The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by,As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky;Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rustling sound,An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground.
A dark-haired woman from the wood comes suddenly in sight;Her merry eye is full and black, her cheek is brown and bright;Her gown is of the mid-sea blue, her belt with beads is strung,And yet she speaks in gentle tones, and in the English tongue.
"It was an idle bolt I sent, against the villain crow;Fair sir, I fear it harmed thy hand; beshrew my erring bow!""Ah! would that bolt had not been spent! then, lady, might I wearA lasting token on my hand of one so passing fair!"
"Thou art a flatterer like the rest, but wouldst thou take with meA day of hunting in the wilds, beneath the greenwood tree,I know where most the pheasants feed, and where the red-deer herd,And thou shouldst chase the nobler game, and I bring down the bird."
Now Albert in her quiver lays the arrow in its place,And wonders as he gazes on the beauty of her face:"Those hunting-grounds are far away, and, lady, 'twere not meetThat night, amid the wilderness, should overtake thy feet."
"Heed not the night; a summer lodge amid the wild is mine,--'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'tis mantled by the vine;The wild plum sheds its yellow fruit from fragrant thickets nigh,And flowery prairies from the door stretch till they meet the sky.
"There in the boughs that hide the roof the mock-bird sits and sings,And there the hang-bird's brood within its little hammock swings;A pebbly brook, where rustling winds among the hopples sweep,Shall lull thee till the morning sun looks in upon thy sleep."
Away, into the forest depths by pleasant paths they go,He with his rifle on his arm, the lady with her bow,Where cornels arch their cool dark boughs o'er beds of winter-green,And never at his father's door again was Albert seen.
That night upon the woods came down a furious hurricane,With howl of winds and roar of streams, and beating of the rain;The mighty thunder broke and drowned the noises in its crash;The old trees seemed to fight like fiends beneath the lightning-flash.
Next day, within a mossy glen, 'mid mouldering trunks were foundThe fragments of a human form upon the bloody ground;White bones from which the flesh was torn, and locks of glossy hair;They laid them in the place of graves, yet wist not whose they were.
And whether famished evening wolves had mangled Albert so,Or that strange dame so gay and fair were some mysterious foe,Or whether to that forest lodge, beyond the mountains blue,He went to dwell with her, the friends who mourned him never knew.
LIFE.°
Oh Life! I breathe thee in the breeze, I feel thee bounding in my veins,I see thee in these stretching trees, These flowers, this still rock's mossy stains.
This stream of odours flowing by From clover-field and clumps of pine,This music, thrilling all the sky, From all the morning birds, are thine.
Thou fill'st with joy this little one, That leaps and shouts beside me here,Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run Through the dark woods like frighted deer.
Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes Insect and bird, and flower and tree,From the low trodden dust, and makes Their daily gladness, pass from me--
Pass, pulse by pulse, till o'er the ground These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain,And this fair world of sight and sound Seem fading into night again?
The things, oh LIFE! thou quickenest, all Strive upwards toward the broad bright sky,Upward and outward, and they fall Back to earth's bosom when they die.
All that have borne the touch of death, All that shall live, lie mingled there,Beneath that veil of bloom and breath, That living zone 'twixt earth and air.
There lies my chamber dark and still, The atoms trampled by my feet,There wait, to take the place I fill In the sweet air and sunshine sweet.
Well, I have had my turn, have been Raised from the darkness of the clod,And for a glorious moment seen The brightness of the skirts of God;
And knew the light within my breast, Though wavering oftentimes and dim,The power, the will, that never rest, And cannot die, were all from him.
Dear child! I know that thou wilt grieve To see me taken from thy love,Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve, And weep, and scatter flowers above.
Thy little heart will soon be healed, And being shall be bliss, till thouTo younger forms of life must yield The place thou fill'st with beauty now.
When we descend to dust again, Where will the final dwelling beOf Thought and all its memories then, My love for thee, and thine for me?
"EARTH'S CHILDREN CLEAVE TO EARTH."
Earth's children cleave to Earth—her frail Decaying children dread decay.Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale, And lessens in the morning ray:Look, how, by mountain rivulet, It lingers as it upward creeps,And clings to fern and copsewood set Along the green and dewy steeps:Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings To precipices fringed with grass,Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings, And bowers of fragrant sassafras.Yet all in vain—it passes still From hold to hold, it cannot stay,And in the very beams that fill The world with glory, wastes away,Till, parting from the mountain's brow, It vanishes from human eye,And that which sprung of earth is now A portion of the glorious sky.