So the wild wind strews its perfumed caresses.
Evil and thankless the desert it blesses,
Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses,

Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing.

What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses ? What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes? Sweetest is music with minor-keyed closes, Fairest the vines that on ruin will cling.

Almost the day of thy giving is over;

Ere from the grass dies the bee-haunted clover, Thou wilt have vanished from friend and from

lover.

What shall thy longing avail in the grave? Give as the heart gives whose fetters are break

ing,

Life, love, and hope, all thy dreams and thy waking.

Soon, heaven's river thy soul-fever slaking,
Thou shalt know God and the gift that He gave.

John Townsend Trowbridge.

1827.

AT SEA.

The night was made for cooling shade,
For silence, and for sleep;

And when I was a child, I laid

My hands upon my breast, and prayed,

And sank to slumbers deep.

Childlike, as then, I lie to-night,
And watch my lonely cabin-light.

Each movement of the swaying lamp
Shows how the vessel reels,

And o'er her deck the billows tramp,
And all her timbers strain and cramp
With every shock she feels;

It starts and shudders, while it burns,
And in its hingèd socket turns.

Now swinging slow, and slanting low,
It almost level lies:

And yet I know, while to and fro
I watch the seeming pendule go
With restless fall and rise,
The steady shaft is still upright,
Poising its little globe of light.

O hand of God! O lamp of peace!
O promise of my soul !

Though weak and tossed, and ill at ease
Amid the roar of smiting seas—

The ship's convulsive roll,

I own, with love and tender awe,
Yon perfect type of faith and law.

A heavenly trust my spirit calms,—
My soul is filled with light;
The ocean sings his solemn psalms ;

The wild winds chant; I cross my palms;

Happy, as if to-night,

Under the cottage roof again,

I hear the soothing summer rain.

Francis Miles Finch.

1827.

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.

By the flow of the inland river,

Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, Asleep are the ranks of the dead ;

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day ;

Under the one, the Blue;

Under the other, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours

The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers

Alike for the friend and the foe ;—

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day ;

Under the roses, the Blue ;

Under the lilies, the Gray.

So with an equal splendor
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch, impartially tender,

On the blossoms blooming for all ;—
Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day ;-
'Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So, when the Summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain ;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day ;—
Wet with the rain, the Blue ;]
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;

In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won ;—
Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day ;-
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever

When they laurel the graves of our dead!

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day ;-
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.

Albert Laigbton.

1829-1887.

UNDER THE LEAVES.

Oft have I walked these woodland paths,
Without the blest foreknowing
That underneath the withered leaves
The fairest buds were growing.

To-day the south wind sweeps away
The types of Autumn's splendor,
And shows the sweet arbutus flowers,
Spring's children, pure and tender.

O prophet flowers !-with lips of bloom,
Out-vying in thy beauty

The pearly tints of ocean shells,-
Ye teach me faith and duty!

"Walk life's dark ways," ye seem to say, "With love's divine foreknowing,

That where man sees but withered leaves, God sees sweet flowers growing."