LAND BREEZES. Down some bright river hast thou never drifted, Green fields and slopes, with cedar vallies rifted, Fair groves all panoplied with Summer's armor, And o'er the whole a deeper light and warmer; And as thy bark was downward dropping slowly The river widened, and its sandy verges Crept from thee either way; And on thine ear were borne the ocean's surges, In its tumultuous strife and ceaseless tossing, Its agony and storm, From shores that thou hadst left, thy damp brow crossing, Blew soft that land-breeze warm. Unnoticed then were billows huge and dashing, Thou only heard'st the waters crisply washing Down some bright stream of song thy heart hath floated, Far stretching plains to noblest thought devoted; Fair groves where earnest hopes were boldly growing, And o'er the whole the poet's heart was throwing By bluffs of Wit, by nooks of Fancy gliding, While o'er thy spirit, with a sweet abiding, Till the perpetual swell of fierce emotion, Foretold that thou wert nearing that broad ocean; The mighty sea of Life. Across its waves forever high and crested, Forever icy cold, Fluttered that breeze from shores where once it rested, Oh, weary voyager on that broad Atlantic Didst thou not see its billows wild and frantic, HOMELESS. She stood alone on the sullen pier With the night around, and the river below, The long grass hung from each wave-washed pile, And she thought, with a strange and ghastly smile, How her hand had oft smoothed his damp brown hairBut he and the world had left her there, With no friend but the beckoning water. Was Heaven so far, that no angel arm Might round the Homeless in love be thrown, She looked to the far-off town and wept; And oh! could you blame the poor girl's tears? For she thought how many a maiden slept, With Love and Honor as wardens near; No human eye and no human ear E'er saw a struggle or heard a sound; And the curious never could spare a tear As they looked at morn on the outcast drown'd; But ah! had speech been given the dead, Perhaps those motionless lips had said, 'No homeless are found in heaven.' FEVER. THOU hast been ill, and I was never nigh thee, I did not pray beside thy fevered bed; Could I have kneeled beside thee, and have told thee Gazing into thine eyes without a word; Or to have kissed thy cheek, so hot and throbbing, I could have hushed my breath while thou wert sleeping, Or in it sunk, unshrinking, at thy side. |