PACK clouds away, and welcome day, | Wake from thy nest, robin red- aloft, To give my love good-morrow, Wings from the wind to please her mind, Notes from the lark I'll borrow; Bird, prune thy wing,nightingale,sing, To give my love good-morrow. breast, Sing, birds, in every furrow; And from each hill let music shrill Give my fair love good-morrow. Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow; You pretty elves, among yourselves Sing my fair love good-morrow. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. DECORATION. "Manibus date lilia plenis." Never foot had firmer tread On the field where hope lay dead, 'MID the flower-wreathed tombs I Than are hid within this tomb, Where the untended grasses bloom; And beauty mirrored in the lake, Nor is the stately scene without Their own exclusive pleasures; The hours to wear away in; With clouds, and shadows of the clouds, And mists the hillsides ranging. Their changing glories render; Now glowing and now tender. But purer than the shifting gleams Is the deep spirit of that hour, And vaulted aisles, of whispering pine, | Hangs o'er the eastern ridges, Clear streams that from the uplands run, A course of sunless shadow; No tame monotony is here, But beauty ever changing; And the long shaft of trembling gold, The trembling crystal bridges. Farewell, sweet lake! brief were the Along thy banks for straying; An image undecaying. I hold secure beyond all change To cheer the hours of lonely toil. And, braving full their murderous Keep green the memory of the brave blast, Stormed home the towers of Monterey. Our banners on those turrets wave, And there our evening bugles play; Where orange boughs above their grave Who fought and fell at Monterey. We are not many, we who pressed Beside the brave who fell that But who of us has not confessed And he'll never know Where the summers go;He need not laugh, for he'll find it so! Who can follow the gossamer links By which the manikin feels his way Out from the shore of the greas unknown, Blind, and wailing, and all alone, Out from the shore of the unknown sea, Of the unknown sea that reels and Tossing in pitiful agony, rolls, Specked with the barks of little souls, Barks that were launched on the other side, And slipped from heaven on an ebbWhat does he think of his mother's ing tide! eyes? What does he think of his mother's hair? What of the cradle-roof that flies Forward and backward through the air? What does he think of his mother's breast, Bare and beautiful, smooth and white, Seeking it ever with fresh delight, Cup of his life and couch of his rest? What does he think when her quick embrace Presses his hand and buries his face Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell With a tenderness she can never tell, Words she has learned to murmur well? Now he thinks he'll go to sleep! |