THE SLAVE SINGING AT MIDNIGHT.

LOUD he sang the Psalm of David!
He, a Negro and enslaved,

Sang of Israel's victory,

Sang of Zion, bright and free.

In that hour, when night is calmest,
Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,
In a voice so sweet and clear
That I could not choose but hear.

Songs of triumph, and ascriptions,
Such as reached the swart Egyptians,
When upon the Red Sea coast
Perished Pharaoh and his host.'

And the voice of his devotion
Filled my soul with strange emotion,
For its tones by turns were glad,
Sweetly solemn, wildly sad.
Paul and Silas, in their prison,
Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen,
And an earthquake's arm of might
Broke their dungeon-gates at night.
But, alas! what holy angel
Brings the Slave this glad evangel?
And what earthquake's arm of might
Breaks his dungeon-gates at night?

THE QUADROON GIRL.
THE Slaver in the broad lagoon
Lay moored with idle sail;
He waited for the rising moon,
And for the evening gale.

Under the shore his boat was tied,
And all her listless crew
Watched the gray alligator slide
Into the still bayou.

Odours of orange-flowers, and spice,
Reached them from time to time,
Like airs that breathe from Paradise
Upon a world of crime.

The Planter, under his roof of thatch,
Smoked thoughtfully and slow;
The Slaver's thumb was on the latch,
He seemed in haste to go.

He said, "My ship at anchor rides
In yonder broad lagoon;

I only wait the evening tides,
And the rising of the moon."

Before them, with her face upraised,

In timid attitude,

Like one half curious, half amazed,

A Quadroon maiden stood.

Her eyes were large, and full of light,
Her arms and neck were bare;

No garment she wore save a kirtle bright,
And her own long, raven hair.

And on her lips there played a smile
As holy, meek, and faint,

As lights in some cathedral aisle

The features of a saint.

"The soil is barren,-the farm is old;"

The thoughtful Planter said;

Then looked upon the Slaver's gold,

And then upon the maid.

His heart within him was at strife

With such accursed gains;

For he knew whose passions gave her life,

Whose blood ran in her veins.

But the voice of nature was too weak;

He took the glittering gold!

Then pale as death grew the maiden's cheek,

Her hands as icy cold.

The Slaver led her from the door,

He led her by the hand,

To be his slave and paramour

In a strange and distant land!

THE WARNING.

BEWARE! The Israelite of old, who tore

The lion in his path,-when, poor and blind, He saw the blessed light of heaven no more, Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind

In prison, and at last led forth to be

A pander to Philistine revelry,

Upon the pillars of the temple laid

His desperate hands, and in its overthrow

Destroyed himself, and with him those who made

A cruel mockery of his sightless woe;

The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all,
Expired, and thousands perished in the fall!

There is a poor, blind Samson in this land,

Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel, Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, And shake the pillars of this commonweal,

Till the vast Temple of our liberties

A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.

WHEN descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,

Laden with sea-weed from the rocks:

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,

In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing

Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries

The Orkneyan skerries,

Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting

On the desolate, rainy seas;

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main ;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,

All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean

Of the poet's soul, ere long
From each cave and rocky fastness,

In its vastness,

Floats some fragment of a song:

From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted

With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision

Gleams Elysian

In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavour That for ever

Wrestle with the tides of Fate;

From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,

Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate ;

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded

Household words, no more depart.

THE DAY IS DONE.

THE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavour;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labour,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music

Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY.
THE day is ending,

The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes,
The red sun flashes

On village windows

That glimmer red.

The snow recommences:
The buried fences

Mark no longer

The road o'er the plain;
While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes

A funeral train.
The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds

To the dismal knell;
Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.

TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK.

WELCOME, my old friend,

Welcome to a foreign fireside,

While the sullen gales of autumn

Shake the windows.

The ungrateful world

Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,
Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,
First I met thee.