A WINTER'S EVENING HYMN TO MY

FIRE.

O THOU of home the guardian Lar,
And when our earth hath wandered far
Into the cold, and deep snow covers
The walks of our New England lovers,
Their sweet secluded evening-star!
'T was with thy rays the English Muse
Ripened her mild domestic hues :
'T was by thy flicker that she conned
The fireside wisdom that enrings
With light from heaven familiar things;
By thee she found the homely faith
In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'th,
When Death, extinguishing his torch,
Gropes for the latch-string in the porch;
The love that wanders not beyond
His earliest nest, but sits and sings
While children smooth his patient wings:
Therefore with thee I love to read

Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs
Life in the withered words! how swift recede
Time's shadows! and how glows again
Through its dead mass the incandescent verse,
As when upon the anvils of the brain
It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought
By the fast-throbbing hammers of the poet's
thought!

Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred,
The aspirations unattained,

The rhythms so rathe and delicate,
They bent and strained

And broke, beneath the sombre weight
Of any airiest mortal word.

As who would say, "Tis those, I ween,
Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean
That win the laurel";

While the gray snow-storm, held aloof,
To softest outline rounds the roof,
Or the rude North with baffled strain
Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane !
Now the kind nymph to Bacchus borne
By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems
Gifted upon her natal morn

By him with fire, by her with dreams,
Nicotia, dearer to the Muse

Than all the grapes' bewildering juice,
We worship, unforbid of thee;
And, as her incense floats and curls
In airy spires and wayward whirls,
Or poises on its tremulous stalk
A flower of frailest revery,
So winds and loiters, idly free,
The current of unguided talk,
Now laughter-rippled, and now caught
In smooth dark pools of deeper thought.

BUT where to find that happiest spot below, Who can direct, when all pretend to know? The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own; Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, And his long nights of revelry and ease: The naked negro, panting at the line, Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first, best country, ever is at home. And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, And estimate the blessings which they share, Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find An equal portion dealt to all mankind; As different good, by art or nature given, To different nations makes their blessing even.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land;

The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,

And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry Homes of England!
Around their hearths by night,

What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light.

There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childish tale is told;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.

The blessed Homes of England!
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath hours!

Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime
Floats through their woods at morn ;
All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.

THERE is a dungeon in whose dim drear light
What do I gaze on? Nothing: look again!
Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight,
Two insulated phantoms of the brain :
It is not so; I see them full and plain,
An old man and a female young and fair,
Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein
The blood is nectar: but what doth she there,

With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?

Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life,
Where on the heart and from the heart we took
Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife,
Blest into mother, in the innocent look,
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives
Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook
She sees her little bud put forth its leaves —
What may the fruit be yet? I know not - Cain
was Eve's.

But here youth offers to old age the food,
The milk of his own gift: it is her sire
To whom she renders back the debt of blood
Born with her birth. No! he shall not expire
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire
Of health and holy feeling can provide
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises
higher

Than Egypt's river;- from that gentle side Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide.

The starry fable of the milky-way
Has not thy story's purity; it is
A constellation of a sweeter ray,
And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss
Where sparkle distant worlds: - O, holiest

Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim

No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:

Go where I will, to me thou art the same,
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

Kingdoms and empires in my little day
I have outlived, and yet I am not old;
And when I look on this, the petty spray
Of my own years of trouble, which have rolled
Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:
Something I know not what- does still
uphold

Within me, or perhaps of cold despair, Brought on when ills habitually recur, Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air, (For even to this may change of soul refer, And with light armor we may learn to bear, Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not The chief companion of a calmer lot.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,

Which do remember me of where I dwelt,
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt

My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I could think I see
Some living thing to love, but none like thee.

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation; - to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes inspire. Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

O that thou wert but with me! - but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret ;
There may be others which I less may show ;
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my altered eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,
By the old Hall which may be mine no more.
Leman's is fair? but think not I forsake

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore;
Sad havoe Time must with my memory make,
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
Resigned forever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply, It is but in her summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.

She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister, till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one;

And that I would not; for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.

The earliest, even the only paths for me, Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be ; The passions which have torn me would have slept : I had not suffered, and thou hadst not wept.

With false Ambition what had I to do?

Little with Love, and least of all with Fame! And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make,-a name.

Yet this was not the end I did pursue;

Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over; I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.

And for the future, this world's future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day :
Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have filled a century,
Before its fourth in time had passed me by.

BERTHA IN THE LANE. PUT the broidery-frame away, For my sewing is all done! The last thread is used to-day, And I need not join it on. Though the clock stands at the noon, I am weary! I have sewn, Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown.

Sister, help me to the bed,

And stand near me, dearest-sweet!
Do not shrink nor be afraid,
Blushing with a sudden heat!
No one standeth in the street !
By God's love I go to meet,
Love I thee with love complete.

Lean thy face down! drop it in

These two hands, that I may hold "Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, Stroking back the curls of gold. "T is a fair, fair face, in sooth, Larger eyes and redder mouth Than mine were in my first youth!

Till the pleasure, grown too strong,
Left me muter evermore;
And, the winding road being long,
I walked out of sight, before;
And so, wrapt in musings fond,
Issued (past the wayside pond)
On the meadow-lands beyond.

I sat down beneath the beech
Which leans over to the lane,
And the far sound of your speech
Did not promise any pain;
And I blessed you, full and free,
With a smile stooped tenderly
O'er the May-flowers on my knee.

But the sound grew into word

As the speakers drew more near-
Sweet, forgive me that I heard
What you wished me not to hear.
Do not weep so, do not shake.
O, I heard thee, Bertha, make
Good true answers for my sake.

Yes, and he too! let him stand

In thy thoughts, untouched by blame. Could he help it, if my hand

He had claimed with hasty claim !
That was wrong perhaps, but then
Such things be- and will, again!
Women cannot judge for men.

Had he seen thee, when he swore

He would love but me alone?
Thou wert absent, sent before
To our kin in Sidmouth town.
When he saw thee, who art best
Past compare, and loveliest,
He but judged thee as the rest.

Could we blame him with grave words,
Thou and I, dear, if we might?
Thy brown eyes have looks like birds
Flying straightway to the light;
Mine are older. - Hush! look out-
Up the street! Is none without?
How the poplar swings about!