Silvers the horizon wall,
And, with softness touching all,
Tints the human countenance
With a colour of romance,
And, infusing subtle heats,
Turns the sod to violets,--.
Thou in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods,
The green silence dost displace
With thy mellow breezy bass

Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tune,
Telling of countless sunny hours,
Long days, and solid banks of flowers,
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found,
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.

Aught unsavoury or unclean
Hath my insect never seen;
But violets and bilberry bells,
Maple sap and daffodels,

Grass with green flag half-mast high,

Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern, and agrimony,
Clover, catch-fly, adder's tongue,
And briar-roses, dwelt among;
All beside was unknown waste
All was picture as he passed.

Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breeched philosopher!
Seeing only what is fair,

Sipping only what is sweet,

Thou dost mock at fate and care,
Leave the chaff and take the wheat.

When the fierce north-western blast

Cools sea and land so far and fast,
Thou already slumberest deep,-
Woe and want thou canst out-sleep,—
Want and woe, which torture us,
Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

EACH AND ALL.

LITTLE thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown.
Of thee, from the hill-top looking down;
And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm ;
The sexton tolling the bell at noon

Dreams not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse, and lifts with delight,

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;

Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbour's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;

Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough.

I brought him home in his nest at even ;—
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.

I wiped away the weeds and foam,
And fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.

The lover watched his graceful maid

As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,

Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by the snow-white quire.

At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage,—

The gay enchantment was undone,

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet Truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,

I leave it behind with the games of youth.".

As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burns;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Above me soared the eternal sky,

Full of light and deity;

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird ;-

Beauty through my senses stole,

I yielded myself to the perfect whole

DIRGE.

KNOWS he who tills this lonely feld,
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield

At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts;
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood

As when my brothers long ago

Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone, the holy ones
Who trod with me this lonely vale,
The strong star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.

My good, my noble, in their prime,
Who made this world the feast it was,
Who learned with me the lore of time,
Who loved this dwelling-place.

They took this valley for their toy,
They played with it in every mood,
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,

They treated Nature as they would.

They coloured the horizon round,

Stars flamed and faded as they bade, All echoes hearkened for their sound, They made the woodlands glad or mad.

I touch this flower of silken leaf

Which once our childhood knew, Its soft leaves wound me with a grief Whose balsam never grew.

Hearken to yon pine-warbler
Singing aloft on the tree;
Hearest thou, O traveller!

What he singeth to me?

Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine

Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
The heavy dirge divine.

"Go, lonely man," it saith;

"They loved thee from their birth; Their hands were pure, and pure their faith, There are no such hearts on earth.

THE WORLD SOUL.

THANKS to the morning light,
Thanks to the seething sea,
To the uplands of New Hampshire,
To the green-haired forest free;
Thanks to each man of courage,
To the maids of holy mind,

To the boy with his games undaunted,
Who never looks behind.

Cities of proud hotels,

Houses of rich and great,

Vice nestles in your chambers,

Beneath your roofs of slate.
It cannot conquer folly,

Time-and-space-conquering steam,--
And the light-outspeeding telegraph
Bears nothing on its beam.

The politics are base,

The letters do not cheer,

And 'tis far in the deeps of history

The voice that speaketh clear.
Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn,

We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.