His voice is choked in dust, and on his eyes
The unbroken seal of peace and silence lies.
And from thy yearning heart,

Whose inmost core was warm with love for him,
A gladness must depart,

And those kind eyes with many tears be dim;
While lonely memories, an unceasing train,
Will turn the raptures of the past to pain.

Yet, mourner! while the day

Rolls like the darkness of a funeral by,
And Hope forbids one ray

To stream athwart the grief-discolour'd sky;
There breaks upon thy sorrow's evening gloom,
A trembling lustre from beyond the tomb.
"Tis from the Better Land!

There, bathed in radiance that around them springs,
Thy loved one's wings expand;

As with the choiring cherubim he sings,
And all the glory of that God can see,

Who said, on earth, to children, " Come to me."
Mother, thy child is bless'd:

And though his presence may be lost to thee,
And vacant leave thy breast,

And miss'd, a sweet load from thy parent knee;
Though tones familiar from thine ear have pass'd,
Thou'll meet thy firstborn with his Lord at last.

ALBERT PIKE.

TO SPRING.

Oн thou delicious Spring!

Nursed in the lap of thin and subtle showers,
Which fall from clouds that lift their snowy wing
From odorous beds of light-infolded flowers,
And from enmass'd bowers,

That over grassy walks their greenness fling,
Come, gentle Spring!

Thou lover of young wind,

That cometh from the invisible upper sea

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Beneath the sky, which clouds, its white foam, And, settling in the trees deliciously,

Makes young leaves dance with glee,

Even in the teeth of that old sober hind,
Winter unkind,

Come to us; for thou art
Like the fine love of children, gentle Spring!
Touching the sacred feeling of the heart,
Or like a virgin's pleasant welcoming;
And thou dost ever bring

A tide of gentle but resistless art
Upon the heart.

Red Autumn from the south Contends with thee; alas! what may he show? What are his purple-stain'd and rosy mouth, And browned cheeks, to thy soft feet of snow, And timid, pleasant glow,

Giving earth-piercing flowers their primal growth,
And greenest youth?

Gay Summer conquers thee;
And yet he has no beauty such as thine:
What is his ever-streaming, fiery sea,
To the pure glory that with thee doth shine?
Thou season most divine,

What may his dull and lifeless minstrelsy
Compare with thee?

Come, sit upon the hills,

And bid the waking streams leap down their side, And green the vales with their slight-sounding rills; And when the stars upon the sky shall glide,

And crescent Dian ride,

I too will breathe of thy delicious thrills,
On grassy hills.

Alas! bright Spring, not long

Shall I enjoy thy pleasant influence;

For thou shalt die the summer heat among,
Sublimed to vapour in his fire intense,
And, gone for ever hence,

Exist no more: no more to earth belong,
Except in song.

So I who sing shall die :

Worn unto death, perchance, by care and sorrow;
And, fainting thus with an unconscious sigh,
Bid unto this poor body a good-morrow,

Which now sometimes I borrow,

And breathe of joyance keener and more high Ceasing to sigh!

H. T. TUCKERMAN.

TRI-MOUNTAIN.

THROUGH Time's dim atmosphere, behold
Those ancient hills again,

Rising to Fancy's eager view

In solitude, as when

Beneath the summer firmament,

So silently of yore,

The shadow of each passing cloud
Their rugged bosoms bore!

They sloped in pathless grandeur then
Down to the murmuring sea,
And rose upon the woodland plain
In lonely majesty.

The breeze, at noontide, whisper'd soft
Their emerald knolls among,

And midnight's wind, amid their heights,
Its wildest dirges sung.

As on their brow the forest king
Paused in his weary way,

From far below his quick ear caught
The moaning of the bay.

The dry leaves, fann'd by Autumn's breath,
Along their ridges crept;

And snow-wreaths, like storm-whiten'd waves,
Around them rudely swept.

For ages, o'er their swelling sides,
Grew the wild flowers of Spring,

And stars smiled down, and dew-founts pour'd
Their gentle offering.

The moonbeams play'd upon their peaks,

And at their feet the tide ;

And thus, like altar-mounts they stood,
By nature sanctified.

Now, when to mark their beacon forms
The seaman turns his gaze,

It quails, as roof, and spire, and dome
Flash in the sun's bright rays.
On those wild hills a thousand homes
Are rear'd in proud array,
And argosies float safely o'er

That lone and isle-gemm❜d bay.

Those shadowy mounds, so long untrod,
By countless feet are press'd;
And hosts of loved ones meekly sleep
Below their teeming breast.

A world's unnumber'd voices float
Within their narrow bound:
Love's gentle tone, and traffic's hum,
And music's thrilling sound.

There Liberty first found a tongue
Beneath New-England's sky,
And there her earliest martyrs stood,
And nerved themselves to die.

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And long upon these ancient hills,
By glory's light enshrined,
May rise the dwellings of the free,
The city of the mind.

SEBA SMITH.

THE MOTHER PERISHING IN A SNOWSTORM.

"In the year 1821, a Mrs. Blake perished in a snowstorm in the nighttime, while travelling over a spur of the Green Mountains in Vermont. She had an infant with her, which was found alive and well in the morning, being carefully wrapped in the mother's clothing."

THE cold winds swept the mountain's height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
And mid the cheerless hours of night

A mother wander'd with her child:
As through the drifting snow she press'd,
The babe was sleeping on her breast.
And colder still the winds did blow,

And darker hours of night came on,
And deeper grew the drifting snow:

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Her limbs were chill'd, her strength was gone:
Oh, God!" she cried, in accents wild,

"If I must perish, save my child!"

She stripp'd her mantle from her breast,
And bared her bosom to the storm,
And round the child she wrapp'd the vest,
And smiled to think her babe was warm.
With one cold kiss one tear she shed,
And sunk upon her snowy bed.

At dawn a traveller passed by,

And saw her 'neath a snowy veil ;
The frost of death was in her eye,

Her cheek was cold, and hard, and pale;
He moved the robe from off the child,
The babe look'd up and sweetly smiled!