Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam, In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team! Then thanks for thy present !-none sweeter or better F'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter! Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine, Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking than thine! And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express, Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less; That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow, And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin Pie ! EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND." How has New England's romance fled, Waking the veriest urchin's scorning!— And fire-dance round the magic rock, At moonrise by his holy oak! Startling the traveller, late and lone; As, on some night of starless weather, Each sitting on his own head-stone ! No longer rings with midnight revel The cautious good-man nails no more Until, with heated needle burned, And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold, But young and gay and laughing creatures, Along the charmed Ausonian shore ! Sleeps calmly where the living laid her; Hath found no gray and skilled invader: Or "Webster's Spelling Book." HAMPTON BEACH. THE sunlight glitters keen and bright, Lies stretching to my dazzled sight Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray. The tremulous shadow of the Sea! Against its ground Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree, Still as a picture, clear and free, With varying outline mark the coast for miles around. On-on-we tread with loose-flung rein Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain, Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane, And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray. Ha! like a kind hand on my brow Cooling its dull and feverish glow, Now rest we, where this grassy mound In the great waters, which have bound With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet. Good-bye to Pain and Care! I take Here where these sunny waters break, I draw a freer breath-I seem Waves in the sun-the white-winged gleam And far-off sails which flit before the South wind free. So when Time's veil shall fall asunder, No fearful change, nor sudden wonder, But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow. VOL. II. And all we shrink from now may seem Familiar as our childhood's stream, The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing. Serene and mild the untried light And, as in Summer's northern night The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning. I sit alone in foam and spray Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray, Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave. What heed I of the dusty land I see the mighty deep expand From its white line of glimmering sand To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down! In listless quietude of mind, The change of cloud and wave and wind, I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall. But look, thou dreamer!-wave and shore The night-wind warns me back once more Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky! |