Looked down upon, you must paint for me;
Oh, if I only could make you see

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman's soul, and the angel's face,
That are beaming on me all the while,
I need not speak these foolish words:
Yet one word tells you all I would say, —
She is
mother: you
my
will agree

That all the rest may be thrown away.

Two little urchins at her knee

You must paint, sir; one like me,

The other with a clearer brow,
And the light of his adventurous eyes
Flashing with boldest enterprise :
At ten years old he went to sea,

--

God knoweth if he be living now;

He sailed in the good ship " Commodore," -
Nobody ever crossed her track

To bring us news, and she never came back.
Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more

Since that old ship went out of the bay

With my great-hearted brother on her deck:
I watched him till he shrank to a speck,
And his face was toward me all the way.
Bright his hair was, a golden brown,

The time we stood at our mother's knee:
That beauteous head, if it did go down,
Carried sunshine into the sea!

Out in the fields, one summer night,
We were together, half afraid

Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade

Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,

Loitering till after the low little light

Of the candle shone through the open door,

And over the haystack's pointed top,
All of a tremble, and ready to drop,

The first half-hour, the great yellow star,
That we, with staring, ignorant eyes,
Had often and often watched to see

Propped and held in its place in the skies.
By the fork of a tall red mulberry tree,

Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew, -
Dead at the top, just one branch full
Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool,
From which it tenderly shook the dew
Over our heads, when we came to play
In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day.
Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore
A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs;
The other, a bird, held fast by the legs,
Not so big as a straw of wheat:

The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat,
But cried and cried, till we held her bill,
So slim and shining, to keep her still.

The eyes of our mother (take good heed) –
Looking not on the nestful of eggs,

Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs,
But straight through our faces down to our lies,
And oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise!

I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though A sharp blade struck through it. You, sir, know That you on the canvas are to repeat

Things that are fairest, things most sweet,

Woods and cornfields and mulberry tree;

The mother; the lads, with their bird, at her knee :
But, oh, that look of reproachful woe!
High as the heavens your name I'll shout,

If you paint me the picture, and leave that out.

ALICE CARY.

WILLIAM TELL AMONG THE MOUNTAINS

YE crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!
I hold to you the hands you first beheld,
To show they still are free! Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes answer me,

And bid your tenant welcome home again.
O sacred forms, how fair, how proud you look!
How high you lift your heads into the sky!
How huge you are! how mighty, and how free!

Ye are the things that tower, that shine whose smile

Makes glad, whose frown is terrible; whose forms,
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear

Of awe divine! Ye guards of liberty,
I'm with you once again! I call to you
With all my voice! I hold my hands to you,
To show they still are free.
I rush to you
As though I could embrace you!

Scaling yonder peak,

I saw an eagle wheeling, near its brow,
O'er the abyss. His broad expanded wings
Lay calm and motionless upon the air,
As if he floated there without their aid,

By the sole act of his unlorded will,

That buoyed him proudly up! Instinctively

I bent my bow; yet wheeled he, heeding not

The death that threatened him! I could not shoot!

'Twas liberty! I turned my bow aside,

And let him soar away.

SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

TELL'S APOSTROPHE TO LIBERTY.

ONCE more I breathe the mountain air; once more
I tread my own free hills! My lofty soul
Throws all its fetters off'; in its proud flight,
'Tis like the new-fledged eaglet, whose strong wing
Soars to the sun it long has gazed upon
With eye undazzled. Oh, ye mighty race
That stand like frowning giants, fixed to guard
My own proud land! why did ye not hurl down
The thundering avalanche, when at your feet
The base usurper stood? A touch, a breath,
Nay, even the breath of prayer, ere now, has brought
Destruction on the hunter's head; and yet

The tyrant passed in safety. God of heaven!
Where slept thy thunderbolts?

O Liberty!

Thou choicest gift of Heaven, and wanting which
Life is as nothing; hast thou then forgot
Thy native home? Must the feet of slaves
Pollute this glorious scene? It cannot be.

Even as the smile of Heaven can pierce the depths
Of these dark caves, and bid the wild flowers bloom
In spots where man has never dared to tread;
So thy sweet influence still is seen amid

These beatling cliffs. Some hearts still beat for thee,
And bow alone to Heaven; thy spirit lives,

Ay, — and shall live, when even the very name

Of tyrant is forgot.

Lo! while I gaze

Upon the mist that wreathes yon mountain's brow,

The sunbeam touches it, and it becomes

A crown of glory on his hoary head;

Oh, is not this a presage of the dawn

Of freedom o'er the world? Hear me, then, bright
And beaming Heaven? while kneeling thus, I vow
To live for Freedom, or with her to die!

Oh, with what pride I used

To walk these hills, and look up to my God
And bless him that it was so! It was free,-
From end to end, from cliff to lake 'twas free, -
Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks,
And plough our valleys, without asking leave;
Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow,
In very presence of the regal sun!

How happy was I in it then! I loved

Its very storms! Yes, I have sat and eyed
The thunder breaking from His cloud, and smiled
To see Him shake His lightnings o'er my head,
And think I had no master save His own!

Ye know the jutting cliff, round which a track
Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow
To such another one, with scanty room
For two abreast to pass? O'ertaken there
By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along,
And while gust followed gust more furiously,
As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink,

And I have thought of other lands, whose storms
Are summer flaws to those of mine, and just

Have wished me there,

the thought that mine was free, Has checked that wish, and I have raised my head, And cried in thraldom to that furious wind,

Blow on! This is the Land of Liberty.

7

SHERIDAN KNOWLES.