With lips pressed hard the helms- While white the reef lies in his path, The surf-roar in the blast is lost, The foam-flakes by the wild wind tost High up in air, no warning show, Hid by the driving mass of snow. With sudden bound and sullen grate, The brave ship rushes to her fate, And splintered deck and broken mast Make homage to the roaring blast. Amid the waves, float riven plank, And rope and sail with moisture dank; And faces gleaming stern and white Shine dimly in the storm-filled night. By some bright river far away, Fond hearts are wondering where they stay Who sleep along the wave-washed shore And stormy reefs of Labrador. AN OCTOBER PICTURE. THE purple grapes hang ready for the kiss Of red lips sweeter than their wine; And 'mid the turning leaves they soon will miss, The crimson apples shine. Lazily through the soft and sunlit air The great hawks fly, and give no heed To the sweet songsters, that toward the fair, Far lands of summer speed. Along the hills wild asters bend to greet The roadside's wealth of golden-rod; And by the fences the bright sumachs meet The morning light of God. With all the fragrant freshness won From night's repose, and kiss of dew Which the bright radiance glistens through, Such is the sweetness of thy lips, The snow that crowns the mountain own. Though taste, though genius, bless, To some divine excess, Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply, May court, may charm, our eye; Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul! Of these let others ask, To aid some mighty task, I only seek to find thy temperate vale; Where oft my reed might sound To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale. 'Tis not the enfeebled thrill, or warbled shake, The heart can strengthen, or the soul awake! But where the force of energy is found, When the sense rises on the wings of sound; When reason, with the charms of music twined, Through the enraptured ear informs the mind; Bids generous love or soft compassion glow, And forms a tuneful Paradise below! ODE TO THE BRAVE. How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blessed! She there shall dress a sweeter sod By fairy hands their knell is rung; And Freedom shall awhile repair, THE PASSIONS. AN ODE FOR MUSIC. WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, Filled with fury, rapt, inspired, And, as they oft had heard apart ON TRUE AND FALSE TASTE IN Would prove his own expressive With eyes upraised, as one inspired, Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul: And, dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels joined the sound; Through glades and glooms the nin gled measures stole, Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay, Round an holy calm diffusing, Love of Peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away. But O! how altered was its spright lier tone, When Cheerfulness, healthiest hue, a nymph of green: Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: First to the lively pipe his hand But soon he saw the brik awakening addrest; viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best; They would have thought who heard the strain They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. O Music! sphere-descended maid, power, Thy mimic soul, O Nymph endeared, Had more of strength, diviner rage, Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing; Or where the beetle winds As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe some softened strain, Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit; As, musing slow, I hail For when thy folding-star, arising shows His paly circlet,—at his warning lamp The fragrant Hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day, And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, Than all which charms this laggard | And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet, Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene; Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells, Whose walls more awful nod Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut, That, from the mountain's side, Views wilds, and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires; And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all Thy dewy fingers draw |