Close clings to earth the living rock, So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads Here closed the meditative strain ; The hoary mountain-heights were cheered, I sang-Let myriads of bright flowers, That love which changed-for wan disease, O'er hopeless dust, for withered age Their moral element, And turned the thistles of a curse To types beneficent. Sin-blighted though we are, we too, To humbleness of heart descends And makes each soul a separate heaven, 1831. PRESENTIMENTS PRESENTIMENTS! they judge not right All heaven-born Instincts shun the touch The tear whose source I could not guess, What though some busy foes to good, How oft from you, derided Powers! Comes Faith that in auspicious hours The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift, Shall vanish, if ye please, Like morning mist; and, where it lay, Star-guided contemplations move Through space, though calm, not raised above Prognostics that ye rule; The naked Indian of the wild, And haply, too, the cradled Child, But who can fathom your intents, A subtle smell that Spring unbinds, The laughter of the Christmas hearth And daily, in the conscious breast, And exercise of love. When some great change gives boundless scope To an exulting Nation's hope, Oft, startled and made wise By your low-breathed interpretings, Ye daunt the proud array of war, 'Tis said, that warnings ye dispense, Should knell them to the tomb. Unwelcome insight! Yet there are While on that isthmus which commands |