And strike a healthful root, is happiness.
Content and placid to his rest he sank;
But dreams, those wild magicians, that do play
Such pranks when reason slumbers, tireless wrought
Their will with him.
Up rose the thronging mart
Of his own native city; roof and spire,
All glittering bright, in fancy's frostwork ray.
The steed his boyhood nurtured proudly neigh'd;
The favourite dog came frisking round his feet,
With shrill and joyous bark; familiar doors
Flew open; greeting hands with his were link'd
In friendship's grasp; he heard the keen debate
From congregated haunts, where mind with mind
Doth blend and brighten; and till morning roved
Mid the loved scenery of his native land.
THE WIDOW's CHARGE AT HER DAUGHTER'S BRIDAL.
DEAL gently, thou, whose hand has won
The young bird from the nest away,
Where, careless 'neath a vernal sun,
She gayly caroll'd day by day:
The haunt is lone, the heart must grieve,
From whence her timid wing doth soar,
They pensive list, at hush of eve,
Yet hear her gushing song no more.
Deal gently with her thou art dear
Beyond what vestal lips have told,
And like a lamb, from fountain clear,
She turns confiding to the fold;
She round thy sweet, domestic bower
The wreaths of changeless love shall twine,
Watch for thy step at vesper hour,
And blend her holiest prayer with thine.
Deal gently, thou, when far away,
Mid stranger scenes her foot shall rove,
Nor let thy tender cares decay,
The soul of woman lives in love;
And shouldst thou, wondering, mark a tear
Unconscious from her eyelid break,
Be pitiful, and sooth the fear
That man's strong heart can ne'er partake.
A mother yields her gem to thee,
On thy true breast to sparkle rare;
She places 'neath thy household tree
The idol of her fondest care;
And by thy trust to be forgiven,
When judgment wakes in terror wild,
By all thy treasured hopes of Heaven,
Deal gently with the widow's child.
THE PEBBLE AND THE ACORN.
"I AM a pebble! and yield to none!"
Were the swelling words of a tiny stone;
"Nor time nor seasons can alter me;
I am abiding, while ages flee.
The pelting hail and the drizzling rain
Have tried to soften me, long, in vain;
And the tender dew has sought to melt,
Or touch my heart, but it was not felt.
There's none that can tell about my birth,
For I'm as old as the big, round earth.
The children of men arise, and pass
Out of the world like the blades of grass;
And many a foot on me has trod,
That's gone from sight and under the sod!
I am a pebble! but who art thou,
Rattling along from the restless bough?"
The acorn was shock'd at this rude salute,
And lay for a moment abash'd and mute;
She never before had been so near
This gravelly ball, the mundane sphere;
And she felt for a time at a loss to know
How to answer a thing so coarse and low.
But to give reproof of a nobler sort
Than the angry look or the keen retort,
At length she said, in a gentle tone,
"Since it has happen'd that I am thrown
From the lighter element, where I grew,
Down to another so hard and new,
And beside a personage so august,
Abased, I will cover my head with dust,
And quickly retire from the sight of one
Whom time, nor season, nor storm, nor sun,
Nor the gentle dew, nor the grinding heel
Has ever subdued, or made to feel!"
And soon, in the earth, she sunk away
From the comfortless spot where the pebble lay.
But it was not long ere the soil was broke
By the peering head of an infant oak!
And, as it arose and its branches spread,
The pebble look'd up, and wondering said:
"A modest acorn! never to tell
What was enclosed in its simple shell;
That the pride of the forest was folded up
In the narrow space of its little cup!
And meekly to sink in the darksome earth,
Which proves that nothing could hide her worth!
And oh how many will tread on me,
To come and admire the beautiful tree,
Whose head is towering towards the sky,
Above such a worthless thing as I!
Useless and vain, a cumberer here,
I have been idling from year to year.
But never, from this, shall a vaunting word
From the humbled pebble again be heard,
Till something without me or within,
Shall show the purpose for which I've been !"
The pebble its vow could not forget,
And it lies there wrapp'd in silence yet.
YE mighty waters, that have join'd your forces,
Roaring and dashing with this awful sound,
Here are ye mingled; but the distant sources
Whence ye have issued, where shall they be
found?
Who may retrace the ways that ye have taken,
Ye streams and drops ? who separate you all,
And find the many places ye've forsaken,
To come and rush together down the fall?
Through thousand, thousand paths have ye been roaming,
In earth and air, who now each other urge To the last point! and then, so madly foaming, Leap down at once from this stupendous verge.
Some in the lowering cloud a while were centred,
That in the stream beheld its sable face,
And melted into tears, that, falling, enter'd
With sister waters on the sudden race.
Others, to light that beam'd upon the fountain,
Have from the vitals of the rock been freed,
In silver threads, that, shining down the mountain,
Twined off among the verdure of the mead.
And many a flower that bow'd beside the river,
In opening beauty, ere the dew was dried,
Stirr'd by the breeze, has been an early giver.
Of her pure offering to the rolling tide.
Thus from the veins, through earth's dark bosom pouring,
Many have flow'd in tributary streams;
Some, in the bow that bent, the sun adoring,
Have shone in colours borrow'd from his beams.
But He who holds the ocean in the hollow
Of his strong hand can separate you all!
His searching eye the secret way will follow,
Of every drop that hurries to the fall!
We are, like you, in mighty torrents mingled,
And speeding downward to one common home;
Yet there's an eye that every drop hath singled,
And mark'd the winding ways through which we
Those who have here adored the Sun of heaven, And shown the world their brightness drawn from him,
Again before him, though their hues be seven,
Shall blend their beauty, never to grow dim.
We bless the promise, as we thus are tending
Down to the tomb, that gives us hope to rise
Before the Power to whom we now are bending,
To stand his bow of glory in the skies!
I DREAM'D, and 'twas a lovely, blessed dream,
That I again my native hills had found,
The mossy rocks, the valley, and the stream
That used to hold me captive to its sound.
I was a child again: I roam'd anew
About my early haunts, and saw the whole That fades, with waking memory, from the view Of this mysterious thing we call the soul.
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