NIGHT-BLOWING FLOWERS.

Of thy beauty's power,

Something dimly dwells,

At variance with a world of sorrows and farewells.

All the soul forth flowing

In that rich perfume,
All the proud life glowing

In that radiant bloom,

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Have they no place but here, beneath th' o'ershadowing tomb
Crown'st thou but the daughters

Of our tearful race?
-Heaven's own purest waters
Well might wear the trace

Of thy consummate form, melting to softer grace.

Will that clime enfold thee

With immortal air?
Shall we not behold thee

Bright and deathless there?

In spirit-lustre clothed, transcendently more fair?

Yes! my fancy sees thee

In that light disclose,

And its dream thus frees thee

From the mist of woes,

Darkening thine earthly bowers, O bridal, royal rose!

NIGHT-BLOWING FLOWERS.

CHILDREN of night! unfolding meekly, slowly
To the sweet breathings of the shadowy hours,
When dark-blue heavens look softest and most holy,
And glow-worm light is in the forest bowers;
To solemn things and deep,

To spirit-haunted sleep,
To thoughts, all purified
From earth, ye seem allied;

O dedicated flowers!

Ye, from the gaze of crowds your beauty veiling,
Keep in dim vestal urns the sweetness shrined;
Till the mild moon, on high serenely sailing,
Looks on you tenderly and sadly kind.

-So doth love's dreaming heart

Dwell from the throng apart,

And but to shades disclose
The inmost thought which glows.
With its pure life entwined.

Shut from the sounds wherein the day rejoices,
To no triumphant song your petals thrill,
But send forth odors with the faint soft voices
Rising from hidden streams, wher all is still.

So doth lone prayer arise,
Mingling with secret sighs,
When grief unfolds, like you,
Her breast, for heavenly dew
In silent hours to fill.

THE WANDERER AND THE NIGHT FLOWERS.

CALL back your odors, lovely flowers,

From the night winds call them back;
And fold your leaves till the laughing hours
Come forth in the sunbeam's track!

The lark lies couch'd in her grassy nest,
And the honey bee is gone,

And all bright things are away to rest,
Why watch ye here alone?

Is not your world a mournful one,
When your sisters close their eyes,

And your soft breath meets not a lingering tone
Of song in the starry skies?

Take ye no joy in the dayspring's birth
When it kindles the sparks of dew?

And the thousand strains of the forest's mirth,
Shall they gladden all but you?

Shut your sweet bells till the fawn comes out
On the snnny turf to play,

And the woodland child with a fairy shout
Goes dancing on its way!

"Nay, let our shadowy beauty bloom
When the stars give quiet light,
And let us offer our faint perfume
On the silent shrine of night.

"Call it not wasted, the scent we lend
To the breeze, when no step is nigh;
Oh thus for ever the earth should send
Her grateful breath on high!

"And love us as emblems, night's dewy flowers,
Of hopes unto sorrow given,

That spring through the gloom of the darkest hours Looking alone to heaven!"

ECHO-SONG

IN thy cavern-hall,

Echo! art thou sleeping?

By the fountain's fall

Dreamy silence keeping?

THE MUFFLED DRUM.

Yet one soft note borne
From the shepherd's horn,

Wakes thee, Echo! into music leaping!
-Strange, sweet Echo! into music leaping.
Then the woods rejoice,
Then glad sounds are swelling
From each sister-voice
Round thy rocky dwelling;
And their sweetness fills
All the hollow hills,

With a thousand notes, of one life telling!
-Softly mingled notes, of one life telling.
Echo! in my heart

Thus deep thoughts are lying,
Silent and apart,

Buried, yet undying.

Till some gentle tone

Wakening haply one,

Calls a thousand forth, like thee replying!
-Strange, sweet Echo! even like thee replying.*

THE MUFFLED DRUM.†

THE muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull deep rolling sound,
Which told the hamlets round
Of a soldier's burial rite.

