THE LAST TREE OF THE FOREST.

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"I have seen the knight and his train ride past, With his banner borne on high;

O'er all my leaves there was brightness cast
From his gleaming panoply.

"The pilgrim at my feet hath laid

His palm-branch 'midst the flowers, And told his beads, and meekly pray'd, Kneeling, at vesper-hours.

"And the merry-men of wild and glen, In the green array they wore,

Have feasted here, with the red wine's cheer, And the hunter's song of yore.

"And the minstrel, resting in my shade,
Hath made the forest ring

With the lordly tales of the high Crusade,
Once loved by chief and king.

"But now the noble forms are gone
That walk'd the earth of old;
The soft wind hath a mournful tone,
The sunny light looks cold.

"There is no glory left us now

Like the glory with the dead :—
I would that where they slumber low
My latest leaves were shed!"

Oh! thou dark Tree, thou lonely Tree,
That mournest for the past!

A peasant's home in thy shades I see,
Embower'd from every blast.

VOL. VI.- 11

A lovely and a mirthful sound

Of laughter meets mine ear;

For the poor man's children sport around
On the turf, with nought to fear.

And roses lend that cabin's wall
A happy summer-glow :
And the open door stands free to all,
For it recks not of a foe.

And the village bells are on the breeze
That stirs thy leaf, dark Tree!

How can I mourn, 'midst things like these,
For the stormy past, with thee?

THE STREAMS.

"The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,

Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,

Or chasms and watery depths; all those have vanish'd!
They live no longer in the faith of heaven,

But still the heart doth need a language!"

COLERIDGE's Wallenstein.

YE have been holy, O founts and floods!
Ye of the ancient and solemn woods,
Ye that are born of the valleys deep,
With the water-flowers on your breast asleep,
And ye that gush from the sounding caves-
Hallow'd have been your waves.

THE STREAMS.

Hallow'd by man, in his dreams of old,
Unto beings not of this mortal mould,

Viewless, and deathless, and wondrous powers,
Whose voice he heard in his lonely hours,
And sought with its fancied sound to still
The heart earth could not fill.

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Therefore the flowers of bright summers gone,
O'er your sweet waters, ye streams! were thrown;
Thousands of gifts to the sunny sea

Have ye swept along, in your wanderings free,
And thrill'd to the murmur of many a vow-

Where all is silent now!

Nor seems it strange that the heart hath been
So link'd in love to your margins green;
That still, though ruin'd, your early shrines
In beauty gleam through the southern vines,
And the ivied chapels of colder skies,

On your wild banks arise.

For the loveliest scenes of the glowing earth,
Are those, bright streams! where your springs have

birth;

Whether their cavern'd murmur fills,

With a tone of plaint, the hollow hills,

Or the glad sweet laugh of their healthful flow
Is heard 'midst the hamlets low.

Or whether ye gladden the desert sands
With a joyous music to pilgrim bands,
And a flash from under some ancient rock,

Where a shepherd-king might have watch'd his flock,

Where a few lone palm-trees lift their heads,
And a green acacia spreads.

Or whether, in bright old lands renown'd,
The laurels thrill to your first-born sound,
And the shadow, flung from the Grecian pine,
Sweeps with the breeze o'er your gleaming line,
And the tall reeds whisper to your waves,
Beside heroic graves.

Voices and lights of the lonely place!
By the freshest fern your path we trace;
By the brightest cups on the emerald moss,
Whose fairy goblets the turf emboss,
By the rainbow glancing of insect wings,
In a thousand mazy rings.

There sucks the bee, for the richest flowers
Are all your own through the summer hours;
There the proud stag his fair image knows,
Traced on your glass beneath alder-boughs,
And the Halcyon's breast, like the skies array'd,
Gleams through the willow-shade.

But the wild sweet tales, that with elves and fays
Peopled your banks in the olden days,

And the memory left by departed love,
To your antique founts in glen and grove,
And the glory born of the poet's dreams-

These are your charms, bright streams!

Now is the time of your flowery rites,
Gone by with its dances and young delights:

THE VOICE OF THE WIND.

From your marble urns ye have burst away,
From your chapel-cells to the laughing day;
Low lie your altars with moss o'ergrown,
And the woods again are lone.

Yet holy still be your living springs,
Haunts of all gentle and gladsome things!
Holy, to converse with nature's lore,

That gives the worn spirit its youth once more,
And to silent thoughts of the love divine,
Making the heart a shrine!

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THE VOICE OF THE WIND.

"There is nothing in the wide world so like the voice of a spirit." GRAY'S Letters.

OH! many a voice is thine, thou Wind! full many a voice is thine,

From every scene thy wing o'ersweeps thou bear'st a sound and sign;

A minstrel wild and strong thou art, with a mastery all thine own,

And the spirit is thy harp, O Wind! that gives the answering tone.

Thou hast been across red fields of war, where shiver'd helmets lie,

And thou bringest thence the thrilling note of a clarion in the sky;