THE WISHING-GATE.

HOPE rules a land forever green:

All powers that serve the bright-eyed queen
Are confident and gay;

Clouds at her bidding disappear;

Points she to aught? the bliss draws near,
And fancy smooths the way.

Not such the land of wishes-there
Dwell fruitless day-dreams, lawless prayer,

And thoughts with things at strife;
Yet how forlorn, should ye depart,
Ye superstitions of the heart,

How poor were human life!

When magic lore abjured its might,
Ye did not forfeit one dear right,

One tender claim abate;
Witness this symbol of your sway,
Surviving near the public way-
The rustic Wishing-gate!

Inquire not if the fairy race
Shed kindly influence on the place
Ere northward they retired;

If here a warrior left a spell,
Panting for glory as he fell,
Or here a saint expired.

Enough that all around is fair,
Composed with Nature's finest care

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And in her fondest love

Peace to embosom and content,

To overawe the turbulent,

The selfish to reprove.

Yea, even the stranger from afar,
Reclining on this moss-grown bar,
Unknowing and unknown,

The infection of the ground partakes,
Longing for his beloved, who makes
All happiness her own.

Then why should conscious spirits fear.
The mystic stirrings that are here,
The ancient faith disclaim?
The local genius ne'er befriends
Desires whose course in folly ends,
Whose just reward is shame.

Smile if thou wilt, but not in scorn,
If some, by ceaseless pains outworn,
Here crave an easier lot;

If some have thirsted to renew
A broken vow, or bind a true
With firmer, holier knot.

And not in vain, when thoughts are cast
Upon the irrevocable past,

Some penitent sincere

May for a worthier future sigh,

While trickles from his downcast eye

No unavailing tear.

The worldling, pining to be freed

From turmoil, who would turn or speed

The currrent of his fate,

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Might stop before this favoured scene
At Nature's call, nor blush to lean
Upon the Wishing-gate.

The sage, who feels how blind, how weak
Is man, though loathe such help to seek,
Yet passing here might pause,

And yearn for insight to allay
Misgiving, while the crimson day
In quietness withdraws,

Or when the church-clock's knell profound
To Time's first step across the bound

Of midnight makes reply

Time pressing on with starry crest

To filial sleep upon the breast
Of dread Eternity!

THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK.

A ROCK there is whose homely front
The passing traveller slights;

Yet there the glowworms hang their lamps,
Like stars, at various heights,

And one coy primrose to that rock

The vernal breeze invites.

What hideous warfare hath been waged,

What kingdoms overthrown,

Since first I spied that primrose-tuft
And marked it for my own,
A lasting link in Nature's chain

From highest heaven let down!

ΙΟ

The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
Their fellowship renew ;

The stems are faithful to the root,
That worketh out of view;
And to the rock the root adheres,
In every fibre true.

Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall;
The earth is constant to her sphere;

And God upholds them all:

So blooms this lonely plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral.

*

Here closed the meditative strain;
But air breathed soft that day,

*

The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
The sunny vale looked gay,

And to the primrose of the rock
I gave this after-lay.

I sang-Let myriads of bright flowers,
Like thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied. Mightier far
Than tremblings that reprove

Our vernal tendencies to hope,
Is God's redeeming love;

That love which changed-for wan disease,
For sorrow that had bent

O'er hopeless dust, for withered age-

Their moral element,

And turned the thistles of a curse

To types beneficent.

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