A nation sinking to the grave;
     How thick death’s shafts are flying! 
   The loved, the lovely, and the brave,
     From want are daily dying.

   They’re calling to Columbia’s sons,
     And to her happy daughters;
   Take of your bread, ye favor’d ones,
     And cast it on the waters.

 THE LITTLE CLOUD.

   All day the rain has patter’d down,
   In dense dark folds, clouds hang around,
   The humid air is dead and still,
   Thick vapors veil the distant hill.

   But now, a little crimson cloud
   Beams from an opening in the shroud,
   Which, like a dusky pall, o’erspreads
   The azure vault above our heads.

   Our fancy, while we gaze, takes wings
   And flits around earth’s brighter things,
   Then whispers in our list’ning ears,
   “This earth is not all sighs and tears.”

   This cloud is like the robin’s song,
   Whose notes were hushed all winter long,
   But comes to usher in the hours,
   Whose genial warmth revives the flowers.

   Or like the south wind’s gentle voice,
   Bidding all nature’s works rejoice,
   Teaching the little birds, to sing
   A serenade to blooming spring.

   Like budding flowers where thorns once grew,
   And beauty bursting into view
   Where all was dark, and drear, and wild,
   Nor pleasures in prospective smiled.

   ’Tis like the smile that beams through tears,
   When hope usurps the place of fears;
   Like health, new sparkling in the eye
   Of him, whom friends gave up to die.

   Faint emblem of the glory shed
   Around the dying christian’s bed,
   That prelude to the dazzling light
   Which bursts on his enraptured sight,
   When the freed spirit soars above,
   And faith is swallowed up in love.

LEWISTON,

AS IT WAS, AND AS IT IS.

   It was a wild, sequestered spot,
   With here and there a humble cot;
   Yet, nature’s richest robes were thrown
   Around those hills and valleys lone. 
   ’Twas quiet, fair, and lovely, then,
   Though beasts of prey and savage men
   Roamed o’er those hills of graceful form,
   Whose trees for ages braved the storm,
   Yet, humbly stooping to behold
   The broad majestic stream, that rolled
   Through smiling mead and woody plain,
   Fast speeding onward to the main,
   Or, dashing from its rocky height,
   Proclaims the great Creator’s might,
   Its deep toned music, strangely meet
   To mingle with the anthem sweet,
   That floated on each whisp’ring breeze,
   Which came, soft stealing through the trees
   That grew upon the winding shore,
   In giant ranks, in days of yore. 
   When genial spring her magic spell,
   Cast ’round each lovely woodland dell,