Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/524

FROM MOSCHUS.

When the wind softly sways the azure sea,
My languid spirit kindles at the sight,
And then the land is no more a delight,
Only the mighty main seems sweet to me.

But when the waters in their wrath grow hoar,
And the long rollers rage with curling foam,
I turn again towards my wooded home,
And love to look upon the sea no more.

Ah! sweet the land, and sweet the forest dark,
Whose pines make song, whate'er the wild wind's strife;
And hard, indeed, must be the fisher's life.
Who toils upon the deep, — his home, a bark;

His prey, the roaming fish. But 'tis my lot
Beneath the plane's full leaf at ease to dream.
And thence I love to hear the passing stream,
Whose prattle charms, and can disquiet not.

W. T.

Spectator.

---

TO CHARLES SUMNER.

River that stealeth with such silent pace
Around the city of the dead, where lies
A friend who bore thy name, and whom these eyes
Shall see no more in his accustomed place,
Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace.
And say good-night, for now the western skies
Are red with sunset, and gray mists arise
Like damps that gather on a dead man's face.
Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said
Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days
That are no more and shall no more return.
Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed;
I stay a little longer, as one stays
To cover up the embers that still burn.

---

THE TIDES.

I saw the long line of the vacant shore.
The seaweed and the shells upon the sand.
And the brown rocks left bare on every hand.
As if the ebbing tide would flow no more.
Then heard I more distinctly than before,
The ocean breathe and its great breast expand,
And hurrying came on the defenceless land
The insurgent waters with tumultuous roar.
All thought and feeling and desire, I said.
Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song
Have ebbed from me forever! Suddenly o'er me
They swept again from their deep ocean bed,
And in a tumult of delight, and strong
As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me.

Longfellow's "Masque of Pandora."

---

THE LESSON OF THE LEAVES.

As, one by one, these autumn leaves, descending
To droop and die,
In rustled murmurs, breathe one soft unending
Sad threnody,
Till branch and bough, whereon no vestige lingers
Of summer bloom.
Trace out upon the sky, with withered fingers.
Their wintry doom:

So, one by one, these earthly hopes we cherish —
More dearly prized.
Perchance, than Heaven itself — fall off and perish
Unrealized,
And leave us, with life's winter o'er us stealing.
And skies o'ercast,
With bared and outstretched arms for help appealing
To Heaven at last.

---

JUBILATE.

Gray distance hid each shining sail
By ruthless breezes borne from me;
And lessening, fading, faint and pale,
My ships went forth to sea.

Where misty breakers rose and fell
I stood and cowered hopelessly;
For every wave had tales to tell
Of wrecks far out at sea.

To-day a song is on my lips;
Earth seems a paradise to me;
For God is good, and lo! my ships
Are coming home from sea.