My pensive soul with hallow'd memories fills:
My fathers' hall is there; their feet have press'd
The flower-gemm'd margin of these gushing rills,
When lightly on the water's dimpled breast,
Their own light bark beside the frail canoe would rest.

The rock was once your dwelling-place, my sires!
Or cavern scoop'd within the green hill's side;
The prowling wolf fled far your beacon fires,
And the kind Indian half your wants supplied;
While round your necks the wampum belt he tied,
He bade you on his lands in peace abide,

Nor dread the wakening of the midnight brand,
Or aught of broken faith to loose the peace-belt's band.

Oh! if there is in beautiful and fair, A potency to charm, a power to bless; If bright blue skies and music-breathing air, And nature in her every varied dress Of peaceful beauty and wild loveliness, Can shed across the heart one sunshine ray, Then others, too, sweet stream, with only less Than mine own joy, shall gaze, and bear away Some cherish'd thought of thee for many a coming day.

But yet not utterly obscure thy banks,

Nor all unknown to history's page thy name;
For there wild war hath pour'd his battle ranks,
And stamp'd in characters of blood and flame,
Thine annals in the chronicles of fame.
The wave that ripples on, so calm and still,
Hath trembled at the war-cry's loud acclaim,
The cannon's voice hath roll'd from hill to hill,

And 'midst thy echoing vales the trump hath sounded shrill.

My country's standard waved on yonder height,
Her red cross banner England there display'd,
And there the German, who, for foreign fight,
Had left his own domestic hearth, and made

War, with its horrors and its blood, a trade, Amidst the battle stood; and all the day, The bursting bomb, the furious cannonade, The bugle's martial notes, the musket's play, In mingled uproar wild, resounded far away.

Thick clouds of smoke obscured the clear bright sky,
And hung above them like a funeral pall,
Shrouding both friend and foe, so soon to lie
Like brethren slumbering in one father's hall.
The work of death went on, and when the fall
Of night came onward silently, and shed
A dreary hush, where late was uproar all,
How many a brother's heart in anguish bled
O'er cherish'd ones, who there lay resting with the dead.

Unshrouded and uncoffin'd they were laid
Within the soldier's grave, e'en where they fell;
At noon they proudly trod the field—the spade
At night dug out their resting-place—and well
And calmly did they slumber, though no bell
Peal'd over them its solemn music slow;

The night-winds sung their only dirge, their knell
Was but the owlet's boding cry of woe,

The flap of night-hawk's wing, and murmuring waters' flow.

But it is over now, the plough hath rased

All trace of where war's wasting hand hath been:
No vestige of the battle may be traced,

Save where the share, in passing o'er the scene,
Turns up some rusted ball; the maize is green
On what was once the death-bed of the brave;
The waters have resumed their wonted sheen,
The wild bird sings in cadence with the wave,
And naught remains to show the sleeping soldier's grave.

A pebble stone that on the war-field lay,

And a wild-rose that blossom'd brightly there,

Were all the relics that I bore away,

To tell that I had trod the scene of war,

When I had turn'd my footsteps homeward far-
These may seem childish things to some; to me
They shall be treasured ones; and, like the star
That guides the sailor o'er the pathless sea,

They shall lead back my thoughts, loved Brandywine, to thee.

THE AFRIC'S DREAM.

WHY did ye wake me from my sleep? it was a dream of bliss, And ye have torn me from that land to pine again in this; Methought, beneath yon whispering tree, that I was laid to rest, The turf, with all its withering flowers, upon my cold heart press'd.

My chains, these hateful chains, were gone-oh, would that I might die,

So from my swelling pulse I could forever cast them by !
And on, away o'er land and sea, my joyful spirit passed,
Till 'neath my own banana tree, I lighted down at last.

My cabin door, with all its flowers, was still profusely gay,
As when I lightly sported there, in childhood's careless day!
But trees that were as sapling twigs, with broad and shadowing
bough,

Around the well-known threshold spread a freshening coolness

now.

The birds whose notes I used to hear, were shouting on the earth,

As if to greet me back again with their wild strains of mirth; My own bright stream was at my feet, and how I laugh'd to

lave

My burning lip and cheek and brow in that delicious wave!

My boy, my first-born babe, had died amid his early hours, And there we laid him to his sleep among the clustering flowers; Yet lo! without my cottage door he sported in his glee,

With her whose grave is far from his, beneath yon linden tree.

I sprang to snatch them to my soul; when breathing out my

name,

To grasp my hand, and press my lip, a crowd of loved ones came!

Wife, parents, children, kinsmen, friends! the dear and lost ones all,

With blessed words of welcome came, to greet me from my thrall.

Forms long unseen were by my side; and thrilling on my ear, Came cadences from gentle tones, unheard for many a year; And on my cheek fond lips were press'd, with true affection's kiss

And so ye waked me from my sleep-but 't was a dream of bliss!

JOHN WOOLMAN.

MEEK, humble, sinless as a very child,

Such wert thou, and, though unbeheld, I seem Oft-times to gaze upon thy features mild,

Thy grave, yet gentle lip, and the soft beam

Of that kind eye, that knew not how to shed

A glance of aught save love, on any human head.

Servant of Jesus! Christian! not alone

In name and creed, with practice differing wide, Thou didst not in thy conduct fear to own

His self-denying precepts for thy guide.

Stern only to thyself, all others felt

Thy strong rebuke was love, not meant to crush, but melt.

Thou, who didst pour o'er all the human kind
The gushing fervour of thy sympathy!
E'en the unreasoning brute, fail'd not to find
A pleader for his happiness in thee.
Thy heart was moved for every breathing thing,
By careless man exposed to needless suffering.
But most the wrongs and sufferings of the slave,
Stirr'd the deep fountain of thy pitying heart;
And still thy hand was stretch'd to aid and save,
Until it seem'd that thou hadst taken a part

In their existence, and couldst hold no more

A separate life from them, as thou hadst done before.

How the sweet pathos of thy eloquence,
Beautiful in its simplicity, went forth
Entreating for them! that this vile offence,

So unbeseeming of our country's worth,
Might be removed before the threatening cloud,
Thou saw'st o'erhanging it, should burst in storm and blood.

So may thy name be reverenced,—thou wert one
Of those whose virtues link us to our kind,
By our best sympathies; thy day is done,
But its twilight lingers still behind,

In thy pure memory; and we bless thee yet,
For the example fair thou hast before us set.

THE CONFESSIONS OF THE YEAR.

THE gray old year-the dying year,
His sands were well nigh run;

When there came by one in priestly weed,
To ask of the deeds he'd done.

"Now tell me, ere thou treadst the path
Thy brethren all have trode,
The scenes that life has shown to thee
Upon thine onward road."

"I've seen the sunbeam rise and set,

As it rose and set before

And the hearts of men bent earthwardly,
As they have been evermore;

The Christian raised his hallow'd fanes,
And bent the knee to God;

But his hand was strong, and guilt and wrong
Defaced the earth he trod.

“The Indian, by his forest streams,
Still chased the good red deer,

Or turn'd away to kneel and pray
With the Christian's faith and fear;