Poems | Page 6

embrace.
SONG.
Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow
Reflects the day-dawn cold
and clear,

The hunter of the west must go
In depth of woods to seek
the deer.
His rifle on his shoulder placed,
His stores of death arranged with
skill,
His moccasins and snow-shoes laced,--
Why lingers he beside

the hill?
Far, in the dim and doubtful light,
Where woody slopes a valley leave,

He sees what none but lover might,
The dwelling of his Genevieve.
And oft he turns his truant eye,
And pauses oft, and lingers near;

But when he marks the reddening sky,
He bounds away to hunt the
deer.
TO A WATERFOWL.
Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last
steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee
wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless
coast,--
The desert and illimitable air,--
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin
atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home,

and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet,
on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy
certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
GREEN RIVER.
When breezes are soft and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study
and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders
the stream with waters of green,
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its
brink
Had given their stain to the wave they drink;
And they, whose
meadows it murmurs through,
Have named the stream from its own
fair hue.
Yet pure its waters--its shallows are bright
With coloured pebbles and
sparkles of light,
And clear the depths where its eddies play,
And
dimples deepen and whirl away,
And the plane-tree's speckled arms
o'ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root,
Through whose
shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun
and rill
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,
Like the ray that
streams from the diamond stone.
Oh, loveliest there the spring days
come,
With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum;
The flowers
of summer are fairest there,
And freshest the breath of the summer air;

And sweetest the golden autumn day
In silence and sunshine glides
away.
Yet fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide,
Beautiful stream! by the

village side;
But windest away from haunts of men,
To quiet valley
and shaded glen;
And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill,

Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still.
Lonely--save when, by thy
rippling tides,
From thicket to thicket the angler glides;
Or the
simpler comes with basket and book,
For herbs of power on thy
banks to look;
Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me,
To wander,
and muse, and gaze on thee.
Still--save the chirp of birds that feed

On the river cherry and seedy reed,
And thy own wild music gushing
out
With mellow murmur and fairy shout,
From dawn to the blush
of another day,
Like traveller singing along his way.
That fairy music I never hear,
Nor gaze on those waters so green and
clear,
And mark them winding away from sight,
Darkened with
shade or flashing with light,
While o'er them the vine to its thicket
clings,
And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings,
But I wish that
fate had left me free
To wander these quiet haunts with thee,
Till
the eating cares of earth should depart,
And the peace of the scene
pass into my heart;
And I envy thy stream, as it glides along,

Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song.
Though forced to drudge for the dregs of men,
And scrawl strange
words with the barbarous pen,
And mingle among the jostling crowd,

Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud--
I often come to this
quiet place,
To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face,
And gaze upon
thee in silent dream,
For in thy lonely and lovely stream
An image
of that calm life appears
That won my heart in my greener years.
A WINTER PIECE.
The time has been that these wild solitudes,
Yet beautiful as wild,
were trod by me
Oftener than now; and when the ills of life

Had
chafed my spirit--when the unsteady pulse
Beat with strange
flutterings--I would wander forth
And seek the woods. The sunshine
on my path
Was to me as a friend. The swelling hills,
The quiet

dells retiring far between,
With gentle invitation to explore
Their
windings, were a calm society
That talked with me and soothed me.
Then the chant
Of birds, and chime of brooks, and