That talked with me and soothed me. Then the chant

Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress
Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget
The thoughts that broke my peace; and I
began

To gather simples by the fountain's brink, 15 And lose myself in day-dreams. While I stood

In Nature's loneliness, I was with one
With whom I early grew familiar, one
Who never had a frown for me, whose voice
Never rebuked me for the hours I stole
From cares I loved not, but of which the
world

20

And all was white. The pure keen air abroad,

40

Albeit it breathed no scent of herb, nor heard
Love-call of bird nor merry hum of bee,
Was not the air of death. Bright mosses
crept

Over the spotted trunks, and the close buds
That lay along the boughs, instinct with life,
Patient, and waiting with the soft breath of
Spring,

Feared not the piercing spirit of the North. 45 The snow-bird twittered on the beechen bough;

And 'neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent

Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves, The partridge found a shelter. Through the

Like old companions in adversity.

Still there was beauty in my walks; the brook,

Bordered with sparkling frost-work, was as gay

As with its fringe of summer flowers. Afar,

Among them, when the clouds, from their still skirts

with ice,

While the slant sun of February pours
Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach!
The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps,
And the broad arching portals of the grove
Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy
trunks

66

Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,

Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven, Is studded with its trembling water-drops, That glimmer with an amethystine light. 70 But round the parent stem the long low boughs

Bend in a glittering ring, and arbors hide The glassy floor. Oh! you might deem the spot

snow,

gems grow,

75

70

My heart is awed within me when I think Of the great miracle that still goes on, In silence, round me - the perpetual work Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed. Forever. Written on thy works I read The lesson of thy own eternity.

Lo! all grow old and die—but see again, 75 How on the faltering footsteps of decay Youth presses ever gay and beautiful youth In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees Wave not less proudly that their ancestors Molder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost

80

And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms

Its cities who forgets not, at the sight 109
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchained elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate, 115
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.
United States Literary Gazette,
1824
April 1, 1825.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,

25

The fair meek blossom that grew up and

faded by my side.

In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:

Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. 1825.

The New York Review, 1825.

I CANNOT FORGET WITH WHAT FERVID DEVOTION

30

I cannot forget with what fervid devotion I worshiped the visions of verse and of fame;

Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean,