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There were two sons of Ashur at work in the field,
And one to the other his passion revealed--
As the white barley bowed to the stroke of his scythe,
He burst out in accents exultingly blithe--
...

Sorrow has touched thee, my beautiful boy!
And dimmed the bright eyes that were dancing with joy;
Thy ruby lips tremble, thy soft cheek is wet,
The tears on its roses are lingering yet....

THE FOLLOWING LITTLE POEM WAS SUGGESTED BY A PASSAGE IN THE MEMOIRS OF THE LATE MRS. SUSAN HUNTINGTON OF BOSTON, NEW ENGLAND.


Ah! cold at my feet thou art sleeping, my boy,...

Visions of the years gone by
Flash upon my mental eye;
Ages time no longer numbers,
Forms that share oblivion's slumbers,
Creatures of that elder world
Now in dust and darkness hurled,...

An awful vision floats before my sight,
Black as the storm and fearful as the night:
Thy fall, oh Babylon!--the awful doom
Pronounced by Heaven to hurl thee to the tomb,...

Methought last night I saw thee lowly laid,
Thy pallid cheek yet paler, on the bier;
And scattered round thee many a lovely braid
Of flowers, the brightest of the closing year;...

There was no sound in earth or air,
And soft the moonbeams smiled
On stately tower and temple fair,
Like mother o'er her child;
And all was hushed in the deep repose...

Like the herald hope of a fairer clime,
The brightest link in the chain of time,
The youngest and loveliest child of day,
I mingle and soften each glowing ray;
Weaving together a tissue bright...

Young Naiad of the sparry grot,
Whose azure eyes before me burn,
In what sequestered lonely spot
Lies hid thy flower-enwreathed urn?
Beneath what mossy bank enshrined,
Within what ivy-mantled nook,...

"When will the grave fling her cold arms around me,
And earth on her dark bosom pillow my head?
Sorrow and trouble and anguish, have found me,
Oh that I slumbered in peace with the dead!
...

THIS REMARKABLE PHENOMENON WAS WITNESSED BY THE AUTHOR ON THE NIGHT OF THE 29th OF SEPTEMBER, 1829.


Vision of beauty! there floats not a cloud
O'er the blue vault of heaven thy glory to shroud;...

Like a maid on her bridal morn I rise,
With the smile on her lip and the tear in her eyes;
Whilst the breeze my crimson banner unfurls,
I wreathe my locks with the purest pearls;...

WRITTEN IN COVE CHURCH-YARD; AND OCCASIONED BY OBSERVING MY OWN SHADOW THROWN ACROSS A GRAVE.


"Tell me, thou grassy mound,
What dost thou cover?
In thy folds hast thou bound
Soldier or lover?...

I come like an Eastern monarch dight
In my crown of beams, in my robe of light;
And nature droops at my ardent gaze,
And wraps the woods in a purple haze;
From my fiery glance the strong man shrinks,...

Thou beautiful Ash! thou art lowly laid,
And my eyes shall hail no more
From afar thy cool and refreshing shade,
When the toilsome journey's o'er.
The winged and the wandering tribes of air...

JUDGES VIII.


Who are ye, who through the night
Onward urge your desperate flight?
Far and wide the hills repeat
The hurried tread of armed feet,
Ringing helm and dying groan,...

There is a pause in nature, ere the storm
Rushes resistless in its awful might;
There is a softening twilight, ere the morn
Expands her wings of glory into light.
...

The harvest is nodding on valley and plain,
To the scythe and the sickle its treasures must yield;
Through sunshine and shower we have tended the grain;
'Tis ripe to our hand!--to the field--to the field!...

There's joy when the rosy morning floods
The purple east with light,
When the zephyr sweeps from a thousand buds
The pearly tears of night.
There's joy when the lark exulting springs...

I know a cliff, whose steep and craggy brow
O'erlooks the troubled ocean, and spurns back
The advancing billow from its rugged base;
Yet many a goodly rood of land lies deep...