round
To share the sorrow of the cottagers.
They carved a way into the mound of snow
To the glen's side, and dug a little grave
In the smooth slope, and, following the bier,
In long procession from the silent door,
Chanted a sad and solemn melody.

Lay her away to rest within the ground."
Yea, lay her down whose pure and innocent life
Was spotless as these snows; for she was reared
In love, and passed in love life's pleasant spring,
And all that now our tenderest love can do
Is to give burial to her lifeless limbs."

They paused. A thousand slender voices round,
Like echoes softly flung from rock and hill,
Took up the strain, and all the hollow air
Seemed mourning for the dead; for, on that day,
The Little People of the Snow had come,
From mountain-peak, and cloud, and icy hall,
To Eva's burial. As the murmur died,
The funeral-train renewed the solemn chant:

"Thou, Lord, hast taken her to be with Eve, Whose gentle name was given her.

Even so,

For so Thy wisdom saw that it was best

For her and us. We bring our bleeding hearts,

And ask the touch of healing from Thy hand,
As, with submissive tears, we render back
The lovely and beloved to Him who gave.”

They ceased. Again the plaintive murmur rose.
From shadowy skirts of low-hung cloud it came,
And wide white fields, and fir-trees capped with snow,
Shivering to the sad sounds. They sank away
To silence in the dim-seen distant woods.

The little grave was closed; the funeral-train
Departed; winter wore away; the Spring
Steeped, with her quickening rains, the violet-tufts,
By fond hands planted where the maiden slept.
But, after Eva's burial, never more

The Little People of the Snow were seen

By human eye, nor ever human ear

Heard from their lips, articulate speech again;
For a decree went forth to cut them off,
Forever, from communion with mankind.

The winter-clouds, along the mountain-side,

Rolled downward toward the vale, but no fair form
Leaned from their folds, and, in the icy glens,
And aged woods, under snow-loaded pines,
Where once they made their haunt, was emptiness.
But ever, when the wintry days drew near,
Around that little grave, in the long night,
Frost-wreaths were laid and tufts of silvery rime
In shape like blades and blossoms of the field,
As one would'scatter flowers upon a bier.

THE POET.

THOU, who wouldst wear the name

Of poet mid thy brethren of mankind,

And clothe in words of flame

Thoughts that shall live within the general mind! Deem not the framing of a deathless lay

The pastime of a drowsy summer day.

But gather all thy powers,

And wreak them on the verse that thou dost weave, And in thy lonely hours,

At silent morning or at wakeful eve,

While the warm current tingles through thy veins,

Set forth the burning words in fluent strains.

No smooth array of phrase,

Artfully sought and ordered though it be,
Which the cold rhymer lays

Upon his page with languid industry,
Can wake the listless pulse to livelier speed,
Or fill with sudden tears the eyes that read.

The secret wouldst thou know

To touch the heart or fire the blood at will? Let thine own eyes o'erflow;

Let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill; Seize the great thought, ere yet its power be past, And bind, in words, the fleet emotion fast.

Then, should thy verse appear

Halting and harsh, and all unaptly wrought,

Touch the crude line with fear,

Save in the moment of impassioned thought;

Then summon back the original glow, and mend The strain with rapture that with fire was penned.

Yet let no empty gus

Of passion find an utterance in thy lay,

A blast that whirls the dust

Along the howling street and dies away;

But feelings of calm power and mighty sweep,
Like currents journeying through the windless deep.

Seek'st thou, in living lays,

To limn the beauty of the earth and sky? Before thine inner gaze

Let all that beauty in clear vision lie;

Look on it with exceeding love, and write
The words inspired by wonder and delight.

Of tempests wouldst thou sing,

Or tell of battles-make thyself a part

Of the great tumult; cling

To the tossed wreck with terror in thy heart;

Scale, with the assaulting host, the rampart's height,

And strike and struggle in the thickest fight.

So shalt thou frame a lay

That haply may endure from age to age,

And they who read shall say:

"What witchery hangs upon this poet's page!

What art is his the written spells to find

That sway from mood to mood the willing mind!"

354

THE PATH.

THE path we planned beneath October's sky,
Along the hill-side, through the woodland shade,
Is finished; thanks to thee, whose kindly eye
Has watched me, as I plied the busy spade;
Else had I wearied, ere this path of ours
Had pierced the woodland to its inner bowers.

Yet, 'twas a pleasant toil to trace and beat,

Among the glowing trees, this winding way,
While the sweet autumn sunshine, doubly sweet,
Flushed with the ruddy foliage, round us lay,
As if some gorgeous cloud of morning stood,
In glory, mid the arches of the wood.

A path! what beauty does a path bestow
Even on the dreariest wild! its savage nooks
Seem homelike where accustomed footsteps go,

And the grim rock puts on familiar looks.

The tangled swamp, through which a pathway strays,
Becomes a garden with strange flowers and sprays.

See, from the weedy earth a rivulet break

And purl along the untrodden wilderness;

There the shy cuckoo comes his thirst to slake,
There the shrill jay alights his plumes to dress;
And there the stealthy fox, when morn is gray,
Laps the clear stream and lightly moves away.

But let a path approach that fountain's brink,

And nobler forms of life, behold! are there:
Boys kneeling with protruded lips to drink,

And slender maids that homeward slowly bear