THE LAPSE OF TIME.

Oh, 'leave me, still, the rapid flight
That makes the changing seasons gay,
The grateful speed that brings the night,
The swift and glad return of day;

The months that touch, with added grace,
This little prattler at my knee,

In whose arch eye and speaking face
New meaning every hour I see;

The years, that o'er each sister land
Shall lift the country of my birth
And nurse her strength, till she shall stand
The pride and pattern of the earth;

Till younger commonwealths, for aid,
Shall cling about her ample robe,
And from her frown shall shrink afraid
The crowned oppressors of the globe.

True-time will seam and blanch my brow-
Well I shall sit with aged men,
And my good glass will tell me how
A grizzly beard becomes me then.

And should no foul dishonour lie
Upon my head, when I am gray,
Love yet shall watch my fading eye,

And smooth the path of my decay.

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36

THE LAPSE OF TIME.

Then haste thee, Time-'tis kindness all
That speeds thy winged feet so fast;
Thy pleasures stay not till they pall,
And all thy pains are quickly past.

Thou fliest and bear'st away our woes,
And as thy shadowy train depart,
The memory of sorrow grows
A lighter burden on the heart.

TO THE EVENING WIND.

SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray

And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee

To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone-a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,

Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth, into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest,

Summoning from the innumerable boughs

The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast:
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows

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TO THE EVENING WIND.

The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,

And 'twixt the o'ershadowing branches and the grass.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head

To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep;
And they who stand about the sick man's bed,
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,

And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go-but the circle of eternal change,

Which is the life of nature, shall restore,

With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,
Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;
Sweet odours in the sea-air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

FOREST HYMN.

THE groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,

And spread the roof above them,—ere he framed

The lofty vault, to gather and roll back

The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood.
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down
And offered to the Mightiest, solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences,
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once

All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore

Only among the crowd, and under roofs

That our frail hands have raised. Let me, at least,

Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,

Offer one hymn-thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in his ear.