JUNE. I GAZED upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round; And thought that when I came to lie At rest within the ground, 'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June, When brooks send up a cheerful tune, And groves a joyous sound, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, The rich, green mountain turf should break. A cell within the frozen mould, While fierce the tempests beat Away! I will not think of theseBlue 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 Hold all that enter thy unbreathing flowers reign. Far in thy realm withdrawn empires sit in sullenness and gloom, And glorious ages gone Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. Childhood, with all its mirth, Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground, And last, Man's Life on earth, Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound. Thou hast my better years, Thou hast my earlier friends - the good-the kind, Yielded to thee with tearsThe venerable form-the exalted mind. Full many a mighty name Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, un- Their sharpness ere he is aware. revered; When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. - Take the wings Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there: And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep; the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone; the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come, And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men, The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, And the sweet babe, and the grayheaded man, - Old ocean's gray and melancholy | Shall one by one be gathered to thy waste, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread side, His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. THE EVENING WIND. SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou That coolest 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 All that shall live, lie mingled THOU blossom bright with autumn there, dew, Beneath that veil of bloom and And colored with the heaven's own breath, blue, That living zone 'twixt earth and That openest when the quiet light air. Succeeds the keen and frosty night. There lies my chamber dark and still, The atoms trampled by my feet, There wait, to take the place I fill In the sweet air and sunshine sweet. Thou comest not when violets lean O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, Or columbines, in purple dressed, Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest, |