[IBN BATUTA, the celebrated Mussulman trav

Genius keeps His vigils still;

Than that where Avon's son of song is laid,

Of Vaucluse hallowed by its Petrarch's shade,

Or Virgil's laurelled hill.

To the gray walls of fallen Paraclete,
To Juliet's urn,

Fair Arno and Sorrento's orange-grove, Where Tasso sang, let young Romance and Love

Like brother pilgrims turn.

But here a deeper and serener charm
To all is given ;

And blessed memories of the faithful dead

O'er wood and vale and meadow-stream have shed

The holy hues of Heaven!

TO J. P.

Nor as a poor requital of the joy With which my childhood heard that lay of thine,

Which, like an echo of the song divine At Bethlehem breathed above the Holy Boy,

Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine, Not to the poet, but the man I bring In friendship's fearless trust my offering: How much it lacks I feel, and thou wilt

see,

Yet well I know that thou hast deemed with me

Life all too earnest, and its time too short

For dreamy ease and Fancy's graceful sport;

And girded for thy constant strife with wrong,

Like Nehemiah fighting while he wrought

press-tree in Ceylon, universally held sacred by the natives, the leaves of which were said to fall only at certain intervals, and he who had the happiness to find and eat one of them was restored, at once, to youth and vigor. The trayeller saw several venerable JOGEES, or saints, sitting silent and motionless under the tree, patiently awaiting the falling of a leaf.]

Not to restore our failing forms,

ΤΟ

And build the spirit's broken shrine, But on the fainting SOUL to shed

A light and life divine;

Shall we grow weary in our watch,
And murmur at the long delay ?
Impatient of our Father's time
And his appointed way?

Or shall the stir of outward things
Allure and claim the Christian's eye,
When on the heathen watcher's ear
Their powerless murmurs die?
Alas! a deeper test of faith
Than prison cell or martyr's stake,
The self-abasing watchfulness

Of silent prayer may make.

We gird us bravely to rebuke

Our erring brother in the wrong,
And in the ear of Pride and Power
Our warning voice is strong.

Easier to smite with Peter's sword
Than "watch one hour" in humbling

The fox his hillside cell forsakes, The muskrat leaves his nook, The bluebird in the meadow brakes Is singing with the brook. "Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cry Bird, breeze, and streamlet free; "Our winter voices prophesy

Of summer days to thee !"

109

So, in those winters of the soul,
By bitter blasts and drear
O'erswept from Memory's frozen pole,
Will sunny days appear.

Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
The soul its living powers,
And how beneath the winter's snow
Lie germs of summer flowers!

The Night is mother of the Day,
The Winter of the Spring,
And ever upon old Decay

The greenest mosses cling.
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all his works,
Has left his Hope with all !
4th 1st month, 1847.

Glitters like that flashing mirror

In the self-same sun.
But upon thy youthful forehead
Something like a shadow lies;
And a serious soul is looking
From thy earnest eyes.

With an early introversion,
Through the forms of outward things,
Seeking for the subtle essence,
And the hidden springs.

Deeper than the gilded surface
Hath thy wakeful vision seen,
Farther than the narrow present
Have thy journeyings been.

Thou hast midst Life's empty noises
Heard the solemn steps of Time,
And the low mysterious voices

Of another clime.

All the mystery of Being

Hath upon thy spirit pressed, Thoughts which, like the Deluge wanderer,

Find no place of rest:

That which mystic Plato pondered,
That which Zeno heard with awe,
And the star-rapt Zoroaster

In his night-watch saw.

From the doubt and darkness springing
Of the dim, uncertain Past,
Moving to the dark still shadows

O'er the Future cast,

Early hath Life's mighty question Thrilled within thy heart of youth, With a deep and strong beseeching: WHAT and WHERE IS TRUTH?

Hollow creed and ceremonial,
Whence the ancient life hath fled,
Idle faith unknown to action,
Dull and cold and dead.

Oracles, whose wire-worked meanings

Only wake a quiet scorn,
Not from these thy seeking spirit
Hath its answer drawn.

But, like some tired child at even,

On thy mother Nature's breast, Thou, methinks, art vainly seeking Truth, and peace, and rest.

O'er that mother's rugged features

Thou art throwing Fancy's veil, Light and soft as woven moonbeams, Beautiful and frail !

O'er the rough chart of Existence,
Rocks of sin and wastes of woe,
Softairs breathe, and green leaves tremble,
And cool fountains flow.

And to thee an answer cometh

From the earth and from the sky, And to thee the hills and waters And the stars reply.

But a soul-sufficing answer
Hath no outward origin;
More than Nature's many voices
May be heard within.

Even as the great Augustine
Questioned earth and sea and sky,"
And the dusty tomes of learning
And old poesy.

But his earnest spirit needed

More than outward Nature taught, — More than blest the poet's vision Or the sage's thought.

Only in the gathered silence

Of a calm and waiting frame Light and wisdom as from Heaven To the seeker came.

Not to ease and aimless quiet

Doth that inward answer tend,
But to works of love and duty
As our being's end,-

Not to idle dreams and trances,
Length of face, and solemn tone,
But to Faith, in daily striving
And performance shown.

Earnest toil and strong endeavor
Of a spirit which within
Wrestles with familiar evil

And besetting sin;

And without, with tireless vigor, Steady heart, and weapon strong, In the power of truth assailing

Every form of wrong.

Guided thus, how passing lovely
Is the track of WOOLMAN's feet!

When the red right-hand of slaughter
Moulders with the steel it swung,
When the name of seer and poet
Dies on Memory's tongue,

All bright thoughts and pure shall gather
Round that meek and suffering one,-
Glorious, like the seer-seen angel

Standing in the sun!

Take the good man's book and ponder
What its pages say to thee,
Blessed as the hand of healing
May its lesson be.

If it only serves to strengthen
Yearnings for a higher good,
For the fount of living waters
And diviner food;

If the pride of human reason Feels its meek and still rebuke,

Quailing like the eye of Peter From the Just One's look!

111

If with readier ear thou heedest What the Inward Teacher saith, Listening with a willing spirit And a childlike faith,

Thou mayst live to bless the giver,
Who, himself but frail and weak,
Would at least the highest welfare
Of another seek;

And his gift, though poor and lowly
It may seem to other eyes,
Yet may prove an angel holy
In a pilgrim's guise.

LEGGETT'S MONUMENT.

"Ye build the tombs of the prophets."

Holy Writ.

YES, pile the marble o'er him! It is

well

That ye who mocked him in his long

stern strife,

And planted in the pathway of his life The ploughshares of your hatred hot from hell,

Who clamored down the bold reformer when

He pleaded for his captive fellow-men, Who spurned him in the market-place, and sought

Within thy walls, St. Tammany, to bind

In party chains the free and honest thought,

The angel utterance of an upright mind, Well is it now that o'er his grave ye raise The stony tribute of your tardy praise, For not alone that pile shall tell to Fame Of the brave heart beneath, but of the builders' shame!