And thy bridal love-song utterest,
Raining showers of music o'er it.

Weary never, still thou trillest
Spring-gladsome lays,

As of moss-rimmed water-brooks

Murmuring through pebbly nooks
In quiet summer days.

My heart with happiness thou fillest,

I seem again to be a boy

Watching thee, gay, blithesome lover,
O'er the bending grass-tops hover,

Quivering thy wings for joy.

There's something in the apple blossom, The greening grass and bobolink's song, That wakes again within my bosom Feelings which have slumbered long.

As long, long years ago I wandered,

I seem to wander even yet,

The hours the idle school-boy squandered,

The man would die ere he 'd forget.

O hours that frosty eld deemed wasted,

Nodding his gray head toward my books,
I dearer prize the lore I tasted

With you, among the trees and brooks,
Than all that I have gained since then
From learned books or study-withered men!
Nature, thy soul was one with mine,
And, as a sister by a younger brother

Is loved, each flowing to the other,
Such love from me was thine.

Or wert thou not more like a loving mother
With sympathy and loving power to heal,
Against whose heart my throbbing heart I'd lay
And moan my childish sorrows all away,

Till calm and holiness would o'er me steal?

Was not the golden sunset a dear friend?
Found I no kindness in the silent moon,

And the green trees, whose tops did sway and bend,

Low singing evermore their pleasant tune?

Felt I no heart in dim and solemn woods, -
No loved-one's voice in lonely solitudes ?
Yes, yes! unhoodwinked then my spirit's eyes,
Blind leaders had not taught me to be wise.

Dear hours! which now again I over-live, Hearing and seeing with the ears and eyes Of childhood, ye were bees, that to the hive Of my young heart came laden with rich prize, 'Gathered in fields and woods and sunny dells, to be My spirit's food in days more wintery. Yea, yet again ye come! ye come!

And, like a child once more at home

After long sojourning in alien climes,
I lie upon my mother's breast,

Feeling the blessedness of rest,

And dwelling in the light of other times.

O ye whose living is not Life,

Whose dying is but death,

Long, empty toil and petty strife,

Rounded with loss of breath!

Go, look on Nature's countenance,
Drink in the blessing of her glance;
Look on the sunset, hear the wind,

The cataract, the awful thunder;

Go, worship by the sea;

Then, and then only, shall ye find,

With ever-growing wonder,

Man is not all in all to ye;

Go with a meek and humble soul,

Then shall the scales of self unroll

From off your eyes, — the weary packs

Drop from your heavy-laden backs;

With reverent and hopeful eyes,

Glowing with new-born energies,

How great a thing it is to BE!

SONG.

I.

WHAT reck I of the stars, when I

May gaze into thine eyes,

O'er which the brown hair flowingly

Is parted maiden-wise

From thy pale forehead, calm and bright, Over thy cheeks so rosy-white?

II.

What care I for the red moon-rise?

Far liefer would I sit

And watch the joy within thine eyes

Gush up at sight of it;

Thyself my queenly moon shall be,

Ruling my heart's deep tides for me!