Away! I will not think of these!

Blue be the sky and soft the breeze,

Earth green beneath the feet,

And be the damp mould gently pressed
Into my narrow place of rest.

There, through the long, long summer hours

The golden light should lie,

⚫ And thick young herbs and groups of flowers

Stand in their beauty by:

The oriole should build and tell

His love-tale, close beside my cell;

The idle butterfly

Should rest him there, and there be heard

The housewife bee and humming-bird.

And what if cheerful shouts, at noon,

Come, from the village sent,

Or song of maids, beneath the moon,
With fairy laughter blent?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothed lovers walk in sight

Of my low monument?

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THE EVENING WIND

Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow.
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,

And swelling the white sail: I welcome thee

To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone: a thousand bosoms round

Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,

Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest,

Summoning from the innumerable boughs

The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast.
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,

And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head

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To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,

And dry the moistened curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep;

And they who stand about the sick man's bed

Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,

And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

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Go: but the circle of eternal change,

Which is the life of Nature, shall restore,

With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,

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Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;

Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore,
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.
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1830.

SONG OF MARION'S MEN

Our band is few but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold:

The British soldier trembles

When Marion's name is told.

Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress-tree;