2 LITERATURE ON STATEN ISLAND. 



"See how the dogwood sheds its bloom 



Through all the greenwood mazes, 

 As white as the untrodden snow 

 That hides in shady places. 

 See how the fair Catalpa spreads 



Its azure flowers in masses 

 Bell shaped as if to woo the wind 



To ring them as it passes. 



The air is balmy, not too warm, 



And all the landscape sunny, 

 Seems like the Hebrew Paradise 



To flow with milk and honey. 

 Here let us rest a little while 



Not rich enough to buy land 

 And pass a summer well content, 



In bowery Staten Island. 



But the heart of the English singer longed for England. 



"I miss the antiquities of home. 



The gray church in the meadow; 

 The fragrant hawthorn in the lanes, 



And all the beechen shadow; 

 And more than all that proves to me 



It never can be my land, 

 I miss the music of the groves 



On leafy Staten Island. 



" There's not a bird in glen or haw 



That has a note worth hearing, 

 Unvocal all as barn-door hens, 



Or land-rail in the clearing. 

 Give me the skylark far aloft, 



To heaven, uprising, soaring, 

 Or nightingale at close of day, 



Lamenting, but adoring." 



Where .did the poet hide himself that he did not hear in deeper 

 seclusion than his own the liquid, honied, long- vibrating note of our 



