A NOVEMBER MORNING'S REVERIE. BY DELTA Hast thou a chamber in the utter West, A cave of shelter from the glare of day, Oh radiant Star of Morning! whose pure eye, Like an archangel's, over the dim Earth, With such ineffable effulgence shines? Emblem of Sanctity and Peace art thou! Thou leavest man, what time to daily toil His steps are bent--what time the bustling world Usurps his thought; and, through the sunny hours, Unseen, forgot, art like the things that were; But Twilight weeps for joy at thy return, With brighter blaze the faggots on the hearth Sparkle, and home records its happiest hour! Hark! 'tis the Robin's shrill yet mellow pipe, That in the voiceless calm of the young morn, Commingles with my dreams:--lo! as I draw Aside the curtains of my couch, he sits, Deep over-bower'd by broad geranium leaves, (Leaves trembling 'neath the touch of sere decay,) Upon the dewy window-sill, and perks His restless black eye here and there, in search Of crumbs, or shelter from the icy breath! Of wild winds rushing from the Polar sea: For now November, with a brumal robe, Mantles the moist and desolated earth; Dim sullen clouds hang o'er the cheerless sky, And yellow leaves bestrew the undergrove. 'Tis earliest sunrise. Through the hazy mass Of vapours moving on like shadowy isles, Athwart the pale, gray, spectral cope of heaven, With what a feeble, inefficient glow Looks out the Day; all things are still and calm, Half wreathed in azure mist the skeleton woods, And as a picture silent. Little bird! Why with unnatural tameness comest thou thus, Offering in fealty thy sweet simple songs To the abode of man? Hath the rude wind Chilled thy sweet woodland home, now quite despoiled Of all its summer greenery, and swept The bright, close, sheltering bowers, where merrily Rang out thy notes--as of a haunting sprite, There domiciled--the long blue summer through? Moulders untenanted thy trim-built nest, And do the unpropitious fates deny Food for thy little wants, and Penury, With tiny grip, drive thee to dubious walls,-- Though terrors flutter at thy panting heart,-- To stay the pangs which must be satisfied? Alas! the dire sway of Necessity Oft makes the darkest, most repugnant things Familiar to us; links us to the feet Of all we feared, or hated, or despised; And, mingling poison with our daily food, Yet asks the willing heart and smiling cheek: Yea! to our subtlest and most tyrannous foes, May we be driven for shelter, and in such May our sole refuge lie, when all the joys, That, iris-like, wantoned around our paths Of prosperous fortune, one by one have died; When day shuts in upon our hopes, and night Ushers blank darkness only. Therefore we Should pity thee, and have compassion on Thy helpless state, poor bird, whose loveliness Is yet unscathed, and whose melodious notes, (Sweeter by melancholy rendered,) steal With a deep supplication to the heart, Telling that thou wert happy once--that now Thou art most destitute; and yet, and yet-- Only were thy small pinching wants supplied By Charity--couldst be most happy still!-- Is it not so? Out on unfeeling man! Will he who drives the beggar from his gates, And to the moan of fellow-man shuts up Each avenue of feeling--will he deign To think that such as Thou deserve his aid? No! when the gust raves, and the floods descend, Or the frost pinches, Thou may'st, at dim eve, With forced and fearful love approach his home, What time, 'mid western mists, the broad, red sun, Sinking, calls out from heaven the earliest star; And the crisp blazing of the dry Yule-log Flickers upon the pictured walls, and lights By fits the unshutter'd lattice; but, in vain, Thy chirp repeated earnestly; the flap, Against the obdurate pane, of thy small wing;-- He hears thee not--he heeds not--but, at morn, The ice-enamoured schoolboy, early afoot, Finds thy small bulk beneath the alder stump, Thy bright eyes closed, and tiny talons clench'd, Stiff in the gripe of death. The floating plume Tells how the wind blows, with a certainty As great as doth the vessel's full-swoln sheets; So doth the winged seed; 'tis not alone In mighty things that we may truliest read The heart, but in its temper and its tone:-- Thus true Benevolence we ever find Forgiving, gentle, tremblingly alive To pity, and unweariedly intent On all the little, thousand charities, Which day by day calls forth. Oh! as we hope Forgiveness of our earthly trespasses,-- Of all our erring deeds and wayward thoughts,-- When Time's dread reckoning comes,--oh! as we hope Mercy, who need it much, let us, away From kindness never turning, mould our hearts To sympathy, and from all withering blight Preserve them, and all deadening influences:-- So 'twill be best for us. The All-seeing Eye, Which numbers each particular hair, and notes From heaven the sparrow's fall, shall pass not o'er Without approval deeds unmarked by man-- Deeds, which the right hand from the left conceals-- Nor overlook the well-timed clemency, That soothed and stilled the murmurs of distress. Enamour'd of all mysteries, in love With doubt itself, and fond to disbelieve, We ask not, "if realities be real?" With Plato, or with Berkeley; but we know Life comes not of itself, and what hath life,-- However insignificant it seem To us, whose noblest standard is ourselves,-- Hath been by the Almighty's finger touch'd, Or ne'er had been at all--it must be so. Therefore 'tis by comparison alone That things seem great or small; and noblest they Whose sympathies, with a capacious range, Would own no limit to their fond embrace. Yea, there, as in all else, doth Duty dwell With happiness: for far the happiest he, Who through the roughnesses of life preserves His boyish feelings, and who sees the world, Not as it is in cold reality, A motley scene of struggle and of strife, But tinted with the glow of bright romance: For him the morning has its star; the sun, Rising or setting, fires for him the clouds With glory; flowers for him have tales, Like those which, for a thousand nights and one,