THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead ;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood ?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague en men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

THE LAND OF DREAMS.

A MIGHTY realm is the Land of Dreams,

With steeps that hang in the twilight sky, And weltering oceans and trailing streams,

That gleam where the dusky valleys lie.

But over its shadowy border flow
Sweet

rays

from the world of endless morn, And the nearer mountains catch the glow,

And flowers in the nearer fields are born.

The souls of the happy dead repair,

From their bowers of light, to that bordering land, And walk in the fainter glory there,

With the souls of the living hand in hand.

One calm sweet smile, in that shadowy sphere,

From eyes that open on earth no moreOne warning word from a voice once dear

How they rise in the memory o'er and o’er!

Far off from those hills that shine with day,

And fields that bloom in the heavenly gales, The Land of Dreams goes stretching away

To dimmer mountains and darker vales.

There lie the chambers of guilty delight,

There walk the spectres of guilty fear, And soft low voices, that float through the night, Are whispering sin in the helpless ear.

Dear maid, in thy girlhood's opening flower,

Scarce weaned from the love of childish play! The tears on whose cheeks are but the shower

That freshens the early blooms of May !

Thine eyes are closed, and over thy brow

Pass thoughtful shadows and joyous gleams, And I know, by thy moving lips, that now

Thy spirit strays in the Land of Dreams.

Light-hearted maiden, oh, heed thy feet !

O keep where that beam of Paradise falls, And only wander where thou may'st meet

The blessed ones from its shining walls.

So shalt thou come from the Land of Dreams,

With love and peace to this world of strife; And the light that over that border streams

Shall lie on the path of thy daily life.

Ay, this is freedom !- these pure skies

Were never stained with village smoke: The fragrant wind, that through them flies,

Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke. Here, with my rifle and my steed,

And her who left the world for me,
I plant me where the red deer feed
In the green desert-and am free.

For here the fair savannas know

No barriers in the bloomy grass ; Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,

Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.
In pastures, measureless as air,

The bison is my noble game;
The bounding elk, whose antlers tear

The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge; The bear that marks my weapon's gleam,

Hides vainly in the forest's edge ; In vain the she-wolf stands at bay ;

The brinded catamount, that lies High in the boughs to watch his prey,

Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane

Fling their huge arms across my way, Gray, old, and cumbered with a train

Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! Free stray the lucid streams, and find

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scept the wind

Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere

The heavy herbage of the ground, Gathers his annual harvest here,

With roaring like the battle's sound, And hurrying flames that sweep the plain,

And smoke-streams gushing up the sky: I meet the flames with flames again, And at my door they cower and die.