O'er which the barren ridges heave their lines,
And high beyond, the snowy ranges old!
Fed by the plenteous mountain rain,

Southward, a blue lake sparkles, whence outflows
A rivulet's silver vein,

Awhile meandering in fair repose,

Then caught by riven cliffs that guard our home,
And flung upon the outer world in foam !
The sky above that still retreat,

Through all the year serene and sweet,
Drops dew that finds the daisy's heart,
And keeps the violet's tender lids apart:
All winds that whistle drearily
Around the naked granite, die

With many a long, melodious sigh
Among the pines; and if a tempest seek
The summits cold and bleak,

He does but shift the snow from shining peak to peak.

VI.

Or should this Valley seem

Too deeply buried from the golden sun,

Still may a home be won

Whose breast lies open to his every beam.
Some Island, on the purple plain

Of Polynesian main,

Where never yet the adventurer's prore
Lay rocking near its coral shore:

A tropic mystery, which the enamored Deep
Folds, as a beauty in a charmèd sleep.

There lofty palms, of some imperial line,
That never bled their nimble wine,

Crowd all the hills, and out the headlands go

To watch on distant reefs the lazy brine
Folding its fringe of snow.

There, when the sun stands high
Upon the burning summit of the sky,
All shadows wither: Light alone

Is in the world: and, pregnant grown

With teeming life, the trembling island-earth
And panting sea forebode sweet pains of birth
Which never come, - their love brings never forth
The Human Soul they lack alone!

VII.

over,

We to that Island soul and voice will be,
When (rapturous hour!) the baffling quest is
The boat is wrecked, the ship is blown to sea,
And underneath the palm-tree's cover
We bless our God that He hath left us free.
Then, wandering through the inland dells
Where sun and dew have built their gorgeous bowers,
The golden, blue, and crimson flowers

Will drain in joy their spicy wells,

The lily toll her alabaster bells,

And some fine influence, unknown and sweet,
Precede our happy fect

Around the Isle, till all the life that dwells
In leaf and stem shall feel it, and awake,
And even the pearly-bosomed shells,
Wet with the foamy kiss of lingering swells,
Shall rosier beauty at our coming take,
For Love's dear sake!

There when, like Aphrodite, Morn

From the ecstatic waves is born,

The chieftain Palm, that tops each mountain-crest, Shall feel her glory gild His scaly greaves,

And lift his glittering leaves

Like arms outspread, to take her to his breast.
Then shall we watch her slowly bend, and fold
The Island in her arms of gold,

Breathing away the heavy balms which crept
All night around the bowers, and lifting up
Each flower's enamelled cup,

To drink the sweetness gathered while it slept.
Yet on our souls a joy more tender

Shall gently sink, when sunset makes the sky
One burning sheet of opalescent splendor,
And on the deep dissolving rainbows lie.
No whisper shall disturb

That alchemy superb,

Whereto our beings every sense surrender.
O, long and sweet, while sitting side by side,

Looking across the western sea,

That dream of Death, that morn of Heaven, shall be;

And when the shadows hide

Each dying flush, upon the quiet tide, —

Quiet as is our love,

We first shall see the stars come out above,
And after them, the slanting beams that run,
Based on the sea, far up the shining track
Of the emblazoned Zodiac,

A pyramid of light, above the buried sun!

VIII.

There shall our lives to such accordance grow
As love alone can know ;

Can never know but there :

Each within each involved, like Light and Air, In endless marriage. Earth will fill

Her bounteous lap with all we ask of Earth,

Nor ever drought or dearth

Shrink the rich pulps of vale and hill.

Content at last the missing tone to hear

Through all her summer-chords,

Which makes their full-strung härmony complete In her delighted ear,

She to our hearts that concord shall repeat.

Led by the strain, it may be ours to enter

The secret chamber where she works alone
With Color, Form, and Tone,

In human mood, or, sterner grown,

Takes hold on powers that shake her fiery centre. Year after year the Island shall become

A fairer and serener home,

And happy children fill our place,

The future parents of a nobler race,

To whom the banished Love shall come,

And fold his weary wings, and find his earthly

home!

MON-DA-MIN ;

OR, THE ROMANCE OF MAIZE.

I.

JONG ere the shores of green America
Were touched by men of Norse and
Saxon blood,

What time the Continent in silence lay,

A solemn realm of forest and of flood,

Where Nature wantoned wild in zones immense,

Unconscious of her own magnificence;

II.

Then to the savage race, who knew no world
Beyond the hunter's lodge, the council-fire,
The clouds of grosser sense were sometimes furled,
And spirits came to answer their desire,
The spirits of the race, grotesque and shy;
Exaggerated powers of earth and sky.

III.

For Gods resemble whom they govern: they,
The fathers of the soil, may not outgrow
The children's vision. In that earlier day,
They stooped the race familiarly to know;
From Heaven's blue prairies they descended then,
And took the shapes and shared the lives of men.

IV.

A chief there was, who in the frequent stress
Of want, yet in contentment, lived his days;
His lodge was built within the wilderness
Of Huron, clasping those transparent bays,
Those deeps of unimagined crystal, where
The bark canoe seems hung in middle air.

V.

There, from the lake and from the uncertain chase
With patient heart his sustenance he drew;
And he was glad to see, in that wild place,
The sons and daughters that around him grew,
Although more scant they made his scanty store,
And in the winter moons his need was sore.