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I give you Home! its crossing lines
United in one golden suture,

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

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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
The rippling grass, the nodding grain,
Such growths as English meadows yield
To scanty sun and frequent rain.

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,
Its unrelenting bulk was shed,

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
We bid the brightest beacon glow,
And still upon the thorniest stock

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
Dawns with its first auroral hue,
Till shines the rounded harvest-moon,
And velvet dahlias drink the dew.

Nor these the only gifts she brings;
Look where the laboring orchard groans,

And yields its beryl-threaded strings
For chestnut burs and hemlock cones.

Dear though the shadowy maple be,
And dearer still the whispering pine,
Dearest yon russet-laden tree

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,
Frail Houri of the trellised wall, -

Her deep-cleft bosom scarfed with green,
Fairest to see, and first to fall.

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 seed was wafted o'er the wall,

One bough sustained his trembling weight;
These left the garden, - these were all.

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.

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