"Oh, virgin daughter, faint no more,
Thy tears are seen, thy prayers are heard.
What though, with spirits crushed and broke,
Thy tribes like desert exiles rove,
Though Judah feels the stranger's yoke,
And Ephraim is a heartless dove ;-
Yet, yet shall Judah's LION wake,
Yet shall the day of promise come,
Thy sons from iron bondage break,
And God shall lead the wanderers home!"
THE clouds! the clouds! they are beautiful
When they sleep on the soft spring sky,
As if the sun to rest could lull
Their snowy company;
And as the wind springs up they start,
And career o'er the azure plain,
And before the course of the breezes dart,
To scatter their balmy rain.
The clouds! the clouds! how change their forms
With every passing breath;
And now a glancing sunbeam warms,
And now they look cold as death! Oh! often and often have I escaped From the stir of the noisy crowd, And a thousand fanciful visions shaped On the face of a passing cloud.
The clouds! the clouds! round the sun at night, They come like a band of slaves,
They are only bright in their master's light,
And each in his glory laves.
Oh! they are lovely, lovely then,
When the heaven around them glows;
Now touched with a purple and amber stain,
And now with the hue of the rose.
The clouds! the clouds! in the starlit sky,
How they float on the light wind's wings :
Now resting an instant, then glancing by,
In their fickle wanderings!
Now they hide the deep blue firmament,
Now it shows their folds between,
As if a silver veil were rent
From the jewelled brow of a queen.
The clouds! the clouds! they are the lid
To the lightning's flashing eye;
And in their fleecy folds is hid
The thunder's majesty !
Oh! how their warring is proclaimed
By the shrill blast's battle song;
And the tempest's deadliest shafts are aimed
From the midst of the dark clouds' throng.
The clouds! the clouds !-My childish days
Are past, my heart is old;
But here and there a feeling stays,
That never can grow cold;
And the love of nature is one of these,
That Time's wave never shrouds;
And oft and oft doth my soul find peace
In watching the passing clouds!
ALL I feel, and hear, and see,
God of love, is full of thee.
Earth, with her ten thousand flowers;
Air, with all its beams and showers;
Ocean's infinite expanse;
Heaven's resplendent countenance-
All around, and all above,
Hath this record-God is love.
Sounds among the vales and hills,
In the woods, and by the rills,
Of the breeze and of the bird,
By the gentle murmur stirred-
All these songs, beneath, above,
Have one burden-God is love.
All the hopes and fears that start
From the fountain of the heart;
All the quiet bliss that lies,
All our human sympathies—
These are voices from above,
Sweetly whispering-God is love.
Look on him-through his dungeon grate, Feebly and cold, the morning light Comes stealing round him, dim and late, As if it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed,
His hand upholds his drooping head;
His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard,
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard;
And o'er his bony fingers flow
His long, dishevelled locks of snow.
No grateful fire before him glows,
And yet the winter's breath is chill,
And o'er his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague thrill!
Silent, save ever and anon,
A sound, half murmur and half groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferer's bearded lip:
O sad and crushing is the fate
Of old age chained and desolate !
Just God! why lies that old man there?
A murderer shares his prison bed,
Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair,
Gleam on him, fierce and red;
And the rude oath and heartless jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear,
And, or in wakefulness or sleep,
Nerve, flesh and fibre thrill and creep
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb,
Crimson with murder, touches him!
What has the gray-haired prisoner done?
Has murder stained his hands with gore?
Not so; his crime's a fouler one :
GOD MADE THE OLD MAN POOR! For this he shares a felon's cellThe fittest earthly type of hell;
For this the boon for which he poured
His young blood on the invader's sword,
And counted light the fearful cost-
His blood-gained LIBERTY is lost.
And so, for such a place of rest,
Old prisoner, poured thy blood as rain
On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest,
And Saratoga's plain?
Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars;
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon monument upreared to thee-
Piled granite and a prison cell—
The land repays thy service well!
Go, ring the bells and fire the guns,
And fling thy starry banner out;
Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle-shout:
Let boastful eloquence declaim
Of honor, liberty, and fame;
Still let the poet's strain be heard,
With "glory" for each second word,
And every thing with breath agree
To praise "our glorious liberty!"
But when the patriot cannon jars
That prison's cold and gloomy wall,
And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind and fall-
Think ye that prisoner's aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer?
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