"TIS THE BREAK OF DAY. BY ROBERT WALN. 'Tis the break of day, and cloudless weather, Away! No vapour encumbers the day; For the waking morn Peeps forth in its mantle of gray. The wild-boar is shaking his dewy bristle, Away! No vapour encumbers the day; For the waking morn Peeps forth in its mantle of gray. THE FUNERAL AT SEA. BY HENRY J. FINN. DEEP mists hung over the mariner's grave And heavily heaved on the gloomy sea, The ship that sheltered that homeless oneAs though his funeral-hour should be When the waves were still and the winds were gone. And there he lay, in his coarse, cold shroud- No sound from the church's passing-bell Not a whisper then lingered upon the air- But many a sigh, and many a tear, Shall be breathed, and shed, in the hours to comeWhen the widow and fatherless shall hear How he died, far, far from his happy home! LIFE A DREAM. BY CHARLES CONSTANTINE PISE. OUR life is a dream-when memory surveys The youth is in Eden, beneath the fresh bowers, The friend, whose dark destiny long had been wept, The minstrel exults-for his exile is o'er ; "And where," asks the youth, "is my nosegay of flowers, Which I thought I had wove in the shade of the bowers?" And where, hapless child, is the parent you pressed, In the rapture of joy, to your languishing breast? And where is the smile of that friend who returned From his slumber, and asked why so sadly I mourned? "Twas a phantom-too gay, when it sports on the mind; But a phantom which alway leaves sorrow behind. So passes our life in the slumber of night THE CHARTER OAK. BY MRS. SIGOURNEY. CHARTER Oak! Charter Oak! Of the years that have fled Like the leaves on the gale: On thy brown root and stem, For Liberty's gem. Speak out in thy wisdom, Oracular tree, And we and our children Is dear in our eyes, And thy leaves and thine acorns As relics we prize. I see them-they come- True-hearted, and bold; Rings sharp through the glade, And the worn Indian hunter Reclines in thy shade. I see them-they come ! The gray fathers are there, Who won from the forest This heritage fair; With their high trust in heaven, As they suffered or toiled, Both the tempest and tyrant, Unblenching, they foiled. Charter Oak! Charter Oak! Ancient and fair, Thou didst guard of our freedom The rudiment rare ; |