He smites the rock-upheaved in pride, See towers of strength and domes of taste. Earth's teeming caves their wealth reveal, Fire bears his banner on the wave, He bids the mortal poison heal, And leaps triumphant o'er the grave. He plucks the pearls that stud the deep, He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep, In fields of air he writes his name, He moves in greatness and in grace; Links realm to realm, and race to race. EPITHALAMIUM. BY J. G. C. BRAINARD. I SAW two clouds at morning, I thought that morning cloud was blest, I saw two summer currents Flow smoothly to their meeting, And join their course,with silent force, In peace each other greeting : Calm was their course through banks of green, While dippling eddies played between. Such be your gentle motion, Till life's last pulse shall beat; Like summer's beam, and summer's stream, Float on in joy, to meet A calmer sea, where storms shall cease A purer sky, where all is peace. How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it, And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well! That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure; For often, at noon, when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing, And quick to the white pebbled bottom it fell; Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well; The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket arose from the well. How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, As fancy reverts to my father's plantation, And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well; The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket, which hangs in his well. TO A WATERFOWL. BY W. C. BRYANT. 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. Seekst thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, There is a Power, whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast The desert and illimitable air Lone wandering, but not lost. |