I love its trees, its mossy banks, its fountains and its rills;
    I love its homes, its cottages, its people round the hearth;
    I love, O, how I love to hear New England shouts of mirth! 
    Tell me of the sunny South, its orange-groves and streams,
    That they surpass in splendor man’s most enraptured dreams;
    But never can they be as fair, though blown by spicy gales,
    As those sweet homes, those cottages, within New England vales. 
    O, when life’s cares are ending, and time upon my brow
    Shall leave a deeper impress than gathers on it now;
    When age shall claim its sacrifice, and I no more shall roam,
    Then let me pass my latter days in my New England home!

LOVE THAT WANES NOT.

    O, when should Love’s true beacons glow the brightest,
        If not when darkness shrouds the path we tread? 
    When should its tokens, though they be the slightest,
        Be given, if not when clouds are overhead? 
    When light is ’round us, and when joys are glowing,
        Some hand may press our own, and vow to cherish
    A love for us which ne’er shall cease its flowing,—­
        And yet that love, when darkness comes, may perish. 
    But there is love which will outlive all sorrow,
        And in the darkest hour be nigh to bless,—­
    Which need not human art or language borrow,
        Its deep affection fondly to express. 
    The mother o’er the child she loveth bending
        Need not in words tell others of her love;
    For, on the wings of earnest prayer ascending,
        It rises, and is registered above. 
    O, such is love-all other is fictitious;
        All other’s vanquished by disease and pain;
    But this, which lives when fate is unpropitious,
        Shall rise to heaven, and there an entrance gain.

ONWARD COURAGEOUSLY.

    Bend thee to action-nerve thee to duty! 
        Whate’er it may be, never despair! 
    God reigns on high,—­pray to him truly,
        He will an answer give to thy prayer. 
    Shrinketh thyself from crosses before thee? 
        Art thou so made as to tremble and fear? 
    Confide in thy God; he will watch o’er thee;
        Humbly and trustingly, brother, draw near! 
    Clouds may be gathering, light may depart,
        Earth that thou treadest seem crumbling away;
    New foes, new dangers, around thee may start,
        And spectres of evil tempt thee astray. 
    Onward courageously! nerved for the task,
        Do all thy duty, and strength shall be thine;
    Whate’er you want in humility ask,
        Aid shall be given from a source that’s divine. 
    Do all thy duty faithful and truly;
        Trust in thy Maker,—­he’s willing to save
    Thee from all evil, and keep thee securely,
        And make thee triumphant o’er death and the grave.