As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,

So white Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the dead-cold here to-day;
Solemn hours! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child
So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the year: be calm and mild,
Trembling hours, she will arise,
With new love within her eyes.
January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps-but, O ye hours!
Follow with May's fairest flowers.

THE CLOUD.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

THOMAS HOOD.

THOMAS HOOD, a minor poet of this century, is best known as a humorous writer. But many of his pieces exhibit a depth of earnest feeling, and a pathos not often surpassed.

THE DEATHBED.

WE watched her breathing through the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro !

So silently we seem'd to speak,-
So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her being out!

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied,-
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died!

For when the morn came, dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed-she had
Another morn than ours!

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.

WITH fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread.
Stitch stitch! stitch !

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt !"

"Work! work! work!

While the cock is crowing aloof!

And work! work! work!

Till the stars shine through the roof!

It's O! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!

"Work! work! work!

Till the brain begins to swim ;
Work! work! work!

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,

Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

Oh, men! with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!

Stitch stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing, at once, with a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt.

"But why do I talk of Death?
That phantom of grisly bone,
I hardly fear his terrible shape,
It seems so like my own-

It seems so like my own,

Because of the fasts I keep,

Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work! work! work!

My labour never flags;

And what are its wages? a bed of straw,

A crust of bread and rags.

That shatter'd roof-and this naked floor

A table-a broken chair!

And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank

For sometimes falling there!

"Work! work! work!

From weary chime to chime,

As prisoners work for crime !
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,
As well as the weary hand.

"Work! work! work!

In the dull December light;

And work! work! work!

When the weather is warm and bright!

While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling,

As if to show me their sunny backs,
And twit me with the spring.

"Oh! but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet!

With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet.
For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want,
And the walk that costs a meal!

"Oh, but for one short hour!

A respite, however brief!

No blessed leisure for love or hope,

But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart,

But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread !"

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sate in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread!
Stitch stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
Would that its tone could reach the rich!

She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"

LONGFELLOW.1

LONGFELLOW is the most popular of living American poets. He possesses an elegant fancy, and considerable felicity and melody of language. There is, however, no great profundity of thought or feeling in his works. His most ambitious pieces are Evangeline and Hiawatha.

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

THERE is a Reaper whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

“Shall I have nought that is fair?” saith he ;
"Have nought but the bearded grain ?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kissed their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise

66

He bound them in his sheaves.

My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper said, and smiled;

"Dear tokens of the earth are they

Where He was once a child.

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care;

And saints upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;

She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.

Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,

The Reaper came that day;

'Twas an angel visited the green earth,

And took the flowers away.

1 Additional specimens of Longfellow's Poems will be found in Books V. and VI. of this Series.