TO THE RIVER CHARLES. RIVER! that in silence windest Through the meadows bright and free,

Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea!
Four long years of mingled feeling,
Half in rest, and half in strife,
I have seen thy waters stealing

Onward, like the stream of life.
Thou has taught me, Silent River!
Many a lesson, deep and long;
Thou hast been a generous giver;
I can give thee but a song.
Oft in sadness and in illness

I have watched thy current glide
Till the beauty of its stillness
Overflowed me like a tide.

And in better hours and brighter,
When I saw thy waters gleam,
I have felt my heart beat lighter,
And leap onward with thy stream.
Not for this alone I love thee,

Nor because thy waves of blue
From celestial seas above thee

Take their own celestial hue.

Where yon shadowy woodlands hide thee,

And thy waters disappear,

Friends I love have dwelt beside thee, And have made thy margin dear. More than this;-thy name reminds me

Of three friends, all true and tried; And that name, like magic, binds me Closer, closer to thy side. Friends my soul with joy remembers! How like quivering flames they start, When I fan the living embers

On the hearth-stone of my heart! "Tis for this, thou Silent River! That my spirit leans to thee; Thou hast been a generous giver, Take this idle song from me.

His brow was sad; his eye beneath, Flashed like a falchion from its sheath; And like a silver clarion rung,

The accents of that unknown tongue, Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and
bright;

Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest Thy weary head upon this breast!"

A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!

Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night.
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,

A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device
Excelsior!

There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!

MAIDENHOOD.

MAIDEN! with the meek, brown eyes
In whose orbs a shadow lies,
Like the dusk in evening skies!
Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!
Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse!
Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.
Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?
Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?
Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafened by the cataract's roar?

Care and age come unawares!
Like the swell of some sweet tune,
Morning rises into noon,

May glides onward into June. Childhood is the bough, where slumbered

Birds and blossoms many-numbered;Age, that bough with snows encumbered.

Gather, then, each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.
Bear a lily in thy hand;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.
O, that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into,wounds, that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal;
And that smile, like sunshine, dart
Into many a sunless heart,
For a smile of God thou art.

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES.

CARILLON.

IN the ancient town of Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city,
As the evening shades descended
Low and loud and sweetly blended,
Low at times and loud at times,
And changing like a poet's rhymes,
Rang the beautiful wild chimes
From the belfry in the market
Of the ancient town of Bruges.
Then, with deep sonorous clangour
Calmly answering their sweet anger,
When the wrangling bells had ended,
Slowly struck the clock eleven,
And, from out the silent heaven,
Silence on the town descended.
Silence, silence everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
Save that footsteps here and there
Of some burgher home returning,
By the street lamps faintly burning,

The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,

The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;

And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, The diapason of the cannonade.

Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,

With such accursed instruments as these,

Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices,

And jarrest the celestial harmonies? Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,

Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error,

There were no need for arsenals nor forts:

The warrior's name would be a name abhorred!

And every nation, that should lift again

Its hand against a brother, on its forehead

Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain !

Down the dark future, through long generations,

The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;

And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations

I hear once more the voice of Christ "Peace!" say, Peace and no longer from its brazen

portals

The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies!

But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise.

A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. THIS is the place. Stand still, my steed, Let me review the scene,

And summon from the shadowy Past
The forms that once have been.
The Past and Present here unite
Beneath Time's flowing tide,
Like footprints hidden by a brook,
But seen on either side.

Here runs the highway to the town;
There the green lane descends,
Through which I walked to church with
thee,

O gentlest of my friends!

The shadow of the linden-trees
Lay moving on the grass:

Between them and the moving boughs,
A shadow thou didst pass.

Thy dress was like the lilies,

And thy heart as pure as they : One of God's holy messengers Did walk with me that day.

I saw the branches of the trees

Bend down thy touch to meet, The clover-blossoms in the grass

Rise up to kiss thy feet.

"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares,
Of earth and folly born!"
Solemnly sang the village choir
On that sweet Sabbath morn.
Through the closed blinds the golden

sun

Poured in a dusty beam, Like the celestial ladder seen

By Jacob in his dream. And ever and aron, the wind, Sweet-scented with the hay, Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves

That on the window lay

Long was the good man's sermon,

Yet it seemed not so to me;
For he spake of Ruth the beautiful,
And still I thought of thee.

Long was the prayer he uttered,
Yet it seemed not so to me;
For in my heart I prayed with him,
And still I thought of thee.
But now, alas! the place seems changed:
Thou art no longer here: