The four walls of thy nursery
Are now like prison walls to thee.
No more thy mother's smiles,
No more the painted tiles,
Delight thee, nor the playthings on the
floor,

That won thy little, beating heart before;
Thou strugglest for the open door.

Through these once solitary halls
Thy pattering footstep falls.
The sound of thy merry voice
Makes the old walls

Jubilant, and they rejoice

With the joy of thy young heart,
O'er the light of whose gladness
No shadows of sadness

From the sombre background of memory
start.

Once, ah, once, within these walls,
One whom memory oft recalls,
The Father of his Country, dwelt.
And yonder meadows broad and damp
The fires of the besieging camp
Encircled with a burning belt.
Up and down these echoing stairs,
Heavy with the weight of cares,
Sounded his majestic tread;
Yes, within this very room
Sat he in those hours of gloom,
Weary both in heart and head.

What! tired already! with those suppliant looks,

And voice more beautiful than a poet's
books,

Or murmuring sound of water as it flows,
Thou comest back to parley with repose!
This rustic seat in the old apple-tree,
With its o'erhanging golden canopy
Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues,
And shining with the argent light of
dews,

Shall for a season be our place of rest.
Beneath us, like an oriole's pendent
nest,

From which the laughing birds have taken wing,

By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.

Dream-like the waters of the river
gleam;

A sailless vessel drops adown the stream,
And like it, to a sea as wide and deep,
Thou driftest gently down the tides of
sleep.

O child! O new-born denizen
Of life's great city! on thy head
The glory of the morn is shed,
Like a celestial benison !
Here at the portal thou dost stand,
And with thy little hand

Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.

But what are these grave thoughts to I see its valves expand,

thee?

Out, out! into the open air!

Thy only dream is liberty,
Thou carest little how or where.
I see thee eager at thy play,

Now shouting to the apples on the tree,
With cheeks as round and red as they;
And now among the yellow stalks,
Among the flowering shrubs and plants,

As restless as the bee.
Along the garden walks,
The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels
I trace;

And see at every turn how they efface
Whole villages of sand-roofed tents,
That rise like golden domes

Above the cavernous and secret homes
Of wandering and nomadic tribes of

ants.

Ah, cruel little Tamerlane,
Who, with thy dreadful reign,
Dost persecute and overwhelm

As at the touch of Fate!

Into those realms of love and hate,
Into that darkness blank and drear,
By some prophetic feeling taught,
I launch the bold, adventurous thought,
Freighted with hope and fear;
As upon subterranean streams,
In caverns unexplored and dark,
Men sometimes launch a fragile bark,
Laden with flickering fire,
And watch its swift-receding beams,
Until at length they disappear,
And in the distant dark expire.

By what astrology of fear or hope
Dare I to cast thy horoscope!
Like the new moon thy life appears;
A little strip of silver light,
And widening outward into night
The shadowy disk of future years;
And yet upon its outer rim,
A luminous circle, faint and dim,

These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm! And scarcely visible to us here,

perfect While, opposite, the scale of night Silently with the stars ascended.

TO THE DRIVING CLOUD.

GLOOMY and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas ;
Gloomy and dark as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken!
Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's
Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers
Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints.
What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?

How canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies?
How canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains?
Ah! 't is in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge
Looks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements,
Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions
Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too,
Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!

Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash !
There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple
Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer

Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches.
There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses!

There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elkhorn,

Or by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omaha

Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet!

Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts ?
Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth,
Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder,
And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man?
Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes,
Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth,
Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's
Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires
Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak
Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race;

It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches!

Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind, Drifts everniore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams!

SEAWEED.

WHEN descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic

SONGS.

Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,

Laden with seaweed from the rocks:

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges

Of sunken ledges,

In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;

And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting

On the desolate, rainy seas;

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main ;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,

All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean

Of the poet's soul, erelong
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,

Floats some fragment of a song:
From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;