777 I give you Home! its crossing lines And showing every day that shines The present growing to the future,— A flag that bears a hundred stars, In one bright ring, with love for centre, Fenced round with white and crimson bars, No prowling treason dares to enter! O brothers, home may be a word To make affection's living treasure The wave an angel might have stirredA stagnant pool of selfish pleasure; HOME! It is where the day-star springs And where the evening sun reposes, Where'er the eagle spreads his wings, From northern pines to southern roses! THE NEW EDEN. (MEETING OF THE BERKSHIRE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, AT STOCKBRIDGE, SEPT. 13, 1854.) SCARCE could the parting ocean close, Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving bow, When o'er the rugged desert rose The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's plough. Then sprang from many a rock-strewn field But when the fiery days were done, And Autumn brought his purple haze, Then, kindling in the slanted sun, The hill-sides gleamed with golden maize. The food was scant, the fruits were few. A red-streak glistened here and there; Perchance in statelier precincts grew Some stern old Puritanic pear. Austere in taste, and tough at core, To ripen in the Pilgrim's store When all the summer sweets were fled. Such was his lot, to front the storm With iron heart and marble brow, Nor ripen till his earthly form Was cast from life's autumnal bough. But ever on the bleakest rock The sweetest roses love to blow. So on our rude and wintry soil We feed the kindling flame of art, And steal the tropic's blushing spoil To bloom on Nature's ice-clad heart. See how the softening Mother's breast Warms to her children's patient wiles,— Her lips by loving Labor pressed Break in a thousand dimpling smiles, From when the flushing bud of June Nor these the only gifts she brings; And yields its beryl-threaded strings Dear though the shadowy maple be, Browned by the heavy rubbing kine! There childhood flung its rustling stone, There venturous boyhood learned to climb, How well the early graft was known Whose fruit was ripe ere harvest time! Nor be the Fleming's pride forgot, With swinging drops and drooping bells, Freckled and splashed with streak and spot, On the warm-breasted, sloping swells; Nor Persia's painted garden-queen, Her deep-cleft bosom scarfed with green, When man provoked his mortal doom, And Eden trembled as he fell, When blossoms sighed their last perfume, And branches waved their long farewell, One sucker crept beneath the gate, One bough sustained his trembling weight; And far o'er many a distant zone These wrecks of Eden still are flung: The fruits that Paradise hath known Are still in earthly gardens hung. |