To close the eye, and close the ear, Wrapped in a trance of bliss, And gently dream in loving arms, To swoon to that,- from this. Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep, Sweet souls around us! watch us still, Let death between us be as naught, Our suffering life, the dream. ALFRED BILLINGS STREET. [From Frontenac.] QUEBEC AT SUNSET. 'Twas in June's bright and glowing prime The loveliest of the summer time. The laurels were one splendid sheet Of crowded blossom everywhere; The locust's clustered pearl was sweet, [air And the tall whitewood made the Delicious with the fragrance shed From the gold flowers all o'er it spread. In the rich pomp of dying day Quebec, the rock-throned monarch, glowed, Castle and spire and dwelling gray The batteries rude that niched their With bristling lines of cannon Of the deep yellow light, were gay, crowned, Whose muzzles o'er the landscape frowned Blackly through their embrasures -shone. Point Levi's woods sent many a wreath Of mist, as though hearths smoked beneath, Whilst heavy folds of vapor gray The banks of Orleans' Isle displayed. And the curved flood, below that lay, Against the burnished sky, appeared West of Quebec's embankments rose The forests in their wild repose. Between the trunks, the radiance slim Here came with slant and quivering blaze; Whilst there, in leaf-wreathed arbors The moose at morn the ripples dim, Was gathering gray the twilight's haze. Where cut the boughs the background glow That striped the west, a glittering belt, The leaves transparent seemed, as though In the rich radiance they would melt. Upon a narrow grassy glade, Where thickets stood in grouping shade, The light streaked down in golden mist, Kindled the shrubs, the greensward kissed, Until the clover-blossoms white Flashed out like spangles large and bright. This green and sun-streaked glade was rife With sights and sounds of forest life. A robin in a bush was singing, A flicker rattled on a tree; In liquid fife-like tones round ringing A thrasher piped its melody; Crouching and leaping with pointed ear From thicket to thicket a rabbit sped, And on the short delicate grass a deer Lashing the insects from off him, fed. [From Frontenac.] THE CANADIAN SPRING. "TWAS May! the spring with magic bloom Leaped up from winter's frozen tomb. Day lit the river's icy mail; The bland warm rain at evening sank; Ice fragments dashed in midnight's gale; drank. The butterfly new being found; Whilst round the pink may-apple's bloom, Gave myriad drinking bees their sound. Great fleeting clouds the pigeons made; When near her brood the hunter strayed With trailing limp the partridge stirred; Whilst a quick, feathered spangle shot Rapid as thought from spot to spot Showing the fairy humming-bird. [From Frontenac.] CAYUGA LAKE. SWEET sylvan lake! in memory's gold Is set the time, when first my eye From thy green shore beheld thee hold Thy mirror to the sunset sky! No ripple brushed its delicate air, Kich silken tints alone were there; The far opposing shore displayed, Mingling its hues, a tender shade; A sail scarce seeming to the sight To move, spread there its pinion white, Like some pure spirit stealing on Its gentle peace within him steal, Before His radiance, beauty still Each feeling of my soul refined, The maple's scalloped dome beside. All weave on high a verdant roof That keeps the very sun aloof. Making a twilight soft and green Within the columned, vaulted scene. Sweet forest-odors have their birth From the clothed boughs and teeming earth; Where pine-cones dropped, leaves piled and dead Long tufts of grass, and stars of fern, With many a wild flower's fairy inn, A thick, elastic carpet spread: Here, with its mossy pall, the trunk, Resolving into soil, is sunk; There, wrenched but lately from its throne By some fierce whirlwind circling past, Its huge roots massed with earth and stone, One of the woodland kings is cast. Above, the forest-tips are bright With the broad blaze of sunny light; But now a fitful air-gust parts The screening branches, and a glow Of dazzling, startling radiance darts Down the dark stems, and breaks below: The mingled shadows off are rolled. The sylvan floor is bathed in gold; |