In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys With thine arms, as if blessings imploring, Like an old king led forth from his palace, When his people to battle are pouring

From the city beneath him.

To the lumberer asleep 'neath thy booming Thou dost sing of wild billows in motion, Till he longs to be swung 'mid their booming In the tents of the Arabs of ocean,

Whose finned isles are their cattle.

For the gale snatches thee for his lyre,
With mad hand crashing melody frantic,

While he pours forth his mighty desire
To leap down on the eager Atlantic,

Whose arms stretch to his playmate.

The wild storm makes his lair in thy branches, And thence preys on the continent under; Like a lion, crouched close on his haunches, There awaiteth his leap the fierce thunder, Growling low with impatience.

Spite of winter, thou keep'st thy green glory, Lusty father of Titans past number!

The snow-flakes alone make thee hoary, Nestling close to thy branches in slumber, And thee mantling with silence.

Thou alone know'st the splendor of winter,
'Mid thy snow-silvered, hushed precipices,
Hearing crags of green ice groan and splinter,
And then plunge down the muffled abysses
In the quiet of midnight.

Thou alone know'st the glory of summer, Gazing down on thy broad seas of forest, On thy subjects, that send a proud murmur Up to thee, to their sachem, who towerest

From thy bleak throne to heaven.

SI DESCENDERO IN INFERNUM, ADES.

O, WANDERING dim on the extremest edge

Of God's bright providence, whose spirits sigh
Drearily in you, like the winter sedge

That shivers o'er the dead pool stiff and dry,
A thin, sad voice, when the bold wind roars by
From the clear North of Duty,-

Still by cracked arch and broken shaft I trace
That here was once a shrine and holy place
Of the supernal Beauty,-

A child's play-altar reared of stones and moss,
With wilted flowers for offering laid across,

Mute recognition of the all-ruling Grace.

How far are ye from the innocent, from those

Whose hearts are as a little lane serene,

Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with unbroke snows, Or in the summer blithe with lamb-cropped green, Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen

Than the plump wain at even

Bringing home four months' sunshine bound in sheaves!-
How far are ye from those! yet who believes
That ye can shut out heaven?

Your souls partake its influence, not in vain
Nor all unconscious, as that silent lane

Its drift of noiseless apple-blooms receives.

Looking within myself, I note how thin

A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate
Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin ;-

In my own heart I find the worst man's mate,
And see not dimly the smooth-hinged gate

That opes to those abysses

Where ye grope darkly, — ye who never knew
On your young hearts love's consecrating dew,
Or felt a mother's kisses,

Or home's restraining tendrils round you curled; Ah, side by side with heart's-ease in this world The fatal nightshade grows and bitter rue!

One band ye cannot break, the force that clips

And grasps your circles to the central light ;
Yours is the prodigal comet's long ellipse,
Self-exiled to the farthest verge of night;

Yet strives with you no less that inward might
No sin hath e'er imbruted;

The god in you the creed-dimmed eye eludes;
The Law brooks not to have its solitudes

By bigot feet polluted ;

Yet they who watch your God-compelled return May see your happy perihelion burn

Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods.