Even as I gaze upon my memory's track,

Bright as that coil of light along the deep,
A scene of early youth comes dream-like back,

Where two are gazing from yon tide-swept steep: A sanguine strippling, just toward manhood flushing; A girl scarce yet in ripened beauty blushing.

The hour is his! and while his hopes are soaring

Doubts he that lady will become his bride? Can she resist that gush of wild adoring

Fresh from a heart full volumed as the tide ? Tremulous yet various is that glorious daughter Of loveliness, as is the star-paved water.

MOONLIGHT

ON THE

HUDSON.

235

But now, bright Peri of the skies, descending

Thy pearly car hangs o'er yon mountain's crest,
And Night, more nearly now each step attending,

As if to hide thy envied place of rest,
Closes at last thy very couch beside,
A matron curtaining a virgin bride.

Farewell! Though tears on every leaf are starting,

While through the shadowy boughs thy glances quiver, As of the good when heavenward hence departing,

Shines thy last smile upon the placid river. So-could I fling o'er glory's tide one rayWould I too steal from this dark world away.

TO THE HUMA.

A bird peculiar to the East. It is supposed to fly constantly in the air and nev

er touch the ground.)

Fly on: nor touch thy wing, bright bird,

Too near our shaded earth,
Or the warbling, now so sweetly heard,

May lose its note of mirth.
Fly on-nor seek a place of rest

In the home of care-worn things;"
'Twould dim the light of thy shining crest

And thy brightly burnished wings, To dip them where the waters glide That flow from a troubled earthly tide.

The fields of upper air are thine,

Thy place where stars shine free:
I would thy home, bright one, were mine,

Above life's stormy sea.
I would never wander, bird, like thee,

So near this place again,

TO

THE

HUMA.

237

With wing and spirit once light and free

They should wear no more the chain
With which they are bound and fettered here,
For ever struggling for skies more clear.

There are many things like thee, bright bird,

Hopes as thy plumage gay;
Our air is with them for ever stirred,

But still in air they stay.
And Happiness, like thee, fair one,

Is ever hovering o'er,
But rests in a land of brighter sun,

On a waveless peaceful shore,
And stoops to lave her weary wings,
Where the fount of 6 living waters” springs.

His echoing axe the settler swung

Amid the sea-like solitude, And rushing, thundering, down were flung

The Titans of the wood;
Loud shrieked the eagle as he dashed
From out his mossy nest, which crashed

With its supporting bough,
And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed

On the wolf's haunt below.