TO MY MOTHER FROM THE APPENINES.

Mother! dear mother! the feelings nurst
As I hung at thy bosom, clung round thee first.
"Twas the earliest link in love's warm chain-
'Tis the only one that will long remain:
And as year by year, and day by day,
Some friend still trusted drops away,
Mother! dear mother! oh dost thou see

How the shorten'd chain brings me nearer thee!
EARLY POEMS

'Tis midnight the lone mountains on

The East is fleck'd with cloudy bars, And, gliding through them one by one,

The moon walks up her path of stars

The light upon her placid brow
Received from fountains unseen now.

And happiness is mine to-night,

Thus springing from an unseen fount;
And breast and brain are warm with light,
With midnight round me on the mount-

Its rays, like thine, fair Dian, flow
From far that Western star below.

Dear mother! in thy love I live;

The life thou gav'st flows yet from thee— And, sun-like, thou hast power to give

Life to the earth, air, sea, for me!

Though wandering, as this moon above,
I'm dark without thy constant love.

LINES ON LEAVING EUROPE.

BRIGHT flag at yonder tapering mast!
Fling out your field of azure blue;
Let star and stripe be westward cast,

And point as Freedom's eagle flew ! Strain home! oh lithe and quivering spars! Point home, my country's flag of stars!

The wind blows fair! the vessel feels
The pressure of the rising breeze,
And, swiftest of a thousand keels,

She leaps to the careering seas!
Oh, fair, fair cloud of snowy sail,

In whose white breast I seem to lie, How oft, when blew this eastern gale,

I've seen your semblance in the sky, And long'd with breaking heart to flee On cloud-like pinions o'er the sea!

Adieu, oh lands of fame and eld!

I turn to watch our foamy track, And thoughts with which I first beheld Yon clouded line, come hurrying back;

My lips are dry with vague desire,

My cheek once more is hot with joyMy pulse, my brain, my soul on fire!—

Oh, what has changed that traveller-boy!

As leaves the ship this dying foam,

His visions fade behind his weary heart speeds home!

Adieu, oh soft and southern shore,

Where dwelt the stars long miss'd in heaven

Those forms of beauty seen no more,

Yet once to Art's rapt vision given!

Oh, still th' enamor'd sun delays,

And pries through fount and crumbling fane, To win to his adoring gaze

Those children of the sky again!

Irradiate beauty, such as never

That light on other earth hath shone, Hath made this land her home forever; And could I live for this alone

Were not my birthright brighter far

Than such voluptuous slaves, can beHeld not the West one glorious star

New-born and blazing for the freeSoar'd not to heaven our eagle yet

Rome, with her Helot sons, should teach me to forget!

Adieu, oh fatherland! I see

Your white cliffs on th' horizon's rim,

And though to freer skies I flee,

My heart swells, and my eyes are dim!

As knows the dove the task you give her,
When loosed upon a foreign shore-
As spreads the rain-drop in the river
In which it may have flow'd before-
To England, over vale and mountain,

My fancy flew from climes more fair-
My blood, that knew its parent fountain,
Ran warm and fast in England's air.

Dear mother! in thy prayer, to-night,

There come new words and warmer tears! On long, long darkness breaks the lightComes home the loved, the lost for years! Sleep safe, oh wave-worn mariner!

Fear not, to-night, or storm or sea!

The ear of heaven bends low to her!

He comes to shore who sails with me!

The spider knows the roof unriven,

While swings his web, though lightnings blaze— And by a thread still fast on heaven, I know my mother lives and prays!

Dear mother! when our lips can speak-
When first our tears will let us see-

When I can gaze upon thy cheek,

And thou, with thy dear eyes, on me

"Twill be a pastime little sad

To trace what weight Time's heavy fingers

Upon each other's forms have had—

For all may flee, so feeling lingers!

But there's a change, beloved mother!
To stir far deeper thoughts of thine;
I come-but with me comes another

To share the heart once only mine!
Thou, on whose thoughts, when sad and lonely,
One star arose in memory's heaven-
Thou, who hast watch'd one treasure only-
Water'd one flower with tears at even-
Room in thy heart! The hearth she left
Is darken'd to lend light to ours!
There are bright flowers of care bereft,

And hearts-that languish more than flowers! She was their light-their very air

Room, mother! in thy heart! place for her in thy prayer!

A TRUE INCIDENT.

UPON a summer's morn, a southern mother
Sat at the curtain'd window of an inn.
She rested from long travel, and with hand
Upon her cheek in tranquil happiness,

Look'd where the busy travellers went and came.
And, like the shadows of the swallows flying
Over the bosom of unruffled water,

Pass'd from her thoughts all objects, leaving there, As in the water's breast, a mirror'd heaven-—