Then we will laugh at winter when we hear The grim old churl about our dwellings rave: Thou, from that "ruler of the inverted year," Shalt pluck the knotty sceptre Cowper gave, And pull him from his sledge, and drag him in, And melt the icicles from off his chin. THE NEW MOON. When, as the garish day is done, Heaven burns with the descended sun, 'Tis passing sweet to mark, Amid that flush of crimson light, The new moon's modest bow grow bright, As earth and sky grow dark. Few are the hearts too cold to feel A thrill of gladness o'er them steal, When first the wandering eye Sees faintly, in the evening blaze, That glimmering curve of tender rays Just planted in the sky. The sight of that young crescent brings Thoughts of all fair and youthful things The hopes of early years; And childhood's purity and grace, And joys that like a rainbow chase The passing shower of tears. The captive yields him to the dream Of freedom, when that virgin beam Comes out upon the air: And painfully the sick man tries To fix his dim and burning eyes On the soft promise there. Most welcome to the lover's sight, Glitters that pure, emerging light; For prattling poets say, That sweetest is the lovers' walk, And tenderest is their murmured talk, Beneath its gentle ray. And there do graver men behold A type of errors, loved of old, Forsaken and forgiven; And thoughts and wishes not of earth, Just opening in their early birth, Like that new light in heaven. OCTOBER. A SONNET. Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath, When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, And the year smiles as it draws near its death. Wind of the sunny south! oh still delay In the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a good old age released from care, Journeying, in long serenity, away. In such a bright, late quiet, would that I Might wear out life like thee, mid bowers and brooks, And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks, And music of kind voices ever nigh; And when my last sand twinkled in the glass, Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass. THE DAMSEL OF PERU. Where olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew, There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru. Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air, Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy hair; And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady nook, As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of hidden brook. 'Tis a song of love and valour, in the noble Spanish tongue, That once upon the sunny plains of old Castile was sung; When, from their mountain holds, on the Moorish rout below, Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and swept away the foe. A while that melody is still, and then breaks forth anew A wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom and Peru.