Is touched within us, and the heart replies. How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where mem'ry slept. Wherever I have heard A kindred melody, the scene recurs, And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
HAGAR IN THE WILDERNESS.-WILLIS.
The morning broke. Light stole upon the clouds With a strange beauty. Earth received again Its garment of a thousand dyes; and leaves, And delicate blossoms, and the painted flowers, And every thing that bendeth to the dew, And stirreth with the daylight, lifted up Its beauty to the breath of that sweet morn.
All things are dark to sorrow; and the light, And loveliness, and fragrant air were sad To the dejected Hagar. The moist earth Was pouring odors from its spicy pores, And the young birds were carolling as life Were a new thing to them; but, oh! it came Upon her heart like discord, and she felt How cruelly it tries a broken heart,
To see a mirth in any thing it loves.
She stood at Abraham's tent. Her lips were pressed Till the blood left them; and the wandering veins Of her transparent forehead were swelled out, As if her pride would burst them. Her dark eye Was clear and tearless, and the light of heaven, Which made its language legible, shot back From her long lashes, as it had been flame. Her noble boy stood by her, with his hand Clasped in her own, and his round, delicate feet, Scarce trained to balance on the tented floor, Sandaled for journeying. He had looked up Into his mother's face until he caught
The spirit there, and his young heart was swelling Beneath his snowy bosom, and his form Straightened up proudly in his tiny wrath, As if his light proportions would have swelled, Had they but matched his spirit, to the man.
Why bends the patriarch as he cometh now Upon his staff so wearily? His beard Is low upon his breast, and his high brow, So written with the converse of his God, Beareth the swollen vein of agony. His lip is quivering, and his wonted step Of vigor is not there; and, though the morn Is passing fair and beautiful, he breathes. Its freshness as it were a pestilence. Oh! man may bear with suffering his heart Is a strong thing, and godlike in the grasp Of pain that wrings mortality; but tear One chord affection clings to, part one tie That binds him to woman's delicate love, And his great spirit yieldeth like a reed.
He gave to her the water and the bread, But spoke no word, and trusted not himself To look upon her face; but laid his hand, In silent blessing, on the fair-haired boy, And left her to her lot of loneliness.
Should Hagar weep? May slighted woman turn, And, as a vine the oak hath shaken off, Bend lightly to her tendencies again? O no! by all her loveliness, by all That makes life poetry and beauty, no!
Make her a slave; steal from her cheek the rose, By needless jealousies; let the last star Leave her a watcher by your couch of pain; Wrong her by petulance, suspicion, all That makes her cup a bitterness—yet give One evidence of love, and earth has not
An emblem of devotedness like hers.
But, oh! estrange her once, it boots not how, By wrong or silence, any thing that tells A change has come upon your tenderness,-
And there is not a high thing out of heaven Her pride o'ermastereth not.
She went her way with a strong step and slow; Her pressed lip arched, and her clear eye undimmed, As it had been a diamond, and her form
Borne proudly up, as if her heart breathed through. Her child kept on in silence, though she pressed His hand till it was pained; for he had caught, As I have said, her spirit, and the seed Of a stern nation had been breathed upon.
The morning past, and Asia's sun rode up In the clear heaven, and every beam was heat, The cattle of the hills were in the shade, And the bright plumage of the orient lay On beating bosoms in her spicy trees. It was an hour of rest; but Hagar found No shelter in the wilderness, and on She kept her weary way, until the boy Hung down his head, and opened his parched lips For water; but she could not give it him. She laid him down beneath the sultry sky,- For it was better than the close, hot breath Of the thick pines,-and tried to comfort him; But he was sore athirst, and his blue eyes Were dim and bloodshot, and he could not know Why God denied him water in the wild. She sat a little longer, and he grew Ghastly and faint, as if he would have died. It was too much for her. She lifted him,
And bore him farther on, and laid his head Beneath the shadow of a desert shrub; And, shrouding up her face, she went away,
And sat to watch, where he could see her not,
Till he should die; and, watching him, she mourned:
"God stay thee in thine agony, my boy; I cannot see thee die; I cannot brook Upon thy brow to look,
And see death settle on my cradle joy. How have I drunk the light of thy blue eye! And could I see thee die?
I did not dream of this when thou wast straying, Like an unbound gazelle, among the flowers; Or wearing rosy hours,
By the rich gush of water-sources playing, Then sinking weary to thy smiling sleep So beautiful and deep.
Oh no! and when I watched by thee the while, And saw thy bright lip curling in thy dream, And thought of the dark stream In my own land of Egypt, the deep Nile, How prayed 1 that my father's land might be An heritage for thee!
And now the grave for its cold breast hath won thee, And thy white, delicate limbs the earth will press; And oh my last caress
Must feel thee cold, for a chill hand is on thee. How can I leave my boy, so pillowed there Upon his clustering hair!"
She stood beside the well her God had given To gush in that deep wilderness, and bathed The forehead of her child until he laughed In his reviving happiness, and lisped His infant thought of gladness at the sight Of the cool plashing of his mother's hand.
THANATOPSIS.-BRYANT.
To him who, in the love of nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language. For his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And gentle sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,- Go forth unto the open sky, and list
To nature's teachings, while from all around- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air- Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course. Nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim' Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again; And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. Yet not to thy eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone; nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings, The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills, Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales, Stretching in pensive quietness between ; The venerable woods; rivers that move In majesty; and the complaining brooks, That make the meadow green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's grey and melancholy waste,―
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce; Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings; yet-the dead are there,
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