But it told them not how dear,
In a home beyond the main,

Was the warrior youth laid low that hour,
By a mountain-stream of Spain.

The oaks of England waved

O'er the slumbers of his race,

But a pine of the Ronceval made moan
Above his last lone place;

When the muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,

With a dull deep rolling sound
Which call'd strange echoes round
To the soldier's burial rite.

Brief was the sorowing there,
By the stream from battle red,

And tossing on its wave the plumes
Of many a stately head:

*This song is in the possession of Mr. Power. Set to beautiful music by John Lodge, Esq.

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But a mother-soon to die,

And a sister-long to weep,

Even then were breathing prayers for him,
In that home beyond the deep;

While the muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull deep rolling sound,
And the dark pines mourn'd round,
O'er the soldier's burial rite.

THE SWAN AND THE SKYLARK

"Adieu, adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades,"-Keats.

"Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest."—Shelley

MIDST the long reeds that o'er a Grecian stream
Unto the faint wind sigh'd melodiously,

And where the sculpture of a broken shrine

Sent out through shadowy grass and thick wild flowers
Dim alabaster gleams-a lonely swan

Warbled his death-chant; and a poet stood
Listening to that strange music, as it shook
The lilies on the wave; and made the pines
And all the laurels of the haunted shore
Thrill to its passion. Oh! the tones were sweet
Even painfully-as with the sweetness wrung
From parting love; and to the poet's thought
This was their language.

"Summer, I depart!

O light and laughing summer, fare thee well!
No song the less through thy rich woods swell,
For one, one broken heart.

"And fare ye well, young flowers!
Ye will not mourn! ye will shed odor still,
And wave in glory, coloring every rill,
Know to my youth's fresh hours.

"And ye, bright founts, that lie
Far in the whispering forests, lone and deep,
My wing no more shall stir your shadowy sleep-
Sweet waters! I must die.

"Will ye not send one tone

Of sorrow through the pines ?-one murmur low?

THE SWAN AND THE SKYLARK.

Shall not the green leaves from your voices know
That I, your child, am gone?

"No, ever glad and free!

Ye have no sounds a tale of death to tell,
Waves joyous waves, flow on, and fare ye well!
Ye will not mourn for me.

"But thou, sweet boon, too late

Pour'd on my parting breath, vain gift of song!
Why comest thou thus, o'ermastering, rich and strong,
In the dark hour of fate?

Only to wake the sighs
Of echo voices from their sparry cell;
Only to say-O sunshine and blue skies!
O life and love, farewell!

Thus flow'd the death-chant on; while mournfully
Low winds and waves made answer, and the tones
Buried in rocks along the Grecian stream,
Rocks and dim caverns of old Prophecy,

Woke to respond and all the air was fill'd

With that one sighing sound-" Farewell, Farewell!"
-Fill'd with that sound? high in the calm blue heaven
Even then a skylark hung; soft summer clouds

Where floating round him all transpierced with light,
And 'midst that pearly radiance his dark wings
Quiver'd with song:-such free triumphant song,
As if tears were not, as if breaking hearts
Had not a place below-and thus that strain
Spoke to the Poet's ear exultingly.

"The summer is come; she hath said, 'Rejoice!'
The wild woods thrill to her merry voice;

Her sweet breath is wandering around, on high;
Sing, sing through the echoing sky!

"There is joy in the mountains; the bright waves leap Like the bounding stag when he breaks from sleep Mirthfully, wildly, they flash along

Let the heavens ring with song!

"There is joy in the forests; the bird of night
Hath made the leaves tremble with deep delight;
But mine the glory to sunshine given-

Sing, sing through the echoing heaven!
"Mine are the wings of the soaring morn,
Mine are the fresh gales with dayspring born:
Only young rapture can mount so high-

-Sing, sing through the echoing sky!"

So those two voices met; so Joy and Death
Mingled their accents; and amidst the rush

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