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NIGHT WINDS.

219

And while from vale to vale, like incense given, Sounds on the breeze of morn the Sabbath bell, The chastened soul may lift its dream to heaven Till the rapt heart seems kindling in the spell; While, touched with day-beams, grove, and fount and river,

In the soft beauty of Contentment sleep, How should man conquer Passion's stormy fever And drink of peacefulness so pure and deep?

Why, when the anthems of the streams are swelling, And the fresh blossoms odorous tribute yield :When gales delicious of sweet buds are telling,

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That humbly blooming, bend in every field? Why should Man's heart no pure emotions cherishWhy should its reverence and affection die ;— When fragile birds and blossoms, born to perish, Make glad the chambers of the open sky!

NIGHT WINDS.

BY HENRY LANCE.

THE rifted clouds are flying fast

Across the moonlit sky:

They turn their silver lining out'
A moment on the eye,

And then down to the ocean's rim

In wild disorder pass,

220

NIGHT WINDS.

And roll their thick and black'ning folds-
Into one mighty mass.

A single star is bright above:

How mild it glimmers forth,
While the dark spirit of the gale
Sweeps from the frozen north!

There is a music in the wind-
How sadly on the soul,

Like tidings from another sphere,
Its tones of wildness roll;

The rushing of the tempest's wings
Along the altered earth,
To what mysterious sympathies
And passions it gives birth!
As if it stripped the lonely heart
Of all its earthly ties,

And bade it hold communion with
The spirits of the skies!

The mournful music of the wind
At midnight's still profound,
What buried thoughts and faded hopes
Awaken at its sound!

The golden visions of the past,

Now doubly bright to view-
The dreams of glory and of fame,
We deemed would once be true!
They're gone-the gilded colorings
Of youth's unshaded day-
And clouds instead of sunbeams fall
Around our lonely way!

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THE LAST REQUEST.

221

THE LAST REQUEST.

BY B. B. THATCHER.

BURY me by the Ocean's side

O give me a grave on the verge of the deep,
Where the noble tide,

When the sea-gales blow, my marble may sweep-
And the glistering surf

Shall burst on my turf,

And bathe my cold bosom in death as I sleep!

Bury me by the sea

That the vesper at eve-fall may ring o'er my grave, Like the hymn of the bee,

Or the hum of the shell in the silent wave!

Or an anthem-roar

Shall be beat on the shore

By the storm and the surge, like a march of the brave!

Bury me by the deep

Where a living footstep never may tread

And come not to weep

O wake not with sorrow the dream of the dead! But leave me the dirge

Of the breaking surge,

And the silent tears of the sea on my head!

And grave no Parian praisePurple no turf for the heartless tomb

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And burn no holy blaze,

To flatter the awe of its solemn gloom!
For the holier light

Of the star-eyed night,

And the violet morning my rest will illume:

And honors, more dear

Than of sorrow and love, shall be strewn on my clay
By the young green year,

With its fragrant dews and its crimson array-
O leave me to sleep

On the verge of the deep,
Till the sky and the seas shall have past away!

A SEA-PIECE.

A HOLY stillness, beautiful and deep,

Reigns in the air and broods upon the ocean: The worn-out winds are quieted to sleep, And not a wave is lifted into motion.

The sea-bird skims along the glassy tide,
With sidelong flight and wing of glancing white-

ness:

Or floats upon the sea outstretching wide

A sheet of gold beneath the noonday's brightness.

The fleecy clouds hang on the deep blue sky,
Into fantastic shapes of beauty moulded ;

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Reaching above each other, broad and highThe dazzling sunbeams in their bosoms folded.

It seems as if the burning cheek of day

Were placed upon the ocean's noiseless pillow; And both in harmonising slumber lay,

Stirred by no cooling breeze or rippling billow.

How at an hour like this the dreaming mind

Partakes the quiet that is shed around us; As if the Power that stilled the restless wind, With the same soothing influence had bound us!

STANZAS.

BY ST. GEORGE TUCKER.

DAYS of my youth,

Ye have glided away;

Hairs of my youth,

Ye are frosted and gray:

Eyes of my youth,

Your keen sight is no more:

Cheeks of my youth,

Ye are furrowed all o'er:

Strength of my youth

All your vigor is gone:
Thoughts of my youth,
Your gay visions are flown.

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