Page:Selections from the American poets (IA selectamerpoet00bryarich).pdf/249
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Epes Sargent.
245
With a cold brow, and then turn'd back to thoughtsOf traffic in thy fellow's wretchedness,Thou wert not fit to gaze upon the faceOf Nature's naked beauty, most unfitTo look on fairer things, the lovelinessOf earth's most lovely daughters, whose glad formsAnd glancing eyes do kindle the great soulsOf better men to emulate pure thoughts,And, in high action, all ennobling deeds.But lo! the harvest moon! She climbs as fairAmong the cluster'd jewels of the sky,As, mid the rosy bowers of paradise,Her soft light, trembling upon leaf and flower,Smiled o'er the slumbers of the first-born man.And, while her beauty is upon our hearts,Now let us seek our quiet home, that sleepMay come without bad dreams; may come as lightAs to that yellow-headed cottage-boy,Whose serious musings, as he homeward drivesHis sober herd, are of the frosty dawn,And the ripe nuts which his own hand shall pluck.Then, when the bird, high-courier of the morn,Looks from his airy vantage o'er the world,And, by the music of his mounting flight,Tells many blessed things of gushing gold,Coming in floods o'er the eastern wave,Will we arise, and our pure orisonsShall keep us in the trials of the day.
A WISH.
That I were in some forest's green retreat, Beneath a towering arch of proud old elms.Where a clear streamlet gurgled at my feet, Its wavelets glittering in their tiny helms!
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