In the cold, moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:

Yet not unmeet was it that one like that young friend of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

AMERICA, 1803-1882

5 'Twas one of the charméd days
When the genius of God doth flow,
The wind may alter twenty ways,
A tempest cannot blow;

It may blow north, it still is warm; 10 Or south, it still is clear;

Or east, it smells like a clover-farm;
Or west, no thunder fear.

The musing peasant lowly great
Beside the forest water sate;

15 The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown
Compose the network of his throne;

The wide lake, edged with sand and grass,
Was burnished to a floor of glass,

Painted with green and proud

WOODNOTES

Of the tree and of the cloud.

He was the heart of all the scene;
On him the sun looked more serene;

To hill and cloud his face was known,-
It seemed the likeness of their own;
They knew by secret sympathy
The public child of earth and sky.
"You ask," he said, "what guide
Me through trackless thickets led,

77

5

Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide. 10 I found the water's bed.

The watercourses were my guide;

I traveled grateful by their side,
Or through their channel dry;

They led me through the thicket damp,
Through brake and fern, the beaver's camp,
Through beds of granite cut my road,
And their resistless friendship showed:
The falling waters led me,

The foodful waters fed me,

And brought me to the lowest land,
Unerring to the ocean sand.

The moss upon the forest bark

Was pole-star when the night was dark;
The purple berries in the wood
Supplied me necessary food;
For Nature ever faithful is

To such as trust her faithfulness.

15

20

20

25

25

When the forest shall mislead me,
When the night and morning lie,
When sea and land refuse to feed me,
"Twill be time enough to die;

5 Then will yet my mother yield
A pillow in her greenest field,
Nor the June flowers scorn to cover
The clay of their departed lover."

-From WOODNOTES."

10

15

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

AMERICA, 1807-1882

Daybreak

A wind came up out of the sea,

And said, "O mists, make room for me."

It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone."

And hurried landward far away,
Crying, "Awake! it is the day."

It said unto the forest, "Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!"

It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,
And said, "O bird, awake and sing."

FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGASSIZ

And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near."

It whispered to the fields of corn,
"Bow down, and hail the coming morn.'

It shouted through the belfry-tower,
"Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."

It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, "Not yet! in quiet lie.”

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The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz
May 28, 1857

It was fifty years ago

In the pleasant month of May,
In the beautiful Pays de Vaud,

A child in its cradle lay.

And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying: "Here is a story-book

Thy Father has written for thee.

"Come, wander with me," she said,

"Into regions yet untrod;

And read what is still unread

5

10

15

In the manuscripts of God."

20

And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,

She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvelous tale.

So she keeps him still a child,
And will not let him go,

Though at times his heart beats wild
For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;

Though at times he hears in his dreams.
The Ranz des Vaches of old,

And the rush of mountain streams
From glaciers clear and cold;

And the mother at home says, “Hark!
For his voice I listen and yearn;

It is growing late and dark,

And my boy does not return!"