The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung. Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path

we took, Praising the farmer's home. He only spake, Looking into the sunset o'er the lake,

Like one to whom the far-off is most near: “ Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look ; I love it for my good old mother's sake, Who lived and died here in the peace of

God!” The lesson of his words we pondered o’er, As silently we turned the eastern flank Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest

sank, Doubling the night along our rugged road: We felt that man was more than his abode,

The inward life than Nature's raiment more; And the warm sky, the sundown-tinted hill, The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and

dim

Before the saintly soul, whose human will

Meekly in the Eternal footsteps trod, Making her homely toil and household ways An earthly echo of the song of praise .

Swelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim!

n NCE more on yonder laurelled height

The summer flowers have budded ; Once more with summer's golden light

The vales of home are flooded ; And once more, by the grace of Him

Of every good the Giver, We sing upon its wooded rim

The praises of our river:

Its pines above, its waves below,

The west wind down it blowing,

As fair as when the young Brissot

Beheld it seaward flowing, –
And bore its memory o’er the deep,

To soothe a martyr's sadness,
And fresco, in his troubled sleep,

His prison-walls with gladness.

We know the world is rich with streams

Renowned in song and story,
Whose music murmurs through our dreams

Of human love and glory:
We know that Arno's banks are fair,

And Rhine has castled shadows,
And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr

Go singing down their meadows.

But while, unpictured and unsung

By painter or by poet,
Our river waits the tuneful tongue

And cunning hand to show it,

We only know the fond skies lean

Above it, warm with blessing, And the sweet soul of our Undine

Awakes to our caressing.

No fickle Sun-God holds the flocks

That graze its shores in keeping; No icy kiss of Dian mocks

The youth beside it sleeping : Our Christian river loveth most

The beautiful and human ; The heathen streams of Naiads boast,

But ours of man and women.

The miner in his cabin hears,

The ripple we are hearing ;
It whispers soft to homesick ears

Around the settler's clearing:
In Sacramento's vales of corn,

Or Santee's bloom of cotton,