Ah, well I remember,

Ere dying December

Would fall like a snow-flake, and melt on thy breast,
O'er thy waters so narrow

The little brown sparrow

Used to send his low song to his mate on the nest.

With a silvery skein

Wove of snow and of rain,

Thou didst wander at will through the bud-laden land,— All the air a sweet psalm,

And the meadow a palm,—

As a blue vein meanders a liberal hand.

When the school-master's daughter
With her hands scooped the water,

And laughingly proffered the crystal to me,

O, there ne'er sparkled up

A more exquisite cup

Than the pair of white hands that were brimming with thee!

And there all together,

In bright summer weather,

Did we loiter with thee, along thy green brink;

And how silent we grew,

If the robin came too,

When he looked up to pray, and then bent down to drink!

Ah, where are the faces,
From out thy still places,

That so often smiled back in those soft days of May?
As we bent hand in hand,

Thou didst double the band,

As idle as daisies-and fleeting as they!

RHYMES OF THE RIVER.

Like the dawn in the cloud,

Lay the babe in its shroud,

And a rose-bud was clasped in its frozen white hand:
At the mother's last look

It had opened the book,

As if sweet-breathing June were abroad in the land!

O pure placid river,
Make music forever

In the Gardens of Paradise, hard by the throne!
For on thy far shore,

Gently drifted before,

We may find the lost blossoms that once were our own.

Ah, beautiful river,

Flow onward forever!

Thou art grander than Avon, and sweeter than Ayr;
If a tree has been shaken,

If a star has been taken,

In thy bosom we look-bud and Pleiad are there!

I take up the old words,

Like the song of dead birds,

That were breathed when I stood farther off from the sea: When I heard not its hymn,

When the headlands were dim:

Shall I ever again weave a rhythm for thee?

BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.

21

Morning Hymn to Mont Blanc.

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star

In his steep course?—so long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc!
The Arve and Aveiron at thy base

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark,-substantial black,—
An ebon mass; methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet like some sweet, beguiling melody,

So sweet we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thoughts,
Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy,—
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,

Into the mighty vision passing-there

As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven,

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest-not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy. Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs all join my hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale!
Oh! struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself, earth's rosy star, and of the dawn

MORNING HYMN TO MONT BLANC.

Co-herald! wake, oh wake! and utter praise.
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Forever shattered and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded—and the silence came--
"Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?"

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain—
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!—

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
"GOD!" let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer; and let the ice-plains echo, “ GOD!"

23

"GOD!" sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice, Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, "GOD!" Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements!

Utter forth "GOD!" and fill the hills with praise!

Once more, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peak, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast,-
Thou, too, again, stupendous Mountain! thou,
That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow-traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,

To rise before me--rise, oh ever rise,

Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises GOD!

SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE.

THE

The Beacon.

HE scene was more beautiful far to my eye,
Than if day in its pride had arrayed it ;

The land-breeze blew mild, and the azure-arched sky
Looked pure as the Spirit that made it.

The murmur rose soft as I silently gazed
On the shadowy wave's playful motion,

From the dim distant isle till the beacon-fire blazed,
Like a star in the midst of the ocean.

No longer the joy of the sailor boy's breast
Was heard in his wildly breathed numbers;
The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest,
And the fisherman sunk to his slumbers.