O'er thee mild Eve her beauty flings, Sleep on; no willow o'er thee bends No violet springs, nor dewy rose But there the sea-flower, bright and young, Sleep on, sleep on; the glittering depths The music of its waves; The purple gems forever burn And, pure and deep as infant love, The blue sea rolls its waves above. Sleep on, sleep on; the fearful wrath Of mingling cloud and deep But when the wave has sunk to rest, And the bright victims of the sea Perchance will make their home with thee. Sleep on; thy corse is far away, But love bewails thee yet; For thee the heart-wrung sigh is breathed, And she, thy young and beauteous bride, OH Frances Sargent Osgood. THE COCOA-NUT TREE. H, the green and the graceful—the cocoa-nut tree! The flash, the foam of the heaving sea, And the sound of the surging waves In the shore's unfathomed caves: And some all ripe and brown between, The cocoa-nut tree, Is the tree of all trees for me! The willow, it waves with a tenderer motion, In the Nicobar Islands, each cottage you see Is built of the trunk of the cocoa-nut tree, While its leaves, matted thickly and many times o'er, Make a thatch for its roof and a mat for its floor; Its shells the dark islander's beverage hold— 'Tis a goblet as pure as a goblet of gold. Oh, the cocoa-nut tree, That blooms by the sea, Is the tree of all trees for me! In the Nicobar Isles, of the cocoa-nut tree It will weather the rudest southern gale; That dwells in the roar Of the echoing shore Oh, the cocoa-nut tree for me! Rich is the cocoa-nut's milk and meat, For they tie up the embryo bud's soft wing, Ah, thus to the child of genius, too, And The cocoa-nut tree, Is the tree of all trees for me! The glowing sky of the Indian isles That gem the beach where the cocoa dwells; And they blush in the braids like rosebuds there; The cocoa-nut tree, Elizabeth Oakes-Smith. THE BROOK. 66 WHITHER away, thou merry Brook, Whither away so fast, With dainty feet through the meadow green, The Brook leaped on in idle mirth, And made with the willow free. I heard its laugh adown the glen, Away where the old tree's roots were bare And played with flickering leaf Well pleased to dally in its path, "Now stay thy feet, O restless one, The flashing pebbles lightly rang, As the gushing music fell— The chiming music of the Brook, From out the woody dell: "My mountain home was bleak and high, But none were in that solitude To bless the little Brook. "The blended hum of pleasant sounds Came up from the vale below, |