TH The Happy Hour. HE life of man has wondrous hours Revealed at once to heart and eye, When wake all being's kindled powers, And joy, like dew on trees and flowers, With freshness fills the earth and sky. With finer scent and softer tone The breezes wind through waving leaves ; By friendlier beams new tints are thrown On furrowed stem and mouldering stone: The gorgeous grapes, the jewelled sheaves To living glories turn; And eyes that look from cottage eaves, Through shadows grim that jasmine weaves, With love and fancy burn. The broad smooth river flames with waves, The mountain rude, with steeps of gold, Up toward the evening star expands. The ocean streaks, in distance gray, And those who walk within the sphere, Like angels walk, so high, so clear, With ravishment in eye and mien. For this one hour no breath of fear, Past things are dead, or only live 'Tis not that beauty forces then Well for all such hours who know, Dulls the heart when rapture's flown: If the rocky field of Duty, Built around with mountains hoar, Still is dearer than the Beauty Of the sky-land's colored shore. JOHN STERLING. The Skeleton in Armor. [Lines suggested by the Round Tower at Newport, in connection with the fact of an armed skeleton having been dug up at Fall River.] PEAK! speak! thou fearful guest! SPEA Who, with thy hollow breast, Still in rude armor drest, Comest to daunt me! Wrapt not in eastern balms, Why dost thou haunt me?" Then from those cavernous eyes "I was a Viking old! My deeds, though manifold, 'Far in the Northern land, "Oft to his frozen lair While from my path the hare "She was a Prince's child, I but a Viking wild, And though she blushed and smiled, I was discarded! Should not the dove so white Why did they leave that night "Scarce had I put to sea, Bearing the maid with me— Fairest of all was she Among the Norsemen !— |