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Thy silent and secluded hours

Thro' many a lonely day,

While bending o'er thy broider'd flowers, With spirit far away;

Thy weeping midnight prayers for him

Who fought on Syrian plains,

Thy watchings till the torch grew dimThese fill no minstrel strains.

A still, sad life was thine !--long years With tasks unguerdon'd fraught,

Deep, quiet love, submissive tears,

Vigils of anxious thought;

Prayer at the cross in fervour pour'd,

Alms to the pilgrim given-

Oh! happy, happier than thy lord,

In that lone path to heaven!

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN NEW ENGLAND.

Look now abroad-another race has fill'd

Those populous borders-wide the wood recedes, And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are till'd; The land is full of harvests and green meads.

BRYANT.

THE breaking waves dash'd high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches toss'd;

And the heavy night hung dark,

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moor'd their bark

On the wild New-England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted came ;

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,

And the trumpet that sings of fame:

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear ;

They shook the depths of the desert gloom

With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard and the sea!

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free.

The ocean-eagle soar'd

From his nest by the white wave's foam,

And the rocking pines of the forest roar'd—

This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair,

Amidst that pilgrim band ;

Why had they come to wither there,

Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?--
They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod!

They have left unstain'd what there they found-

Freedom to worship God.

THE SPIRIT'S MYSTERIES.

And slight, withal, may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside forever ;-it may be a sound-

A tone of music-summer's breath, or spring

A flower-a leaf-the ocean-which may wound-
Striking th' electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.
Childe Harold.

THE

power

that dwelleth in sweet sounds to waken Vague yearnings, like the sailor's for the shore, And dim remembrances, whose hue seems taken

From some bright former state, our own no more; Is not this all a mystery ?--Who shall say

Whence are those thoughts, and whither tends their way?

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