The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails-she

cuts the sparkle and scud; My eyes settle the land-I bend at her prow, or shout joyously from the deck.

The boatman and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me;

I tucked my trowser-ends in my boots, and went and had a good time:

(You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.)

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air, in the far west-the bride was a red girl; Her father and his friends sat near, cross-legged and dumbly smoking-they had moccasins to their feet, and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders; On a bank lounged the trapper-he was dressed mostly in skins-his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck-he held his bride by the hand;

She had long eyelashes-her head was bareher coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reached to her feet.

Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the

river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my sake!

Far-swooping elbowed earth! rich apple-blos somed earth!

Smile, for your lover comes!

Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!

O unspeakable, passionate love

The past and present wilt-I have filled them, emptied them,

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! Here, you! What have you to confide to me?

Look in my face, while I snuff the sidle of evening;

Talk honestly-no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;

If y

f you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean. But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged :
Missing me one place, search another:
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.

A SONG OF DOUBT.

THE day is quenched, and the sun is fled;
God has forgotten the world!
The moon is gone, and the stars are dead;
God has forgotten the world!

Evil has won the horrid feud
Of ages with The Throne;
Evil stands on the neck of Good,
And rules the world alone.

There is no good; there is no God;
And Faith is a heartless cheat
Who bares the back for the Devil's rod,
And scatters thorns for the feet.

What are prayers in the lips of death, Filling and chilling with hail? What are prayers but wasted breath Beaten back by the gale?

The day is quenched, and the sun is fled; God has forgotten the world!

The moon is gone, and the stars are dead; God has forgotten the world!

A SONG OF FAITH.

DAY will return with a fresher boon; God will remember the world! Night will come with a newer moon; God will remember the world!

Evil is only the slave of Good;
Sorrow the servant of Joy;
And the soul is mad that refuses food
Of the meanest in God's employ.

The fountain of joy is fed by tears,

And love is lit by the breath of sighs; The deepest griefs and the wildest fears Have holiest ministries.

Strong grows the oak in the sweeping storm;
Safely the flower sleeps under the snow;

And the farmer's heart is never warm
Till the cold wind starts to blow.

Day will return with a fresher boon; God will remember the world! Night will come with a newer moon; God will remember the world!

"LIFE EVERMORE IS FED BY DEATH.

LIFE evermore is fed by death,

In earth and sea and sky;

And, that a rose may breathe its breath, Something must die.

Earth is a sepulchre of flowers,
Whose vitalizing mould

Through boundless transmutation towers,
In green and gold.

The oak tree, struggling with the blast, Devours its father tree,

And sheds its leaves and drops its mast,
That more may be.

The falcon preys upon the finch,
The finch upon the fly,

And nought will loose the hunger-pinch
But death's wild cry.

The milk-haired heifer's life must pass
That it may fill your own,
As passed the sweet life of the grass
She fed upon.

The power enslaved by yonder cask
Shall many burdens bear;
Shall nerve the toiler at his task,
The soul at prayer.

From lowly woe springs lordly joy;
From humbler good diviner;
The greater life must aye destroy
And drink the minor.

From hand to hand life's cup is passed
Up Being's piled gradation,
Till men to angels yield at last
The rich collation.

"THUS IS IT OVER ALL THE EARTH."

THUS is it over all the earth!
That which we call the fairest,
And prize for its surpassing worth,
Is always rarest.

Iron is heaped in mountain piles, And gluts the laggard forges; But gold-flakes gleam in dim defiles And lonely gorges.

And he'll never know

Where the summers go;—
He need not laugh, for he'll find it so!
Who can tell what a baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links

By which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shore of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,

Into the light of day?

Out from the shore of the unknown sea,
Tossing in pitiful agony,-

Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,
Specked with the barks of little souls-
Barks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from Heaven on an ebbing tide!
What does he think of his mother's eyes?
What does he think of his mother's hair?
What of the cradle-roof that flies
Forward and backward through the air?
What does he think of his mother's breast-
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight-

Cup of his life and couch of his rest?
What does he think when her quick embrace
Presses his hand and buries his face
Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell
With a tenderness she can never tell,

Though she murmur the words
Of all the birds-

Words she has learned to murmur well?
Now he thinks he'll go to sleep!

I can see the shadow creep
Over his eyes in soft eclipse,
Over his brow and over his lips,
Out to his little finger-tips!
Softly sinking, down he goes!
Down he goes! Down he goes!
See! He is hushed in sweet repose!

A MOTHER'S SONG

HITHER, Sleep! A motner wants thee.
Come with velvet arms!

Fold the baby that she grants thee
To thy own soft charms!

Bear him into Dreamland lightly!
Give him sight of flowers!
Do not bring him back till brightly
Break the morning hours!

Close his eyes with gentle fingers!
Cross his hands of snow!
Tell the angels where he lingers
They must whisper low!

I will guard thy spell unbroken
If thou hear my call;
Come then, Sleep! I wait the token
Of thy downy thrall.

Now I see his sweet lips moving;
He is in thy keep;
Other milk the babe is proving
At the breast of Sleen!

SKIMMING lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low

O'er the field in clouded days,

The forest-field of Shiloh-
Over the field where April rain

Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain,
Through the pauses of night-
That followed the Sunday fight

Around the church of Shiloh

The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan

And natural prayer

Of dying foemen mingled there— Foemen at morn, but friends at eve

Fame or country least their care: (What like a bullet can undeceive!) But now they lie low,

While over them the swallows skim
And all is hushed at Shiloh