TO THE CUCKOO.
HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of Spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.
What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear;—
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?
Delightful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.
The school-boy wandering through the wood,
To pull the primrose gay-
Starts the new voice of Spring to hear,
And imitates thy lay.
What time the pea puts on the bloom
Thou fliest thy vocal vale,
An annual guest in other lands,
Another Spring to hail.
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green—
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year!
Oh! could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Attendants on the Spring.
THE SLAVE MOTHER'S LAMENT.
GONE, gone-sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone; Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever-demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air,Gone, gone-sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters;— Wo is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. There no mother's eye is near them, There no mother's ear can hear them;
THE SLAVE MOTHER'S LAMENT. 159
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters;-
Wo is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Oh! when weary, sad, and slow,
From the fields at night they go,
Faint with toil, and rack'd with pain,
To their cheerless homes again-
There no brother's voice shall greet them,
There no father's welcome meet them.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters;—
Wo is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From the tree whose shadow lay
On their childhood's place of play,
From the cool spring where they drank-
Rock, and hill, and rivulet-bank-
From the solemn house of prayer,
And the holy counsels there—
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters;
Wo is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
Toiling through the weary day,
And at night the spoiler's prey.
Oh that they had earlier died,
Sleeping calmly, side by side,
Where the tyrant's power is o'er,
And the fetter galls no more!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters;—
Wo is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth—
By the bruised reed He spareth-
Oh, may He to whom alone
All their cruel wrongs are known,
Still their hope and refuge prove,
With a more than mother's love.
Gone, gone-sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters;-
Wo is me, my stolen daughters!
It was a pleasant morning, in the time When the leaves fall;-and the bright sun shone out
As when the morning stars first sang together;
So quietly and calmly fell his light
Upon a world at rest. There was no leaf
In motion, and the loud winds slept, and all
Was still. The labouring herd was grazing
Upon the hill-side quietly—uncall'd
By the harsh voice of man; and distant sound,
Save from the murmuring waterfall, came not
As usual on the ear. One hour stole on,
And then another of the morning, calm
And still as Eden ere the birth of man.
And then broke in the Sabbath chime of bells;
And the old man and his descendants went
Together to the house of God. I join'd
The well-apparell'd crowd. The holy man
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