ON A PICTURE OF A GIRL

LEADING HER BLIND MOTHER THROUGH THE WOOD.

THE green leaves as we pass

Lay their light fingers on thee unaware,

And by thy side the hazels cluster fair,

And the low forest-grass

Grows green and silken where the wood-paths windAlas! for thee, sweet mother! thou art blind!

And nature is all bright;

And the faint gray and crimson of the dawn,
Like folded curtains, from the day are drawn ;
And evening's purple light

Quivers in tremulous softness on the sky-
Alas! sweet mother! for thy clouded eye!

The moon's new silver shell

Trembles above thee, and the stars float up,
In the blue air, and the rich tulip's cup

Is pencill'd passing well,

And the swift birds on glorious pinions flee—

Alas! sweet mother! that thou canst not see!

And the kind looks of friends

Peruse the sad expression in thy face,

And the child stops amid his bounding race,

And the tall stripling bends

Low to thine ear with duty unforgot—

Alas! sweet mother! that thou seest them not!

But thou canst hear! and love

May richly on a human tone be pour'd,
And the least cadence of a whisper'd word
A daughter's love may prove―

And while I speak thou knowest if I smile,
Albeit thou canst not see my face the while!

Yes, thou canst hear! and He

Who on thy sightless eye its darkness hung,
To the attentive ear, like harps, hath strung
Heaven and earth and sea!

And 'tis a lesson in our hearts to know

With but one sense the soul may overflow.

ΤΟ

ON RECEIVING FROM HER A SPRAY OF LILIES OF THE VALLEY.

SMALL lily, that the careless overlook,

Though, to the finder, sweeter than the rose—

Pure, unobtrusive, fragrant-hearted flower—

How truthful is its portraiture of thee!

I've known thee until now, as floats the mist

Over the valley, silently aware

That sweetness known in heaven lay hid near by;

But, as the same mist, heavy with the night,

Falls in a dark tear to the lily's cup,

And finds it sweetest at the darkest hour,

So, thou pure girl, thy tender presence only

Has an unconscious ministry to me,

And near thee, in the night that shrouds me still,
My darkness is forgotten.

ROARING BROOK.

[A PASSAGE OF SCENERY NEAR NEW HAVEN.]

It was a mountain stream that with the leap Of its impatient waters had worn out

A channel in the rock, and wash'd away

The earth that had upheld the tall old trees,

Till it was darken'd with the shadowy arch
Of the o'er-leaning branches. Here and there
It loiter'd in a broad and limpid pool
That circled round demurely, and anon
Sprung violently over where the rock
Fell suddenly, and bore its bubbles on,
Till they were broken by the hanging moss,

As anger with a gentle word grows calm.

In spring-time, when the snows were coming down-

And in the flooding of the autumn rains,

No foot might enter there-but in the hot

And thirsty summer, when the fountains slept,

You could go up its channel in the shade,

To the far sources, with a brow as cool

As in the grotto of the anchorite.
Here when an idle student have I come,
And in a hollow of the rock lain down
And mused until the eventide, or read
Some fine old poet till my nook became
A haunt of faery, or the busy flow

Of water to my spell-bewilder'd ear

Seem'd like the din of some gay tournament.

Pleasant have been such hours, and though the wise

Have said that I was indolent, and they

Who taught me have reproved me that I play'd

The truant in the "leafy month of June,"

I deem it true philosophy in him

Whose path leads to the rude and busy world,

To loiter with these wayside comforters.