SONG. Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow Reflects the day-dawn cold and clear, The hunter of the west must go In depth of woods to seek the deer. His rifle on his shoulder placed, His stores of death arranged with skill, His moccasins and snow-shoes laced,Why lingers he beside the hill? Far, in the dim and doubtful light, And oft he turns his truant eye, And pauses oft, and lingers near; But when he marks the reddening sky, He bounds away to hunt the deer. TO A WATERFOWL. WHITHER, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, On the chafed ocean side? Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, The desert and illimitable air,— Lone wandering, but not lost. } All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright. GREEN RIVER. WHEN breezes are soft and skies are fair, And hie me away to the woodland scene, Yet pure its waters-its shallows are bright With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light, And clear the depths where its eddies play, And dimples deepen and whirl away, And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot The swifter current that mines its root, Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill, The quivering glimmer of sun and rill With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown, Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone. Oh, loveliest there the spring days come, With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum; The flowers of summer are fairest there, In silence and sunshine glides away. Yet fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide, And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill, On the river cherry and seedy reed, |