DEDICATION. I WOULD the gift I offer here Might graces from thy favor take, And, seen through Friendship's atmosphere, On softened lines and coloring, wear The unaccustomed light of beauty, for thy sake. Few leaves of Fancy's spring remain : Calls from the westering slope of life's autumnal lea. Above the fallen groves of green, Where youth's enchanted forest stood, As springs the pine where falls the gay-leafed maple wood! Yet birds will sing, and breezes play So, even my after-thoughts may have a charm for thee. Art's perfect forms no moral need, And beauty is its own excuse; 1 But for the dull and flowerless weed And the rough ore must find its honors in its use. So haply these, my simple lays Of homely toil, may serve to show The unsung beauty hid life's common things below Haply from them the toiler, bent A manlier spirit of content, And feel that life is wisest spent Where the strong working hand makes strong the working brain. The doom which to the guilty pair Without the walls of Eden came, Transforming sinless ease to care And rugged toil, no more shall bear The burden of old crime, or mark of primal shame. A blessing now-a curse no more; Since He, whose name we breathe with awe, The coarse mechanic vesture wore,- In labor, as in prayer, fulfilling the same law |