Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/378

 green Where loop the clustered vines And the close-clinging dulcamara twines,-- Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines, And Summer's fruited gems, And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems.

Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves,-- Or stretched by grass-grown graves, Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns, Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones Still slumbering where they lay While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away!

Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing! Still let me dream and sing,-- Dream of that winding shore Where scarlet cardinals bloom,--for me no more,-- The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor, And clustering nenuphars Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!

Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed!-- Come while the rose is red,-- While blue-eyed Summer smiles O'er the green ripples round yon sunken piles Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles, And on the sultry air The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!

Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain With thrills of wild sweet pain!-- On life's autumnal blast, Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast,-- Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!-- Behold thy new-decked shrine, And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!"

Per aspera ad astra.

(Scene: Outside the gate of the Astronomical Observatory at Albany.)

There was a time when I was blest; The stars might rise in East or West With all their sines and wonders; I cared for neither great nor small, As pointedly unmoved by all As, on the top of steeple tall, A lightning-rod at thunders.

What did I care for Science then? I was a man with fellow-men, And called the Bear the Dipper; Segment meant piece of pie,--no more; Cosine, the parallelogram that bore JOHN SMITH & CO. above a door; Arc, what called Noah skipper.

No axes weighed upon my mind, (Unless I had a few to grind.) And as for my astronomy,