THE PUMPKIN.

45

And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in

vain

For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden; And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;

Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North, On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth, Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit

shines,

And the sun of September melts down on his vines.

Ah!-on Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from West,

From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,

When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board

The old broken links of affection restored,

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once

more,

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled

before,

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie ?

Oh!--fruit loved of boyhood!-the old days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!

When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts

all in tune,

Our chair a broad pumpkin-our lantern the moon,

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 finc, 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,
Even as a vision of the morning!
Its rites fordone-its guardians dead-
Its priestesses, bereft of dread,

Waking the veriest urchin's scorning !--
Gone like the Indian wizard's yell
And fire-dance round the magic rock,
Forgotten like the Druid's spell

At moonrise by his holy oak!
No more along the shadowy glen,
Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men ;
No more the unquiet churchyard dead
Glimpse upward from their turfy bed,

Startling the traveller, late and lone;

EXTRACT.

As, on some night of starless weather,
They silently commune together,

Each sitting on his own head-stone !
The roofless house, decayed, deserted,
Its living tenants all departed,

No longer rings with midnight revel
Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil;
No pale, blue flame sends out its flashes
Through creviced roof and shattered sashes!
The witch-grass round the hazel spring
May sharply to the night-air sing,
But there no more shall withered hags
Refresh at ease their broomstick nags,
Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters
As beverage meet for Satan's daughters;
No more their mimic tones be heard-
The mew of cat-the chirp of bird,
Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter
Of the fell demon following after!

The cautious good-man nails no more
A horseshoe on his outer door,
Lest some unseemly hag should fit
To his own mouth her bridle-bit-
The good-wife's churn no more refuses
Its wonted culinary uses

Until, with heated needle burned,
The witch has to her place returned !
Our witches are no longer old
And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold,
But young and gay and laughing creatures,
With the heart's sunshine on their features
Their sorcery-the light which dances ·
Where the raised lid unveils its glances;
Or that low breathed and gentle tone,
The music of Love's twilight hours,
Soft, dreamlike, as a fairy's moan
Above her nightly closing flowers,
Sweeter than that which sighed of yore,

47

Along the charmed Ausonian shore !
Even she, our own weird heroine,
Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn,

Sleeps calmly where the living laid her;
And the wide realm of sorcery,
Left by its latest mistress free,

Hath found no gray and skilled invader :
So perished Albion's "glammarye,”
With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping,
His charmed torch beside his knee,
That even the dead himself might see
The magic scroll within his keeping.
And now our modern Yankee sees
Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries;
And naught above, below, around,
Of life or death, of sight or sound,
Whate'er its nature, form, or look,
Excites his terror or surprise—
All seeming to his knowing eyes
Familiar as his "catechize,"
Or "Webster's Spelling Book."

HAMPTON BEACH.

THE sunlight glitters keen and bright,
Where, miles away,

Lies stretching to my dazzled sight
A luminous belt, a misty light,

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

HAMPTON BEACH.

-on-we tread with loose-flung rein
Our seaward way,

49

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
Comes this fresh breeze,

Cooling its dull and feverish glow,
While through my being seems to flow
The breath of a new life-the healing of the seas!

Now rest we, where this grassy mound
His feet hath set

In the great waters, which have bound
His granite ancles greenly round

With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet.

Good-bye to Pain and Care! I take
Mine ease to-day;

Here where these sunny waters break,
And ripples this keen breeze, I shake
All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.

I draw a freer breath-I seem

Like all I see

Waves in the sun-the white-winged gleam
Of sea-birds in the slanting beam-

And far-off sails which fit before the South wind free.

So when Time's veil shall fall asunder,
The soul may know

No fearful change, nor sudden wonder,
Nor sink the weight of mystery under,

But with the upward rise, and with the vastness