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That bears them, with the riches of the land,
And treasure of dear lives, till, in the port,
The shouting seaman climbs and furls the sail.

But who shall bide thy tempest, who shall face
The blast that wakes the fury of the sea?
Oh God! thy justice makes the world turn pale,
When on the armed fleet, that royally

Bears down the surges, carrying war, to smite
Some city, or invade some thoughtless realm,
Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks
Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails
Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts
Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks,
Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf,
Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayed
In trappings of the battle-field, are whelmed
By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks.
Then stand the nations still with awe, and
A moment, from the bloody work of war.

pause,

These restless surges eat away the shores
Of earth's old continents; the fertile plain
Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down,
And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets
Of the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afar
In the green chambers of the middle sea,

Where broadest spread the waters and the line
Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work,
Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm
To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age,
He builds beneath the waters, till, at last,
His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check
The long wave rolling from the southern pole
To break upon Japan. Thou bid'st the fires,
That smoulder under ocean, heave on high
The new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks,
A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird.

The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts
With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airs
Ripple the living lakes that, fringed with flowers,
Are gathered in the hollows. Thou dost look
On thy creation and pronounce it good.

Its valleys, glorious with their summer green,
Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods,
Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, jois
The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn.

ΝΟ Ο Ν.

FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM.

'Tis noon.

At noon the Hebrew bowed the knee And worshipped, while the husbandmen withdrew. From the scorched field, and the wayfaring man Grew faint, and turned aside by bubbling fount, Or rested in the shadow of the palm.

I, too, amid the overflow of day,

Behold the power which wields and cherishes
The frame of Nature. From this brow of rock
That overlooks the Hudson's western marge,
I gaze upon the long array of groves,

The piles and gulfs of verdure drinking in

The grateful heats. They love the fiery sun;

.

Their broadening leaves grow glossier, and their sprays
Climb as he looks upon them. In the midst,
The swelling river, into his green gulfs,
Unshadowed save by passing sails above,
Takes the redundant glory, and enjoys

The summer in his chilly bed. Coy flowers,

That would not open in the early light,

Push back their plaited sheaths. The rivulet's pool,
That darkly quivered all the morning long
In the cool shade, now glimmers in the sun;
And o'er its surface shoots, and shoots again,
The glittering dragon-fly, and deep within
Run the brown water-beetles to and fro.

A silence, the brief sabbath of an hour, Reigns o'er the fields; the laborer sits within His dwelling; he has left his steers awhile, Unyoked, to bite the herbage, and his dog Sleeps stretched beside the door-stone in the shade. Now the grey marmot, with uplifted paws, No more sits listening by his den, but steals Abroad, in safety, to the clover field, And crops its juicy blossoms. All the while A ceaseless murmur from the populous town Swells o'er these solitudes:.a mingled sound Of jarring wheels, and iron hoofs that clash Upon the stony ways, and hammer-clang, And creak of engines lifting ponderous bulks, And calls and cries, and tread of eager feet, Innumerable, hurrying to and fro. Noon, in that mighty mart of nations, brings No pause to toil and care. With early day Began the tumult, and shall only cease

When midnight, hushing one by one the sounds Of bustle, gathers the tired brood to rest.

Thus, in this feverish time, when love of gain And luxury possess the hearts of men, Thus is it with the noon of human life. We, in our fervid manhood, in our strength Of reason, we, with hurry, noise, and care, Plan, toil, and strive, and pause not to refresh Our spirits with the calm and beautiful Of God's harmonious universe, that won Our youthful wonder; pause not to inquire Why we are here; and what the reverence Man owes to man, and what the mystery That links us to the greater world, beside Whose borders we but hover for a space.

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