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The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted, came;

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear;

They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard and the sea;

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white wave's foam; And the rocking pines of the forest roaredThis was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band;-
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?—

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—

They sought a faith's pure shrine!

The Palm-Tree.

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trode;

They have left unstained what there they found-
Freedom to worship God.

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THE PALM-TREE.

T waved not through an Eastern sky,
Beside a fount of Araby;

IT

It was not fanned by southern breeze
In some green isle of Indian seas;
Nor did its graceful shadow sleep
O'er stream of Afric, lone and deep.

But fair the exiled palm-tree grew
Midst foliage of no kindred hue;
Through the laburnum's dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of Orient mould,
And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,
Purpled the moss-beds at its feet.

Strange looked it there! The willow streamed
Where silvery waters near it gleamed;

The lime-bough lured the honey-bee

To murmur

by the desert's tree,

And showers of snowy roses made
A lustre in its fan-like shade.

There came an eve of festal hours

Rich music filled that garden's bowers;

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The Palm-Tree.

Lamps, that from flowering branches hung,
On sparks of dew soft colour flung;

And bright forms glanced—a fairy show-
Under the blossoms to and fro.

But one, a lone one, midst the throng,
Seemed reckless all of dance or song:
He was a youth of dusky mien,
Whereon the Indian sun had been,
Of crested brow and long black hair—
A stranger, like the palm-tree, there.

And slowly, sadly, moved his plumes,
Glittering athwart the leafy glooms.
He passed the pale-green olives by,
Nor won the chestnut flowers his eye;
But when to that sole palm he came,
Then shot a rapture through his frame !

To him, to him its rustling spoke-
The silence of his soul it broke !
It whispered of his own bright isle,
That lit the ocean with a smile;

Ay, to his ear that native tone

Had something of the sea-wave's moan!

His mother's cabin-home, that lay
Where feathery cocoas fringed the bay;
The dashing of his brethren's oar-
The conch-note heard along the shore;
Ail through his wakening bosom swept-
He clasped his country's tree, and wept !

Bernardo del Carpio.

Oh! scorn him not! The strength whereby
The patriot girds himself to die,

Th' unconquerable power which fills

The freeman battling on his hills,

These have one fountain deep and clear

The same whence gushed that childlike tear!

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BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.

HE warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire,

THE

And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprisoned sire : “I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train,

I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord!-oh, break my 'father's chain !"

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'Rise, rise! even now thy father comes, a ransomed man this day:

Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will meet him on his way."

Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed, And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger's foamy speed.

And lo! from far, as on they pressed, there came a glittering band,

With one that midst them stately rode, as a leader in the

land;

G

୭୫

Bernardo del Carpio.

"Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he, The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearned so long to

see.

His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved, his cheek's blood came and went;

He reached that grey-haired chieftain's side, and there, dismounting, bent;

A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father's hand he took,— What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook?

That hand was cold-a frozen thing-it dropped from his like lead:

He looked up to the face above-the face was, of the dead! A plume waved o'er the noble brow-the brow was fixed and white;

He met at last his father's eyes—but in them was no sight !

Up from the ground he sprang, and gazed, but who could paint that gaze?

They hushed their very hearts, that saw its horror and amaze; They might have chained him, as before that stony form he

stood,

For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the blood.

"Father!" at length he murmured low, and wept like childhood then

Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men!

He thought on all his glorious hopes, and all his young

He flung the falchion from his side, and in the dust sat down.