60

THE SANDPIPER

The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain, Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague

on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will

come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are

still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THE SANDPIPER

ACROSS the narrow beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,

The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry.

The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,

As up and down the beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I.

SEE WHAT A LOVELY SHELL!

Above our heads the sullen clouds

Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white light-houses high. Almost as far as eye can reach,

I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach, One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong,

He scans me with a fearless eye;
Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky;
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

CELIA THAXTER.

SEE WHAT A LOVELY SHELL!

SEE what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot,

61

62

TEMPEST ON LAKE LEMAN

Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well

With delicate spire and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,

A miracle of design!

The tiny cell is forlorn,

Void of the little living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Thro' his dim water-world?

Slight, to be crush'd with a tap
Of my finger nail on the sand,
Small, but a work divine,
Frail, but of force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap

The three-decker's oaken spine

Athwart the ledges of rock,

Here on the Breton strand.

-ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (Maud).

TEMPEST ON LAKE LEMAN

It is the hush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,

TEMPEST ON LAKE LEMAN

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;
He is an evening reveler, who makes

His life an infancy, and sings his fill; -
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill,
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instil,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.
All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep;
All heaven and earth are still; from the high host
Of stars to the lulled lake and mountain coast,

All is concentered in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,

But hath a part of being, and a sense

Of that which is of all Creator and defense.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt

In solitude, where we are least alone;

A truth, which through our being then doth melt,

And purifies from self; it is a tone

63

The soul and source of music, which makes known eternal harmony.

The sky is changed! and such a change! Oh night,

And storm and darkness ye are wondrous strong,

Yet lovely in your strength as is the light

Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,

From peak to peak the rattling crags among

Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,

64

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN

But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers from her misty shroud,

Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud!
And this is in the night: Most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! Let me be

-GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON (Childe Harold).

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN

ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control
Stops with the shore; — upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, —
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

*

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee; —
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou;
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play,
Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow:
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time