FRESHNESS OF POETIC PERCEPTION.

Day follows day; years perish; still mine eyes
Are opened on the self-same round of space;
Yon fadeless forests in their Titan grace,
And the large splendors of those opulent skies..
I watch, unwearied, the miraculous dyes

Of dawn or sunset; the soft boughs which lace
Round some coy dryad in a lonely place,

Thrilled with low whispering and strange sylvan sighs:
Weary? the poet's mind is fresh as dew,

And oft re-filled as fountains of the light.

His clear child's soul finds something sweet and new
Even in a weed's heart, the carved leaves of corn,
The spear-like grass, the silvery rime of morn,
A cloud rose-edged, and fleeting stars at night!

THE VOICE IN THE PINES.

The morn is softly beautiful and still,

Its light fair clouds in pencilled gold and gray Pause motionless above the pine-grown hill, Where the pines, tranced as by a wizard's will, Uprise as mute and motionless as they!

Yea! mute and moveless; not one flickering spray Flashed into sunlight, nor a gaunt bough stirred; Yet, if wooed hence beneath these pines to stray, We catch a faint, thin murmur far away,

A bodiless voice by grosser ears unheard.

What voice is this? What low and solemn tone,
Which, though all wings of all the winds seem furled,
Nor even the Zephyr's fairy flute is blown,
Makes thus forever its mysterious moan

From out the whispering pine-tops' shadowy world?

Ah! can it be the antique tales are true?

Doth some lone Dryad haunt the breezeless air,
Fronting yon bright immitigable blue,
And wildly breathing all her wild soul through
That strange unearthly music of despair?

Or can it be that ages since, storm-tossed,

And driven far inland from the roaring lea, Some baffled ocean-spirit, worn and lost, Here, through dry summer's dearth and winter's frost, Yearns for the sharp, sweet kisses of the sea?

Whate'er the spell, I hearken and am dumb,

Dream-touched, and musing in the tranquil morn; All woodland sounds-the pheasant's gusty drum, The mock-bird's fugue, the droning insect's hum— Scarce heard for that strange, sorrowful voice forlorn!

Beneath the drowsèd sense, from deep to deep
Of spiritual life its mournful minor flows,
Streamlike, with pensive tide whose currents keep
Low murmuring 'twixt the bounds of grief and sleep,
Yet locked for aye from sleep's divine repose.

Look how the upland plunges into cover,

Green where the pines fade sullenly away.

Wonderful those olive depths! and wonderful, moreover—

SECOND TOURIST.

The red dust that rises in a suffocating way.

FIRST TOURIST.

Small is the soul that cannot soar above it,

Cannot but cling to its ever-kindred clay:

Better be yon bird, that seems to breathe and love it—

SECOND TOURIST.

Doubtless a hawk or some other bird of prey.

Were we, like him, as sure of a dinner

That on our stomachs would comfortably stay; Or were the fried ham a shade or two just thinner, That must confront us at closing of the day:

Then might you sing like Theocritus or Virgil,
Then might we each make a metrical essay;
But verse just now-I must protest and urge-ill
Fits a digestion by travel led astray.

CHORUS OF PASSENGERS.

Speed, Yuba Bill! oh, speed us to our dinner!
Speed to the sunset that beckons far away.

SECOND TOURIST.

William of Yuba, O son of Nimshi, hearken!

Check thy profanity, but not thy chariot's play.

Tell us, O William, before the shadows darken,
Where, and, oh! how shall we dine? O William, say!

YUBA BILL.

It ain't my fault, nor the Kumpeney's I reckon,
Ye can't get ez square meal ez any on the Bay,
Up at yon place, whar the senset 'pears to beckon-
Ez thet sharp allows in his airy sort o' way.
Thar woz a place wor yer hash ye might hev wrestled,
Kept by a woman ez chipper ez a jay—

Warm in her breast all the morning sunshine nestled;
Red on her cheeks all the evening's sunshine lay.

SECOND TOURIST.

Praise is but breath, O chariot-compeller!

Yet of that hash we would bid you farther say.

YUBA BILL.

Thar woz a snipe-like you, a fancy tourist-
Kem to that ranch ez if to make a stay,
Ran off the gal, and ruined jist the purist
Critter that lived-

Inside there's a lady! Remember! No affray !

YUBA BILL.

Ef that man lives, the fault ain't mine or his'n.

STRANGER.

Wait for the sunset that beckons far away,

Then as you will! But, meantime, friends, believe me, Nowhere on earth lives a purer woman; nay,

If my perceptions do surely not deceive me,

She is the lady we have inside to-day.

As for the man-you see that blackened pine tree,

Up which the green vine creeps heavenward away!

He was that scarred trunk, and she the vine that sweetly Clothed him with life again, and lifted—

SECOND TOURIST.

Yes; but pray

How know you this?

STRANGER.

She's my wife.

YUBA BILL.

The h-ll you say!