LINES ON LEAVING EUROPE.

103

My lips are dry with vague desire,—

My cheek once more is hot with joy

My pulse, my brain, my soul on fire!

Oh, what has changed that traveler-boy?

As leaves the ship this dying foam,

His visions fade behind-his weary heart speeds home!

Adieu, O soft and southern shore,

Where dwelt the stars long missed in heavenThose forms of beauty seen no more,

Yet once to Art's rapt vision given !

O, still the enamored 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 shown, 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 be-Held not the West one glorious star

New-born and blazing for the free

Soared 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 the 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 shoreAs spreads the rain-drop in the river

In which it may have flowed beforeTo England, over vale and mountain,

My fancy flew from climes more fairMy 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, O 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 blazeAnd 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, belovèd 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 watched one treasure only-
Watered one flower with tears at even-

Room in thy heart! The hearth she left
Is darkened 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!

NATHANIEL P. WILLIS.

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW. 105

The Old World and the New.

'HE Muse, disgusted at an age and clime

THE

Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time
Producing subjects worthy fame:

In happy climes where, from the genial sun
And virgin earth, such scenes ensue;
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true :

In happy climes the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides and virtue rules;
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools:

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts;

The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay,-
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way:
The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;

Time's noblest offspring is his last.

GEORGE BERKELEY.

Death-Song of the Oneida Chief.

66

"A

ND I could weep ;"-the Oneida chief
His descant wildly thus begun :

"But that I may not stain with grief

The death-song of my father's son,
Or bow this head in wo!

For by my wrongs, and by my wrath!

To-morrow Areouski's breath,

(That fires yon heaven with storms of death,)

Shall light us to the foe;

And we shall share, my Christian boy!

The foeman's blood, the avenger's joy!

“But thee, my flower, whose breath was given

By milder genii o'er the deep,

The spirits of the white man's heaven

Forbid not thee to weep:

Nor will the Christian host,

Nor will thy father's spirit grieve,

To see thee, on the battle's eve,
Lamenting, take a mournful leave
Of her who loved thee most:

She was the rainbow to thy sight!
Thy sun-thy heaven-of lost delight!

"To-morrow let us do or die!

But when the bolt of death is hurl'd,
Ah! whither then with thee to fly,
Shall Outalissi roam the world?
Seek we thy once-loved home?

The hand is gone that cropt its flowers:
Unheard their clock repeats its hours!
Cold is the hearth within their bowers!
And should we thither roam,

Its echoes, and its empty tread,

Would sound like voices from the dead!

DEATH-SONG OF THE ONEIDA CHIEF. 107

"Or shall we cross yon mountains blue, Whose streams my kindred nation quaff'd ; And by my side, in battle true,

A thousand warriors drew the shaft?

Ah! there in desolation cold,

The desert serpent dwells alone,

Where grass o'ergrows each mouldering bone,
And stones themselves to ruin grown,

Like me, are death-like old.

Then seek we not their camp,—for there
The silence dwells of my despair!

"But hark, the trump! to-morrow thou
In glory's fires shalt dry thy tears:
Even from the land of shadows now
My father's awful ghost appears
Amidst the clouds that round us roll!
He bids my soul for battle thirst;
He bids me dry the last, the first,
The only tears that ever burst
From Outalissi's soul;

Because I may not stain with grief
The death-song of an Indian chief!"

THOMAS CAMPBELL.