Or murmuring sound of water as it flows,
Thou comest back to parley with repose!
This rustic seat in the old apple-tree,
With its o'erhanging golden canopy
Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues,
And shining with the argent light of dews,
Shall for a season be our place of rest.
Beneath us, like an oriole's pendent nest,
From which the laughing birds have taken wing,
By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.
Dream-like the waters of the river gleam;

A sailless vessel drops adown the stream,
And like it, to a sea as wide and deep,
Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep

O child! O new-born denizen
Of life's great city! on thy head
The glory of the morn is shed,
Like a celestial benison !

Here at the portal thou dost stand,

And with thy little hand

Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
I see its valves expand,
As at the touch of Fate!

Into those realms of love and hate,

Into that darkness blank and drear,

By some prophetic feeling taught,
I launch the bold, adventurous thought,

Freighted with hope and fear

As

;

upon subterranean streams,

In caverns unexplored and dark,

Men sometimes launch a fragile bark,

Laden with flickering fire,

And watch its swift-receding beams,

Until at length they disappear,

And in the distant dark expire.

By what astrology of fear or hope
Dare I to cast thy horoscope!

Like the new moon thy life

A little strip of silver light,

appears;

And widening outward into night
The shadowy disk of future years;
And yet upon its outer rim,

A luminous circle, faint and dim,
And scarcely visible to us here,

Rounds and completes the perfect sphere,
A prophecy and intimation,

A pale and feeble adumbration,

Of the great world of light, that lies

Behind all human destinies.

Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught,
Should be to wet the dusty soil
With the hot tears and sweat of toil,

To struggle with imperious thought,

Until the overburdened brain,

Weary with labor, faint with pain,
Like a jarred pendulum, retain
Only its motion, not its power, —
Remember, in that perilous hour,
When most afflicted and oppressed,
From labor there shall come forth rest.

And if a more auspicious fate
On thy advancing steps await,
Still let it ever be thy pride
To linger by the laborer's side;
With words of sympathy or song

To cheer the dreary march along

Of the great army of the poor,

O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor.

Nor to thyself the task shall be

Without reward; for thou shalt learn

The wisdom early to discern

True beauty in utility;

As great Pythagoras of yore,

Standing beside the blacksmith's door, And hearing the hammers, as they smote The anvils with a different note,

Stole from the varying tones, that hung iron tongue,

Vibrant on every

The secret of the sounding wire,
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.

Enough! I will not play the Seer;
I will no longer strive to ope
The mystic volume, where appear
The herald Hope, forerunning Fear,
And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.
Thy destiny remains untold 1;

For, like Acestes' shaft of old,

The swift thought kindles as it flies.

And burns to ashes in the skies.