Sometimes a humid fleece reposes Midway upon the swelling ridge, Like an aerial couch of roses, Or Dairy’s amethystine bridge: And pale green inlets lucid shimmer, With huge cliffs jutting out beside, Like those in mountain lakes that glimmer, Tinged like the ocean’s crystal tide: Or saffron-tinted islands planted In firmaments of azure dye, With pearly mounds that loom undaunted, And float like icebergs of the sky. Like autumn leaves that eddying falter, Yet settle to their crimson rest, As pilgrims round their burning altar, They slowly gather in the west. And when the distant mountain ranges In moonlight or blue mist are clad, Oft memory all the landscape changes, And pensive thoughts are blent with glad. For then, as in a dream Elysian, Val d’Arno’s fair and loved domain Seems to my rapt yet waking vision, To yield familiar charms again. Save that for dome and turret hoary, Amid the central valley lies A white church-spire unknown to story, And smoke-wreaths from a cottage rise. On Holyoke’s summit woods are frowning, No line of cypresses we see, Nor convent old with beauty crowning The heights of sweet Fiésole. Yet here may willing eyes discover The art and life of every shore, For Nature bids her patient lover All true similitudes explore. These firs, when cease their boughs to quiver, Stand like pagodas brahmins seek, Yon isle, that parts the winding river, Seems modeled from a light caique. And fanes that in these groves are hidden, Are sculptured like a dainty frieze, While choral music steals unbidden, As undulates the forest breeze. A gothic arch and springing column, A floral-dyed, mosaic ground, A twilight shade and vista solemn In all these sylvan haunts are found. And now this fragile garland weaving While ebbs the musing tide away, As one a sacred temple leaving, Some tribute on its shrine would lay; I bless the scenes whose tranquil beauty Have cheered me like the sense of youth, And freshened lonely tasks of duty, The dream of love and zest of truth. * * * * * A THOUGHT. BY ISAAC GRAY BLANCHARD. The flower springs by the fountain-side, And blooms its little day; Speechless it lives the life it has, And silent fades away. O, I would not be like the flower, To perish in the mould, And leave no record of my heart, No fond affection told.