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By the crystal brook and mountain lake,
In the ferny dell and marshy brake,
Away, where the lapwing lonely flies,
The keen fowler seeks his feathered prize.

The peasant is up at break of day,
And off to his harvest fields away;
With a joyous heart unknown to care,
He whistles some love-inspiring air.

And see yonder band, so blithe and free;
How they leap and sing in rustic glee;
In the sunbeams flash the whetted blades,
Swept by hardy hinds and buxom maids.

And behold the gleaner, young and fair, With her rosy cheeks and yellow hair; Content with her poor but happy lot, She bears her sheaf to her mother's cot.

Away from the noise of city strife,
Give me rural scenes and rural life;
Let me trip o'er hills and valleys green,
Where slaves of Fashion are never seen.

Oh let me live where no cares annoy,
To taste the sweets of unmingled joy;
And abroad with Nature let me roam,
Till called away to a better home.

When life's Autumn comes, as come it will,
And my beating heart is cold and still,
Where pale Sorrow ne'er may vigils keep,
In some lone spot let me quietly sleep.

The Peasant's Song of Winter.

UTUMN has fled, and Winter is come;

The groves are mute, and the birds are dumb; The winds are cold, and the skies are gray,

And the weary sun makes short the day.

And the gushing streams and tiny rills,
That danced and leaped down the rugged hills,
And meandered through the withered plains,
Are bound in fetters of icy chains.

Like fragments of robes that seraphs wear,
Now the fleecy snow-flakes fill the air;
And the crispy earth is wrapt in white,
And moon nor stars lend now their light.

But snows may drift and the clouds may scowl;
The hail may beat and the tempest howl;
They bring not want to the peasant's door,
Whose thrift has garnered his winter store.

All the joy he feels no tongue may tell,
For love and peace in his cottage dwell;
And he scorns the slave of base desires,
While he lives as lived his honest sires.

Though trees are stripped of their leafy plumes, And the gardens glow no more with blooms, Oh, the little snow-drop, sweetly chaste,

Will blossom soon on the hoary waste!

Warm suns will shine, and the soft winds blow, And rivers swell with the melting snow,

And the daisies soon again be seen,

And the teeming fields be clothed in green.

Torpid Nature into life will spring,
The orchard bloom and the skylark sing;
While the swallows back again will come,
And the woodlands be no longer dumb.

The bees will steal from their cloistered cells,
To gather sweets from the cups and bells,
And the dreary mountains joyful be
When Nature is set from Winter free.

So the changing seasons come and go,
While the springs of life still onward flow;
And faith and hope cheer the peasant's end,
When the chilling dews of death descend.

He knows, when his earthly race is run,
That the golden prize of life is won;
He goes to a better land than this,
To traverse fields of eternal bliss!

Truth.

TERNAL Truth! rear high thy crest,

ETERNAL Truth I rear high

In all thy splendor shine,

Where countless millions, long oppressed,
In mental darkness pine.

Subvert all false and hollow creeds,

And blood-stained shrines o'erthrow;

Uproot all rank and deadly weeds
That in Mind's empire grow.

Lead Knowledge to benighted climes;

The human will direct;

Change sounds of chains to church-bell chimes; Thy sceptre, Faith, protect.

Thy temples build on every height;

Dash idols to the ground;

That mankind, basking in thy light,

May worshippers be found.

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