A something too vague, could I name it,
        For others to know,
      As if I had lived it or dreamed it,
      As if I had acted or schemed it,
                Long ago!

  And yet, could I live it over,
    This life that stirs in my brain,
  Could I be both maiden and lover,
  Moon and tide, bee and clover,
    As I seem to have been, once again,
  Could I but speak and show it,
    This pleasure more sharp than pain,
    That baffles and lures me so,
  The world should not lack a poet,
      Such as it had
      In the ages glad,
                Long ago!

J.R.  LOWELL.

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls.

  The tide rises, the tide falls,
  The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
  Along the sea-sands damp and brown
  The traveller hastens toward the town,
    And the tide rises, the tide falls.

  Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
  But the sea in the darkness calls and calls;
  The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
  Efface the footprints in the sands,
    And the tide rises, the tide falls.

  The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
  Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
  The day returns, but nevermore
  Returns the traveller to the shore,
    And the tide rises, the tide falls.

H.W.  LONGFELLOW.

The Fall of the Leaf.

  The evening of the year draws on,
    The fields a later aspect wear;
  Since Summer’s garishness is gone,
    Some grains of night tincture the noontide air.

  Behold! the shadows of the trees
    Now circle wider ’bout their stem,
  Like sentries that by slow degrees
    Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.

  And as the year doth decline,
    The sun allows a scantier light;
  Behind each needle of the pine
    There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.

  I hear the cricket’s slumbrous lay
    Around, beneath me, and on high;
  It rocks the night, it soothes the day,
    And everywhere is Nature’s lullaby.

  But most he chirps beneath the sod,
    When he has made his winter bed;
  His creak grown fainter but more broad,
    A film of Autumn o’er the Summer spread.

  Small birds, in fleets migrating by,
    Now beat across some meadow’s bay,
  And as they tack and veer on high,
    With faint and hurried click beguile the way.

  Far in the woods, these golden days,
    Some leaf obeys its Maker’s call;
  And through their hollow aisles it plays
    With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.

  Gently withdrawing from its stem,
    It lightly lays itself along
  Where the same hand hath pillowed them,
    Resigned to sleep upon the old year’s throng.

  The loneliest birch is brown and sere,
    The furthest pool is strewn with leaves,
  Which float upon their watery bier,
    Where is no eye that sees, no heart that grieves.