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Beneath a mountain's brow the cottage stood,
Hard by a shelving lake, whose pebbled bed
Was skirted by the drapery of a wood,

That hung its festoon foliage over head,

Where wild deer came at eve, unharmed, to drink, While moonlight threw their shadows from the brink.

The green earth heaved her giant waves around, Where through the mountain vista, one vast height Towered heavenward without peer, his forehead bound With gorgeous clouds, at times of changeful light, While far below, the lake in bridal rest,

Slept with his glorious picture on her breast.

TO THE FRINGILLA MELODIA.*

BY H. PICKERING.

Joy fills the vale,

With joy ecstatic quivers every wing,
As floats thy note upon the genial gale,
Sweet bird of spring!

The violet

Awakens at thy song, and peers from out
Its fragrant nook, as if the season yet
Remained in doubt-

While from the rock

The columbine its crimson bell suspends,

That careless vibrates, as its slender stalk
The zephyr bends.

Say! when the blast

Of winter swept our whitened plains,—what clime, What sunnier realm thou charmedst, and how was past Thy joyous time?

The song sparrow.

Did the green isles

Detain thee long? or, 'mid the palmy groves

Of the bright south, where liberty now smiles,
Didst sing thy loves?

O, well I know

Why thou art here thus soon, and why the bowers
So near the sun have lesser charms than now
Our land of flowers:

Thou art returned

On a glad errand, -to rebuild thy nest,
And fan anew the gentle fire that burned
Within thy breast

And thy wild strain,

Poured on the gale, is love's transporting voice-
That, calling on the plumy choir again,
Bids them rejoice :

Nor calls alone

T'enjoy, but bids improve the fleeting hour-
Bids all that ever heard love's witching tone,
Or felt his power.

The poet too

It soft invokes to touch the trembling wire;

TO THE FRINGILLA MELODIA.

Yet ah, how few its sounds shall list, how few
His song admire!

But thy sweet lay,

Thou darling of the spring! no ear disdains;

Thy sage instructress, nature, says

And prompts thy strains.

O, if I knew

"Be gay!"

Like thee to sing, like thee the heart to fire,-
Youth should enchanted throng, and beauty sue
To hear my lyre.

Oft as the year

In gloom is wrapped, thy exile I shall mourn—
Oft as the spring returns, shall hail sincere

Thy glad return.

193

THE FALLS OF THE PASSAIC.

BY W. IRVING.

In a wild tranquil vale, fringed with forests of green,
Where nature had fashioned a soft, sylvan scene,
The retreat of the ring-dove, the haunt of the deer,
Passaic in silence rolled gentle and clear.

No grandeur of prospect astonished the sight,
No abruptness sublime mingled awe with delight;

Here the wild flow'ret blossomed, the elm proudly waved,
And pure was the current the green bank that laved.

But the spirit that ruled o'er the thick tangled wood,
And deep in its gloom fixed his murky abode,
Who loved the wild scene that the whirlwinds deform,
And gloried in thunder, and lightning, and storm;

All flushed from the tumult of battle he came,
Where the red men encountered the children of flame,
While the noise of the war-whoop still rang in his ears,
And the fresh bleeding scalp as a trophy he bears;

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