And scarcely visible to us here,

Rounds and completes the perfect sphere; A prophecy and intimation,

A pale and feeble adumbration,

Of the great world of light, that lies
Behind all human destinies.

Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught,
Should be to wet the dusty soil

With the hot tears and sweat of toil,-
To struggle with imperious thought,
Until the overburdened brain,

Weary with labor, faint with pain,
Like a jarred pendulum, retain
Only its motion, not its power,-
Remember, in that perilous hour,
When most afflicted and oppressed,
From labor there shall come forth rest.

And if a more auspicious fate

On thy advancing steps await,

Still let it ever be thy pride

To linger by the laborer's side;
With words of sympathy or song

To cheer the dreary march along

Of the great army of the poor,

O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor.

Nor to thyself the task shall be

Without reward; for thou shalt learn

The wisdom early to discern

True beauty in utility;

As great Pythagoras of yore,

Standing beside the blacksmith's door,

And hearing the hammers, as they smote The anvils with a different note,

Stole from the varying tones, that hung

Vibrant on every iron tongue,

The secret of the sounding wire,

And formed the seven-chorded lyre.

Enough! I will not play the Seer;
I will no longer strive to ope
The mystic volume, where appear
The herald Hope, forerunning Fear,
And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.
Thy destiny remains untold;

For, like Acestes' shaft of old,

The swift thought kindles as it flies,

And burns to ashes in the skies,

TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK.

WELCOME, my old friend,

Welcome to a foreign fireside,

While the sullen gales of autumn

Shake the windows.

The ungrateful world

Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,

Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,

First I met thee.

There are marks of age,

There are thumb-marks on thy margin,

Made by hands that clasped thee rudely,“

At the alehouse.

Soiled and dull thou art;

Yellow are thy time-worn pages

As the russet, rain-molested

Leaves of autumn.

Thou art stained with wine

Scattered from hilarious goblets,

As these leaves with the libations

Of Olympus.

Yet dost thou recall

Days departed, half-forgotten,

When in dreamy youth I wandered

By the Baltic,

When I paused to hear

The old ballad of King Christian

Shouted from suburban taverns
In the twilight.

Thou recallest bards

Who, in solitary chambers,

And with hearts by passion wasted,

Wrote thy pages.

Thou recallest homes

Where thy songs of love and friendship

Made the gloomy Northern winter

Bright as summer.

Once some ancient Scald,

In his bleak, ancestral Iceland,

Chanted staves of these old ballads

To the Vikings.

Once in Elsinore,

At the court of old King Hamlet,

Yorick and his boon companions
Sang these ditties.

Once Prince Frederick's Guard

Sang them in their smoky barracks ;—

Suddenly the English cannon

Joined the chorus!

Peasants in the field,

Sailors on the roaring ocean,

Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics

Thou hast been their friend;

They, alas! have left thee friendless!

Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.

And, as swallows build

In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,

So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,-

Quiet, close, and warm,

Sheltered from all molestation,

And recalling by their voices

Youth and travel.