BY THE AUTUMN SEA.

O sky-enshadowed and yearning main!
Your gloom but deepens this human pain;
Those waves seem big with a nameless care,
That sky is a type of the heart's despair,
As I linger and muse by the sombre lea,
And the night-shades close on the autumn sea.

4I

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

HAVE I passed through Death's unconscious birth,

In a dream the midnight bare?

I look on another and fairer Earth;

I breathe a wondrous air!

A spirit of beauty walks the hills,

A spirit of love the plain;

The shadows are bright, and the sunshine fills

The air with a diamond rain!

Before my vision the glories swim,

To the dance of a tune unheard;

Is an angel singing where woods are dim,

Or is it an amorous bird?

THE RETURN OF SPRING.

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Is it a spike of azure flowers,

Deep in the meadows seen,

Or is it the peacock's neck, that towers
Out of the spangled green?

Is a white dove glancing across the blue,

Or an opal taking wing?

For my soul is dazzled through and through,
With the splendor of the Spring.

Is it she that shines, as never before,

The tremulous hills above,

Or the heart within me, awake once more

To the dawning light of love?

BAYARD TAYLOR.

WITH a glancing eye and curving mane
He neighs and champs on the bridle-rein;
One spring, and his saddled back I press,
And ours is a common happiness!

'Tis the rapture of motion! a hurrying cloud When the loosen'd winds are breathing loud;A shaft from the painted Indian's bow,

A bird in the pride of speed we go.

Dark thoughts that haunt me, where are ye now?
While the cleft air gratefully cools my brow,
And the dizzy earth seems reeling by,

And naught is at rest but the arching sky;

And the tramp of my steed, so swift and strong, Is dearer than fame and sweeter than song! There is life in the breeze as we hasten on; With each bound some care of earth has gone,

And the languid pulse begins to play,

And the night of my soul is turn'd to day;

A richer verdure the earth o'erspreads,

Sparkles the streamlet more bright in the meads;