Of wildest joy with nature's symphony,
Contributes its mite to swell the bright blue sea:
Though from obscurity darkly it rose,
Now through the merry sunshine sparkling it flows,
Laughing as it leaps from rocky height,
Or moaning in the depths of chasm'd night;
Down, down it madly rushes from rocky ledge,
Till far across the plains, through heath and hedge,
It gurgles on, and gurgling evermore,
Till lost amid the sea's tumultuous roar.
Inexorable fate! the frailest flower
That blooms to fade and wither in an hour,
That smiles unseen, unloved to pass away,
Secures the object of its destiny!
Yet men there are who never seem to find
The humble end to which they were design'd;
Ambitious aspirants for power and fame,
But die at last, and leave what? scarce a name.
Others there are, though much less worthy, found,
Whom nature with her choicest gifts hath crowned.
Prodigies indeed, yet the world must own,
That fame ne'er epitaphed a more reckless drone.
More pets hath fate, though less supremely blest,
Those who on the arm of fortune rest
Content, if with earth's countless bounties fed,
With pockets filled 'tis true, but empty head.
But here must end the theme of my moonstruck song,
For the ox must hear my voice at the plow ere long;
The nightingale hath flown, the owl is gone,
And the first red light of morn begins to dawn.
Trol la! trol la! away to the plow!
Both happy and free is a farmer's son;
He earns his own bread by the sweat of his brow,
And lives at his ease when his toil is done.
By honest industry he has gained his wealth,
And lives for his friends as well as himself.
Trol la! trol la! sing merrily
A farmer's life is the life for me!
With the lowing ox, and the bleating flocks,
With horses and swine his land he stocks;
Of useful books has a rich supply,
And his garners are filled with corn and rye.
In the cool green glade he sleeps in the shade,
But dreams of none but a farmer's maid.
Trol la trol la! sing merily!
A farmer's life is the life for me;
Trol la! trol la! both happy and free
Is a farmer's life, 'tis the life for me.
But why this ecstacy, this overflow,
This thrill of soul? the poet does not know.
Of the field of rye he has lost all recollection,
Sufficeth that he's made a resurrection;
And sauntering listless homeward, luckily strayed
Beneath the window of his dairy-maid;
And as the lark her song to the free air flings,
The lover tunes his lyre, and thus he sings:
Sweet Lizzie, awake! 'tis early dawn,
The golden eyes of morn
Are peeping in o'er flow'ry lawn,
And fields of waving corn.
The eastern hills with rosy light
Are blushing through the trees,
And odors sweet from roses bright,
Float on the morning breeze.
Yet, dim are morning's eyes to thine,
And pale her rosy light,
To the blushes on thy cheek divine,
And thy neck so lily white.
Then Lizzie awake! the dew-drops bright
Are sparkling on each tree,
And a garland of roses red and white,
Have I wreathed in beauty to thee.
TERESA, OR THE PEASANT MOTHER.
I traced a river from the deep, dark wood,
To where it meets old ocean's darker flood,
Through all its windings down the mountain side,
I watched it as it leaped through chasms wide,
Through ravines dark and deep I hear it roar,
And now from craggy heights its torrents pour,
Foaming and dashing in its onward course,
The firmest rock it breaks with giant force;
Hurling far below in deafening sound
Each fragment, till the mountain caves resound.
Still on it flows, not like the jaded steed,
In bloody conflict forced to stay his speed,
But o'er the distant plains and mossy green,
Through fruitful vales, its shining path is seen.
High on the summit of a lofty mount,
There rose in grandeur wild a crystal fount ;
Around dense groves of spruce and cedar stood,
To shade the cradle of the infant flood;
The holly bush and fir their branches spread,
But not a single floweret reared its head
Above the mossy rocks, that rudely lay
Around the fountain, glittering with its
spray.
The day was bright and fair, and many a stag
Came bounding o'er the rocks from crag to crag;
The antelope looked down from dizzy height,
And ravens screamed in their airy flight.
In this sequestered spot I saw a maid,
Seated in the deep, cool forest shade;
A peasant girl she seemed, of tender years,
But her cheek was pallid and bedewed with tears; Her eye was wild and restless as a gleam
Of starlight on a turbid, mountain stream.
Her brow was strongly marked with anxious care, And near her stood a boy with flaxen hair;
His golden ringlets floating in the breeze,
That from the vale came sighing through the trees,
Bearing upon its light wing many a sigh
Of fainting flowers beneath a sunny sky.
How sad it is, thought I, that one so young
Should weep; but as I wondered thus she sung:
"Oh! happy dreams of infancy,
How dear your memory is to me;
Why lingered not those joyous hours?
When but a child in quest of flowers
I plucked the wildest rose, and say
Was I not pure and wild as they?
But ah! 'tis past, they 've fleeted by,
And nought is left but infamy.
Tell if ye can, ye limpid streams,
That now so wildly drink the beams
Of the warm sunshine, as ye go,
What fate awaits you? Ah! no, no!
We simple peasants, like these brooks,
Find in our paths a thousand nooks;
But the proud, the opulent, the gay,
Are mightier streams, yet like us, they
Through darker, deeper channels go,
All bright above, all black below."
But soon a cloud had gathered o'er the mount,
And higher rose the gushing crystal fount,
As if to pierce its sable, mystic shroud,
And drink the sunshine through the threat'ning cloud.
But dense and fleeting mists swept o'er the plain,
And now in torrents falls the dashing rain;
From shattered crag to crag forked lightnings leap,
And tempests howl in the forest deep.
Peal after peal of thunder shook the ground,
Till yawning caverns echoed back the sound.
Alarmed, the mother clasped in fond embrace
Her rosy boy, and down the mount retraced
A rugged path, that near a chasm led,
Where dark below a foaming torrent sped.
How anxiously I watched her gliding form
Among the rocks and trees; but soon the storm
Had thickened into night, save when a flash
Of lurid lightning clave some mountain ash.
May Heaven preserve, cried I, that lovely pair,
But, as I spoke, a shriek of wild despair,
A cry of mingled horror burst without,
Amid the raging storm's tumultuous shout.
I hastened to the spot, but ah! too late!
No human power could change the dreadful fate.
High on a towering crag Teresa stood,
Swayed to and fro as roll'd the impetuous flood.
"My child! my boy! she cried, O stop the stream!
What! lost? It cannot be, 'tis but a dream.
Just now on yonder ledge of rocks we stood-
But where is he?-I faint!-my child!-my God!"
Her trembling arms in air she wildly threw,
Then plunged into the flood and sank—adieu.
VIEW OF THE MIND RELEASED FROM MATTER.
There is a thought that springs from truths innate,
That culture cannot form, nor mind create;
That genius never drew from fancy's mould,
A sense of latent powers that must unfold;
That will expand, when freed from matter crude,
To roam the vast domain of nature's God.
To mind thus free what may not time reveal!
For error cannot now the truth conceal.
Infinity she grasps through time's duration,
And solves the deep enigmas of creation.
Amazed, she soars on high, while 'neath her whirls
The whole stupendous frame of clustering worlds.
What ecstacy of soul! what strains of love!
Now burst in hymns of praise to God above,
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