EACH BLOCK OF MARBLE IN THE MINE.

I.

EACH block of marble in the mine

Conceals the Paphian queen,

Apollo robed in light divine,

And Pallas the serene:

It only needs the lofty thought

To give the glories birth;

And, lo! by skilful fingers wrought,
They captivate the earth.

II.

So in the hardest human heart

One little well appears,

A fountain in some hidden part,

That brims with gentle tears.

It only needs the master-touch

Of Love's or Pity's hand,

And, lo! the rock with water bursts

And gushes o'er the land.

THE SILENT HILLS.

WANDERING 'mid the silent hills,

Sitting by the lonely rills,

And meditating as I go

On human happiness and woe, Fancies strange unbidden rise And fit before my placid eyes: Dreaminesses, sometimes dim

As is the moon's o'erclouded rim;

And sometimes clear as visions are

When the sleeping soul sees deep and far,
Yet cannot, when it wakes, recall,

For the senses' and the reason's thrall.

I love, in idle moods like these,

To sit beneath the shade of trees

In idle and luxurious ease;

Or lie amid the fern and grass,
And talk with shepherds as they pass:
To learn their humble hopes and fears,
And the small changes of their years.

And if no shepherd saunters by, I can talk with the clouds of the sky, And watch them from my couch of fern, As, Proteus-like, they change and turn,— Now castles grey, with golden doors, Gem roofs, and amethystine floors; Now melting into billowy flakes,

Sky islands, or aërial lakes;

Or mimicking the form and show

Of the huge mountains far below.

And sometimes-vagrant, wild, and free—

I look upon the grass and tree,

With an all-pervading sympathy,

197

And bid them tell if life like theirs

Is void of feeling, joys, and cares.

And ever an answer seems to breathe

From the branches above, and the sward beneath,
And the tree says, "Many a joy is mine,——
In the winter cloud, and the summer shine;
With the daily heat, and the nightly dew,
My strength and pleasure I renew.

I sleep at eve when the skies grow dark,
And wake at the singing of the lark.

And when the winter is crisp and cold,

My life retreats beneath the mould,

And waits in the warmth for the spring-time rain,
To summon the sap to my boughs again.

I feel like you the balmy air,

And am

grateful for a life so fair."

And the grass, and the fern, and the waving reeds,

And the wild flowers, and the nameless weeds,

Reply in a low, soft tone of song

That creeps like an infant breeze along: