MIGRATION.

A POEM.

--From yon crag,

Down whose steep sides we dropped into the vale,

We heard the hymn they sang.

Many precious rites

And customs of our rural ancestry

Are gone, or stealing from us; this, I hope,

Will last for ever.

Wordsworth.

DEAR Nancy, while you westward go,

Approximating realms of snow,

What is the blessing you suppose,

That round the rugged mountain grows?

Do you, dear girl, expect to meet

A gallant beau in every street;
At midnight balls, with pliant limb,
In courtly dance to lightly swim,
While sighing youths devoutly raise,
Exstatic murmurings of praise;

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Loll at luxurious treats, a guest,
Where robes of woven-wind invest
The soft voluptuous virgin breast ?—
No-to these things of magic spell,
That oft the female bosom swell,
You bid-O can you bid farewell!

Despair not yet in time to trace, Amidst the country's roughest face, Some things as rapturous to the mind,

As those reluctantly resigned.

Though charmed to catch the morning's slant

Of golden beam on wild Nahant,

Where never, with a barbed hook,

A chief the silver fishes took;

In fabled times, with vision keen,

Where bards old ocean's nymphs had seen,

Sporting amid the coral rocks,

With sandals gemmed and braided locks,

And bracelets in a pearly twist,

Clasping an alabaster wrist;

Who oft on star-paved beds recline,

Listening to the strains divine,

That warbling from the sea-god's shell,
With graver music rose and fell,

That from o'erhanging cliffs rebound,
While every billow throws the sound
In mellow tones and measured pause,
That home each green-eyed sister draws,
The water nymphs in ease and sport,
Who held their visionary court,

While Triton on the topmost steep,
His orient vigils loved to keep,
The old traditioned bark to hail,
That up th' horizon soon must sail,
And, with her starry flag unfurled,
To claim this hidden western world!
And though no fabling time is here,
And bards must stoop to truth severe,
And Fancy's fine romantic strain,

Of love and old Arcadia's plain,

And all that filled a Spenser's song,

And all to fictions that belong,

And all in dreams that were disclosed,

Of faery beings, or supposed,

Who no material image wore,

Yet with immortal mind could soar;

And scenes created just and true,
Yet far beyond this mortal view,
Even such as inspiration's light
Opes to the prophet's keener sight,—
All these, alas! must now give way,
To sordid power's despotic sway;
A philosophic age refuses

The lighter witchcraft of the muses,
And to its sober balance brings

The eagle fancy, stripped of wings;
Even love itself is not secure

From the low taint of gold impure!

Such heavenly joys though banished hence, Still there are sights to charm the sense.

Your favorite moon as lovely shows,

As when she just from ocean rose;
As when o'er Hasset's edge you bent,

To see the radiant orb's ascent,

On columned rays that seemed to rise,

Slowly majestic up the skies;

While sloping through th' expanse below,

In azure deep, a splendid show,

The golden shafted base was spread,

Wide o'er the coral's rocky bed,

When timid beauty feared to lave
Her feet amid th' illumined wave,
But, lost in wonder, stood between
Two star-paved skies, a magic scene!
For now her solemn glories throw,
A sheet of silvery light below,
Yet resting on the forest head,

As loth within her beams to shed:
While lit the mountain-summits gray,
Dark woods, impervious to her ray,
Hear the bewildered hunter's call,

Listen the shattered water-fall,

Between the hills while sleeps the night, Caverned and canopied with light.

Some things besides you will explore,
Your aunt and mother knew before;
For, Nancy, on a certain morn,
Before a lovely child was born,

'T was whispered softly at the door,
That strangers just had leaped on shore,
With large retinue poor and proud,
To range, to justle, and to crowd;
Ambition with a lofty tread,

To trample on the humble head,