Page images
PDF
EPUB

SUMMER FRIENDS.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

I

SUMMER birds! summer birds.
Whither have ye flown?

I was your dear companion once,
And now ye leave me lone!
Beneath the wide boughs of the tree,
Before my father's door,

I used to sit all day to hear

The notes I hear no more!

II.

Summer brooks! summer brooks!
Whither do ye glide?

How pleasant was my grassy couch,
Your merry waves beside!
My life was like your current, then,
And smooth and swift it ran;
There is no type in summer brooks
For slow and thoughtful man.

ΠΙ.

Summer dells! summer dells!
Oh, are ye still the same,
As when of old to your retreats,

In wayward mood I came ?

The turf is still as soft and green,

As gently falls the shade:

And so 't would be, though in the grave This form were lowly laid.

IV.

Summer flowers! summer flowers!
Where are the odors sweet,

Brought by the cool and wafting airs,
That stole the summer heat?

I never see your petals now

Wet with the early dew;

Alas! my fresh and morning hopes
Have faded, flowers, with you!

V.

Summer friends! summer friends!
The careless, light and gay,

Ye too, with fortune's sunny looks,

Like birds, have flown away;

And like the brooks, and dells, and flowers,

That I so loved to see,

Remain within your happy homes,

And never dream of me!

A HYMN OF THE SEA.

BY W. C. BRYANT.

THE sea is mighty, but a mightier sways
His restless billows Thou whose hands have scoop'd
His boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy breath,
That moved in the beginning o'er his face,
Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient waves,
To its strong motion, roar and rise and fall.
Still from that realm of rain thy cloud goes up,
As at the first to water the great earth,
And keep her valleys green. A hundred realms
Watch its broad shadow warping on the wind,
And in the drooping shower, with gladness, hear
Thy promise of the harvest. I look forth,
Over the boundless blue, where joyously,
The bright crests of innumerable waves
Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands
Of a great multitude are upward flung
In acclamation. I behold the ships

Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle,

Or stemming towards far lands, or hastening home
From the old world. It is thy friendly breeze
That bears them, with the riches of the land,
And treasure of dear lives, till, in the port,
The shouting seaman climbs and furls the sail.
But who shall bide thy tempest; who shall face
The blast that wakes the fury of the sea?
O God! thy justice makes the world turn pale,
When on the armed fleet, that, royally,
Bears down the surges, carrying war to smite
Some city, or invade some thoughtless realm,
Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks
Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails
Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts
Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks,
Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf,
Their cruel engines, and their hosts, arrayed
In trappings of the battle field, are whelmed
By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks.
Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause,
A moment from the bloody work of war.

Those restless surges eat away the shores
Of earth's old continents, the fertile plain
Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down,
And the tide drifts the sea sand in the streets
Of the drowned city. Thou meanwhile, afar,
In the green chambers of the middle sea,
Where broadest spread the waters and the line
Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work,

[ocr errors]

Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm
To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age,
He builds beneath the water, till, at last,
His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check
The long wave rolling from the Arctic pole
To break upon Japan. Thou bidst the fires,
That smoulder under ocean, heave on high
The new made mountains, and uplift their peaks,
A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird.
The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts
With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airs
Ripple the living lakes, that, fringed with flowers,
Are gathering in the hollows. Thou dost look
On thy creation and pronounce it good.
Its valleys, glorious with their summer green,
Praise Thee in silent beauty, and its woods,
Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, join
The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn.

SONG.

BY JAMES G. PERCIVAL, ESQ.

I.

(O! COME, loved spirit, come to me

My heart, my heart invoketh thee:

Though dark and cheerless broods my night,
Thy presence fills it all with light.

II.

O! come, loved spirit, gently come-
O! make beside my heart thy home!
Look on me with endearing smile-
That look shall all my woes beguile.

III.

O! be thou ever, ever nigh

Bend on me thy complacent eye:

Then shall my heart swell up to thee,

My soul be large, my spirit free.

IV.

Bear me away, through sun and star,
To worlds of softest light afar:
Then bid my wearied eyelids close
On pillowed flowers, in blest repose.)

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[graphic][merged small][subsumed]
« PreviousContinue »