I love this modest little flower;—­
   It comes in desolation’s hour
   The barren landscape’s face to cheer,
   When none beside it dares appear.

   Just like the friend, whose brightest smile
   Is spared, our sorrows to beguile;
   Who like some angel from the sky,
   When needed most, is ever nigh—­

   To pluck vile slander’s envious dart
   From out the wounded, bleeding heart,
   And raise from earth the drooping head
   When all our summer friends are fled.

   And shall these humble pages dare
   Presume to ask, if they compare
   With that fair, fragrant, precious gem,
   Plucked from cold winter’s diadem?

   ’Tis true both struggled into life,
   Through scenes of sorrow, care and strife;
   This poor, frail, intellectual flower
   Was reared in no elysian bower.

   No ray of fortune on it shone,—­
   It forced its weary way alone;
   Up-springing from the barren sod,
   Untilled, save by affliction’s rod.

FOOTNOTES: 

   [Footnote 1:  A white, fragrant flower, the earliest
   that appears.—­Language.—­“I am not a summer friend.”]

MY BIRTH PLACE

   Where “old Blue” mountain’s healthful breeze
    Swept o’er the green hill-side,
   My little fragile bark was launched
    On life’s uncertain tide.

   There verdant fields and murm’ring brooks
    Invited me to roam;
   Old towering trees their heads upreared
    Around my quiet home.

   When morn unveiled her blushing face,
     The sun came peeping in;
   His quiv’ring beams upon the wall,
     Checked by the leafy screen.

   Oft in some sweet sequestered dell,
     The blushing flow’ret smiled;
   And threw around a pleasing spell,
     For me, an artless child.

   The fragrant blossom peeping up,
     From out the mossy sod,
   Caused my young thoughts from earth to rise
     And soar to nature’s God.

   In summer, when I wandered forth,
     Beneath the deep green shade,
   Or when mild autumn walked the rounds,
     In gorgeous robes arrayed—­

   Music, in nature’s softest strains,
     Stole through my little breast;—­
   ’Twas something I could not define,
     Nor could it be expressed.

   While some admire the pompous pile,
     Or glitt’ring, costly dome,
   I’d gaze upon those ancient trees,
     Round that sweet rural home.

THE OAK AND THE RILL: 

Or, indolent wealth and honest labor.

Composed for the Franklin agricultural society.