AUGUST.

Tediously pass the hours,
And vegetation wilts, with blister'd root,
And droop the thirsting flowers,

Where the slant sunbeams shoot:

But of each tall, old tree, the lengthening line,
Slow-creeping eastward, marks the day's decline.

Faster, along the plain,

Moves now the shade, and on the meadow's edge:
The kine are forth again,

The bird flits in the hedge.

Now in the molten west sinks the hot sun.
Welcome, mild eve!—the sultry day is done.

Pleasantly comest thou,

Dew of the evening, to the crisp❜d-up grass;
And the curl'd corn-blades bow,

As the light breezes pass,

That their parch'd lips may feel thee, and expand,
Thou sweet reviver of the fever'd land.

So, to the thirsting soul,

Cometh the dew of the Almighty's love;
And the scathed heart, made whole,

Turneth in joy above,

To where the spirit freely may expand,

And rove, untrammell'd, in that "better land."

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65

TO THE PAINTED COLUMBINE.

BY JONES VERY.

BRIGHT image of the early years

When glow'd my cheek as red as thou,
And life's dark throng of cares and fears
Were swift-wing'd shadows o'er my sunny brow!
Thou blushest from the painter's page,
Robed in the mimic tints of art;
But Nature's hand in youth's green age
With fairer hues first traced thee on my heart.

The morning's blush, she made it thine,
The morn's sweet blush she gave it thee;
And in thy look, my Columbine !
Each fond-remember'd spot she bade me see.
I see the hill's far-gazing head,

Where gay thou noddest in the gale;
I hear light-bounding footsteps tread
The grassy path that winds along the vale.

I hear the voice of woodland song

Break from each bush and well-known tree,
And, on light pinions borne along,

Comes back the laugh from childhood's heart of glee.
O'er the dark rock the dashing brook,
With look of anger, leaps again,

And, hastening to each flowery nook,
Its distant voice is heard far down the glen.

Fair child of art! thy charms decay,

Touch'd by the wither'd hand of Time; And hush'd the music of that day,

When my voice mingled with the streamlet's chime;

THE EARLY DEAD.

But on my heart thy cheek of bloom

Shall live when Nature's smile has fled; And, rich with memory's sweet perfume, Shall o'er her grave thy tribute incense shed.

There shalt thou live and wake the glee

That echo'd on thy native hill;

And when, loved flower! I think of thee, My infant feet will seem to seek thee still.

THE EARLY DEAD.

BY WILLIS G. CLARK.

If it be sad to mark the bow'd with age
Sink in the halls of the remorseless tomb,
Closing the changes of life's pilgrimage

In the still darkness of the mouldering gloom :
Oh, what a shadow o'er the heart is flung,
When peals the requiem of the loved and young!

They to whose bosoms, like the dawn of spring
To the unfolding bud and scented rose,
Comes the pure freshness age can never bring,
And fills the spirit with a rich repose,

How shall we lay them in their final rest,
How pile the clods upon their wasting breast?

Life openeth brightly to their ardent gaze;

A glorious pomp sits on the gorgeous sky;
O'er the broad world hope's smile incessant plays,
And scenes of beauty win the enchanted eye:
How sad to break the vision, and to fold
Each lifeless form in earth's embracing mould!

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69

THE PRAIRIES.

Yet this is life! To mark from day to day,
Youth, in the freshness of its morning prime,
Pass, like the anthem of a breeze away,

Sinking in waves of death ere chill'd by time!
Ere yet dark years on the warm cheek had shed
Autumnal mildew o'er the rose-like red!

And yet what mourner, though the pensive eye
Be dimly thoughtful in its burning tears,
But should with rapture gaze upon the sky,

Through whose far depths the spirit's wing careers ?
There gleams eternal o'er their ways are flung,
Who fade from earth while yet their years are young!

THE PRAIRIES.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT,

THESE are the gardens of the desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name-
The Prairies. I behold them for the first,

And my heart swells, while the dilated sight

Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch
In airy undulations, far away,

As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,

Stood still, with all his rounded billows fix'd,

And motionless for ever.

Motionless?

No, they are all unchain'd again. The clouds
Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along, and chase
The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South!

THE PRAIRIES.

Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,
And pass the prairie-hawk, that, poised on high,

Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not―ye have play'd
Among the palms of Mexico and vines

Of Texas, and have crisp'd the limpid brooks

That from the fountains of Sonora glide
Into the calm Pacific-have ye fann'd

A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?

Man hath no part in all this glorious work:

The hand that built the firmament hath heaved

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And smooth'd these verdant swells, and sown their slopes
With herbage, planted them with island groves,

And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor
For this magnificent temple of the sky-
With flowers whose glory and whose multitude
Rival the constellations! The great heavens
Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love-
A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue,
Than that which bends above the eastern hills.

As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed,
Among the high, rank grass that sweeps his sides,
The hollow beating of his footstep seems

A sacrilegious sound. I think of those

Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here-
The dead of other days? and did the dust
Of these fair solitudes once stir with life
And burn with passion? Let the mighty mounds
That overlook the rivers, or that rise

In the dim forest, crowded with old oaks,
Answer. A race that long has pass'd away,
Built them; a disciplined and populous race
Heap'd, with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek
Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms

Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock