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And when the wind and storm had done,
A ship that had rode out the gale,
Sunk down without a signal-gun,

And none was left to tell the tale.

I saw the pomp of day depart-
The cloud resign its golden crown,
When to the ocean's beating heart
The sailor's wasted corse went down.

Peace be to those whose graves are made
Beneath the bright and silver sea!
Peace that their relics there were laid,
With no vain pride and pageantry.

THE INDIAN HUNTER.

WHEN the summer harvest was gathered in,
And the sheaf of the gleaner grew white and thin,
And the ploughshare was in its furrow left,
Where the stubble land had been lately cleft,
An Indian hunter, with unstrung bow,

Looked down where the valley lay stretched below.

He was a stranger there, and all that day
Had been out on the hills, a perilous way,
But the foot of the deer was far and fleet,

And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter's feet,
And bitter feelings passed o'er him then,
As he stood by the populous haunts of men.
The winds of autumn came over the woods,
As the sun stole out from their solitudes;
The moss was white on the maple's trunk,
And dead from its arms the pale vine shrunk,
And ripened the mellow fruit hung, and red
Where the trees withered leaves around it shed.
The foot of the reaper moved slow on the lawn,
And the sickle cut down the yellow corn;
The mower sung loud by the meadow side,
Where the mists of evening were spreading wide;
And the voice of the herdsman came up the lea,
And the dance went round by the greenwood tree.
Then the hunter turned away from that scene,
Where the home of his fathers once had been,
And heard, by the distant and measured stroke,
That the woodman hewed down the giant oak—
And burning thoughts flashed over his mind,
Of the white man's faith, and love unkind.

The moon of the harvest grew high and bright,
As her golden horn pierced the cloud of white,—
A footstep was heard in the rustling brake,
Where the beech overshadowed the misty lake,

And a mourning voice, and a plunge from shore,
And the hunter was seen on the hills no more.

When years had passed on, by that still lake side,
The fisher looked down through the silver tide,
And there on the smooth yellow sand displayed,
A skeleton wasted and white was laid,

And 'twas seen, as the waters moved deep and slow, That the hand was still grasping a hunter's bow.

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BIRDS OF PASSAGE.

FLIGHT THE FIRST.

.. COME 1 GRU VAN CANTANDO LOR LAI, FACENDO IN AER DI SE LUNGA RIGA.-Dante.

THE ROPE-WALK.

IN that building long and low,
With its windows all a row,

Like the port-holes of a hulk,
Human spiders spin and spin,
Backward down their threads so thin,
Dropping, each, a hempen bulk.
At the end an open door;
Squares of sunshine on the floor

Light the long and dusky lane;
And the whirling of a wheel,
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel
All its spokes are in my brain.

As the spinners to the end
Downward go and re-ascend,

Gleam the long threads in the sun;
While within this brain of mine
Cobwebs brighter and more fine
By the busy wheel are spun.

Two fair maidens in a swing,
Like white doves upon the wing,
First before my vision pass;
Laughing, as their gentle hands
Closely clasp the twisted strands,
At their shadow on the grass.

Then a booth of mountebanks,
With its smell of tan and planks,
And a girl poised high in air
On a cord, in spangled dress,
With a faded loveliness,

And a weary look of care.

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Then a homestead among farms,
And a woman with bare arms,
Drawing water from a well;
As the bucket mounts apace,
With it mounts her own fair face,
As at some magician's spell.
Then an old man in a tower
Ringing loud the noontide hour,

While the rope coils round and round,

Like a serpent, at his feet,

And again in swift retreat

Almost lifts him from the ground.

Then within a prison-yard,

Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,

Laughter and indecent mirth;
Ah! it is the gallows-tree!

Breath of Christian charity,

Blow, and sweep it from the earth!

Then a schoolboy, with his kite,
Gleaming in a sky of light,

And an eager, upward look;

Steeds pursued through lane and field:
Fowlers with their snares concealed,
And an angler by a brook.

Ships rejoicing in the breeze,

Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas,

Anchors dragged through faithless sand;

Sea-fog drifting overhead,

And with lessening line and lead

Sailors feeling for the land.

All these scenes do I behold,
These and many left untold,

In that building long and low;
While the wheels go round and round
With a drowsy, dreamy sound,

And the spinners backward go.

THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS.
A MIST was driving down the British Channel,

The day was just begun,

And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,
Streamed the red autumn sun.

It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,

And the white sails of ships;

And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon
Hailed it with feverish lips.

Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hythe and Dover,
Were all alert that day,

To see the French war-steamers speeding over,
When the fog cleared away.

Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,

Their cannon through the night,

Holding their breath, had watched in grim defiance
The sea-coast opposite.

And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations
On every citadel;

Each answering each with morning salutations
That all was well.

And down the coast, all taking up the burden,
Replied the distant forts,

As if to summon from his sleep the Warden
And Lord of the Cinque Ports.

Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure,
No drum-beat from the wall,

No morning-gun from the black fort's embrasure
: Awaken with their call.

No more surveying with an eye impartial

The long line of the coast,

Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field-Marshal
Be seen upon his post.

For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,

In sombre harness mailed,

Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,
The rampart wall has scaled.

He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,
The dark and silent room;

And as he entered, darker grew and deeper
The silence and the gloom.

He did not pause to parley or dissemble,

But smote the Warden hoar;

Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble,
And groan from shore to shore.

Meanwhile, without the surly cannon waited,
The sun rose bright o'erhead;

Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated

That a great man was dead!

THE TWO ANGELS.

[Inspired by the birth of a child to the writer, and the death of Mrs Maria Lowell, the wife of another American poet, on the same day, at Cambridge, U.S.] Two Angels, one of Life, and one of Death, Passed o'er the village as the morning broke; The dawn was on their faces; and beneath,

The sombre houses capped with plumes of smoke.

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