DEDICATION. WOULD the gift I offer here Few leaves of Fancy's spring remain : And paler flowers, the latter rain 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 the rough ore must find its honors in its use. So haply these, my simple lays 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; awe, The coarse mechanic vesture wore,- In labor, as in prayer, fulfilling the same law SONGS OF LABOR. THE SHIP-BUILDERS. THE sky is ruddy in the East, Then let the sounds of measured stroke And grating saw begin; The broad-ase to the gnarléd oak, The mallet to the pin! Hark!―roars the bellows, blast on blast, From far-off hills, the panting team For us the raftsmen down the stream Their island barges steer. For us the century-circled oak Up!-up!-in nobler toil than ours Where'er the keel of our good ship And seamen tread her reeling deck Her oaken ribs the vulture-beak Ho!-strike away the bars and blocks, And set the good ship free! Why lingers on these dusty rocks The young bride of the sea? Look! how she moves adown the grooves, In graceful beauty now! How lowly on the breast she loves Sinks down her virgin prow God bless her! wheresoe'er the breeze Her snowy wing shall fan, Aside the frozen Hebrides, |