What can be finer than the closing passage :
So live, that, when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
A playful fancy pervades the following beautiful lines addressed to a bird, known to us by the name Bob-o-link :
Merrily swinging on brier and weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or mead,
Robert of Lincoln is telling his name :
“Bob-o-link, bob-o-link, spink, spank, spink;
Snug and safe is that nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers :
Chee, chee, chee.”
Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest,
Wearing a bright black wedding-coat ;
White are his shoulders and white his crest;
Hear him call in his merry note,
“Bob-o-link, bob-o-link, spink, spank, spink;
Look, what a nice new coat is mine,
Sure there was never a bird so fine-
Chee, chee, chee.”
Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,
Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
Passing at home a patient life,
Broods in the grass while her husband sings-
“Bob-o-link, bob-o-link, spink, spank, spink:
Brood, kind creature; you need not fear
Thieves and robbers while I am here-
Chee, chee, chee.”
Modest and shy as a nun is she ;
One weak chirp is her only note.
Braggart, and prince of braggarts is he,
Pouring boasts from his little throat :
“ Bob-o-link, bob-o-link, spink, spank, spink:
Never was I afraid of man;
Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can-
Chee, chee, chee.”
These are the gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name-
The Prairies. I behold them for the first,
And my heart swells, while the dilated sight
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch
In airy undulations, far away,
As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,
Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,
And motionless forever. Motionless ? -
No- they are all unchained again. The clouds
Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,
The surface rolls and Auctuates to the eye ;
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase
The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South !
Who toss the golden and the fame-like Aowers,
And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,
Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not-ye have played
Among the palms of Mexico and vines
Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks
That from the fountains of Sonora glide
Into the calm Pacific—have ye fanned
A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?
The following stanzas form part of his poem, entitled, The Battle-field :
Soon rested those who fought; but thou,
Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.
A friendless warfare ! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year.
A wild, and many-weaponed throng
Hang on thy front, and Aank, and rear.
Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
And blench not at thy chosen lot.
The timid good may stand aloof,
The sage may frown—yet faint thou not,
Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;
For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
| The victory of endurance born.
Then follows the oft-cited, magnificent verse,–
Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again ;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers !
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