His hair is crisp, and black, and long;
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat;
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling-rejoicing-sorrowing
Onward through life he goes:
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted-something done,
Has earn'd a night's repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of Life
Our fortunes must be wrought,
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.
THE SUN now rests upon the mountain tops→
Begins to sink behind-is half conceal'd-
And now is gone: the last faint, twinkling beam
Is cut in twain by the sharp rising ridge.
Sweet to the pensive is departing day,
When only one small cloud, so still and thin,
So thoroughly imbued with amber light,
And so transparent, that it seems a spot
Of brighter sky, beyond the farthest mount,
Hangs o'er the hidden orb; or where a few
Long narrow strips of denser, darker grain,
At each end sharpen'd to a needle's point,
With golden borders, sometimes straight and smooth,
And sometimes crinkling like the lightning stream,
A half hour's space above the mountain lie;
Or when the whole consolidated mass,
SUNSET IN SEPTEMBER.
That only threaten'd rain, is broken up
Into a thousand parts, and yet is one,
One as the ocean broken into waves;
And all its spongy parts, imbibing deep
The moist effulgence, seem like fleeces dyed
Deep scarlet, saffron light, or crimson dark,
As they are thick or thin, or near or more remote,
All fading soon as lower sinks the sun,
Till twilight end. But now another scene,
To me most beautiful of all, appears:
The sky, without the shadow of a cloud,
Throughout the west, is kindled to a glow
So bright and broad, it glares upon the eye,
Not dazzling, but dilating with calm force
power of vision to admit the whole.
Below, 'tis all of richest orange dye,
Midway, the blushing of the mellow peach
Paints not, but tinges the ethereal deep;
And here, in this most lovely region, shines,
With added loveliness, the evening-star.
Above, the fainter purple slowly fades,
Till changed into the azure of mid heaven.
Along the level ridge, o'er which the sun
Descended, in a single row arranged,
As if thus planted by the hand of art,
Majestic pines shoot up into the sky,
And in its fluid gold seem half-dissolved.
Upon a nearer peak a cluster stands
With shafts erect, and tops converged to one,
A stately colonnade, with verdant roof;
Upon a nearer still, a single tree,
With shapely form looks beautiful alone;
While, farther northward, through a narrow pass Scoop'd in the hither range, a single mount
Beyond the rest, of finer smoothness seems,
And of a softer, more ethereal blue,
A pyramid of polish'd sapphire built.
But now the twilight mingles into one
The various mountains; levels to a plain
This nearer, lower landscape, dark with shade,
Where every object to my sight presents
Its shaded side; while here upon these walls,
And in that eastern wood, upon the trunks
Under thick foliage, reflective shows
Its yellow lustre. How distinct the line
Of the horizon, parting heaven and earth!
BY CHARLES F. HOFFMAN.
THOU Vocal sprite! thou feather'd troubadour!
In pilgrim weeds through many a clime a ranger,
Com'st thou to doff thy russet suit once more,
And play in foppish trim the masquing stranger?
Philosophers may teach thy whereabouts and nature;
But, wise as all of us, perforce, must think 'em,
The schoolboy best hath fix'd thy nomenclature,
And poets, too, must call thee Bob-O'Linkum!
Say! art thou, long mid forest glooms benighted,
So glad to skim our laughing meadows over,
With our gay orchards here so much delighted,
It makes thee musical, thou airy rover?
Or are those buoyant notes the pilfer'd treasure
Of fairy isles, which thou hast learn'd to ravish
Of all their sweetest minstrelsy at pleasure,
And, Ariel-like, again on men to lavish?
They tell sad stories of thy mad-cap freaks;
Wherever o'er the land thy pathway ranges;
And even in a brace of wandering weeks,
They say, alike thy song and plumage changes:
Here both are gay; and when the buds put forth,
And leafy June is shading rock and river,
Thou art unmatch'd, blithe warbler of the north,
When through the balmy air thy clear notes quiver.
Joyous, yet tender, was that gush of song
Caught from the brooks, where, mid its wild-flowers smiling,
The silent prairie listens all day long,
The only captive to such sweet beguiling; Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls And column'd aisles of western groves symphonious, Learn from the tuneful woods rare madrigals,
To make our flowering pastures here harmonious?
Caught'st thou thy carol from Otawa maid,
Where, through the liquid fields of wild rice plashing, Brushing the ears from off the burden'd blade,
Her birch canoe o'er some lone lake is flashing?
Or did the reeds of some savanna south
Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing,
To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth
The spice-fed winds had taught them in their wooing?
Unthrifty prodigal! is no thought of ill
Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever?
Or doth each pulse in choiring cadence still
Throb on in music till at rest forever?
Yet now in wilder'd maze of concord floating,
"Twould seem that glorious hymning to prolong, Old Time, in hearing thee, might fall a doting, And pause to listen to thy rapturous song!
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