Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Where is the fire that lit thy fearless eye,
Child of the storm,

When from thy home on high,

Yon craggy-breasted rock, I saw thy form
Cleaving the sky?

It grieveth me to see thy spirit tamed;
Gone out the light

That in thine eye-ball flamed,

When to the midday sun thy steady flight
Was proudly aimed!

Like the young dove forsaken, is the look
Of thy sad eye,

Who in some lonely nook,

Mourneth upon the willow bough her destiny,
Beside the brook.

While somewhat sterner in thy downward gaze
Doth seem to lower,

And deep disdain betrays,

As if thou cursed man's poorly acted power,
And scorned his praise.

Oh, let not me insult thy fallen dignity,
Poor injured bird,

Gazing with vulgar eye

Upon thy ruin;-for my heart is stirr'd
To hear thy cry;

And answereth to thee, as I turn to go,

It is a stain

On man!-Thus, even thus low

Be brought the wretch, who could for sordid gain,
Work thee such wo!

R. H. WILDE,

Or Georgia. We are not acquainted with the writer, except by a few articles in verse, which have appeared in the newspapers.

A FRAGMENT.

""Tis many moons ago—a long-long time
Since first upon this shore a white man trod;
From the great water to the mountain clime
This was our home;-'t was given us by the God
That gave ye yours.-Love ye your native sod?
So did our fathers too-for they were men!
They fought to guard it, for their hearts were brave,
And long they fought-we were a people then;
This was our country-it is now our grave-
Would I had never lived, or died the land to save.

When first ye came, your numbers were but few,
Our nation many as the leaves or sand:
Hungry and tired ye were-we pitied you-
We called you brothers-took you by the hand—
But soon we found ye came to rob the land:
We quarrell'd-and your countrymen we slew,
Till one alone of all, remain'd behind,
Among the false he only had been true,
And much we loved this man of single mind,
And ever while he lived, to him were kind.

He loved us too, and taught us many things,
And much we strove the stranger's heart to glad ;
But to its kindred still the spirit clings,
And therefore was his soul for ever sad;
Nor other wish or joy the lone one had,
Save on the solitary shore to roam,

Or sit and gaze for hours upon the deep,
That roll'd between him and his native home;

And when he thought none mark'd him, he would weep,
Or sing this song of wo which still our maidens keep.

"My life is like the summer rose
That opens to the morning sky,
And ere the shades of evening close,
Is scatter'd on the ground-to die!
Yet on that rose's humble bed
The softest dews of night are shed,
As though she wept such waste to see,-
But none shall drop a tear for me!

My life is like the autumn leaf
That trembles in the moon's pale ray,
Its hold is frail-its date is brief,
Restless-and soon to pass away!
Yet, when that leaf shall fall and fade,
The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The wind bewail the leafless tree,
But none shall breathe one sigh for me!

My life is like the track of feet
Left upon Tampa's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,
Their marks shall vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface

All vestige of the human race,

On that lone shore loud moans the sea,
But none shall thus lament for me!"

SAMUEL BARTLETT PARRIS

Was the son of the Rev. Martin Parris of Mansfield, and was born at Kingston, Massachusetts, January 30th, 1806. He received his early education from his father, and exhibited a most extraordinary and precocious aptitude for learning. He began the study of languages at the age of six. At ten years of age he was examined for admission to college, and the professors held him in their arms while he construed Virgil, Cicero, and the Greek Testament. He was pronounced fit for admission, but on account of his youth he returned home and did not enter the university for two years. He was graduated at the age of fifteen, and entered upon the study of medicine the year after. He received a medical degree in 1825, and began his practice at Attleborough in Massachusetts. He died September 21st, 1827, at the age of 21. A collection of his writings in verse and prose was published a few months since.

[blocks in formation]

ON A SPRIG OF JUNIPER,

FROM THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON, PRESENTED TO THE

AUTHOR.

THE meadow may boast of its thousand dyes,
For their varied splendors are far before thee;
But still more fair in the patriot's eyes

Is the humblest branch from the trunk that bore thee;
For the place where it grows is a sacred spot,
With remembrance of high achievements fraught.

Thou didst not thrive on the blood of the slave,
Whom the reeking sword of oppression slaughter'd;
But the grateful tears of the good and brave,
With a purer stream thy roots have water'd-
And green didst thou grow o'er the hero's bed,
When the tears of his patriot son* were shed.

Say, where wert thou half an age ago,
When terrors were thronging around our nation-
Where our land, by the word of its haughty foe,
Was mark'd with the sentence of desolation-
When the banner of freedom was wide unfurl'd
On the natal day of this western world-

When our fathers spared no pain nor toil,
To purchase the blessing for their descendants,
And seal'd with their blood on their native soil
Their claim to the glory of Independence-
When Life, Wealth, Honor, were all at stake
That the holy cause they would not forsake.

Perhaps thou wast by the side of thy sire,
Whose branch to the breeze had for ages trembled,
Where gather'd around the council-fire
The chiefs of the tawny tribes assembled,-
Or it might have shaded the hunter's track
On the lonely banks of the Potomac.

And long on the place of the hero's sleep
May flourish the trunk, whence thou wert taken,
But a grateful nation his name shall keep,

*This was written soon after La Fayette visited the tomb of Washington.

When lifeless and bare, of its leaves forsaken,
The trunk and the branch to the earth are cast
Before the might of the rushing blast.

For in distant ages the day shall come,

When the vengeance of time its pride shall humble-
And the arch of the proud mausoleum
O'er the mouldering urn of the dead shall crumble-
But till the last moment of time hath run

Shall live the remembrance of Washington.

Ah! soon must branches like thine be spread
O'er another's tomb-and o'er yet another's-
For now from the sorrows of earth have fled,
As with one accord, two patriot brothers,*
Whom heaven in mercy hath given to see
The day of their nation's Jubilee.

O! sadly, in tears sunk down, that day,
The sun, in the distant west declining-
But still in a holier splendor they

With their latest beams on earth were shining,
When they were call'd from earth to remove,
And shine in the realms of the blest above.

WILLIAM CUTTER,

Or Portland. The following piece is from the Legendary.

THE VALLEY OF SILENCE.

HAs thy foot ever trod that silent dell ?—
"T is a place for the voiceless thought to swell,
And the eloquent song to go up unspoken,

Like the incense of flowers whose urns are broken;
And the unveil'd heart may look in and see,
In that deep, strange silence, its motions free,
And learn how the pure in spirit feel

That unseen Presence to which they kneel.

Adams and Jefferson.

« AnteriorContinuar »