Here have seen, as now, pass by, Those bright things that have their dwelling, Down in valleys green and lowly, Gently it murmurs by The village churchyard: its low, plaintive tone, A dirge-like melody, For worth and beauty modest as its own. More gaily now it sweeps By the small school-house in the sunshine bright; May not its course express, In characters which they who run may read, Were but its still small voice allowed to plead What are the trophies gained To that meek wreath, unstained, Niagara's streams might fail, And human happiness be undistnrbed: But Egypt would turn pale, Were her still Nile's o'erflowing bounty curbed! BERNARD Barton. SHOWERS IN SPRING. 'HE north-east spends his rage; he now, shut up Within his iron cave, the effusive south Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. The wish of nature. Gradual sinks the breeze Is heard to quiver through the closing woods, The clouds consign their treasures to the fields, THE ANGLER'S SONG. How vast the mossy forest-halls, Silent, and full of gloom! Like pillars in a church or old, Where falls the noisy stream, In many a bubble bright, Watching my angle play, Oft, ere the carrion bird has left His eyrie, the dead tree, Or ere the eagle's wing hath cleft Or ere the lark's swift pinion speeds My foot hath shaken the bending reeds, And when the twilight, with a blush And evening's universal hush In villages far away, Then from the lonely stream I turn And from the forests gray. The tented dome, of heavenly blue, Suspended on the rainbow's rings ! Thy name is written clearly bright And every spark that walks alone Were kindled at Thy burning throne. God of the world! the hour must come Her incense-fires shall cease to burn; Have made man's warmest praises flow; For hearts grow holier as they trace WILLIAM B. PEABODY. SIGNS OF RAIN. ISAAC MCLELLAN, HYMN OF NATURE. OD of the earth's extended plains! The dark green fields contented lie: Where the man might commune with the The tall cliff challenges the storm That lowers on the vale below, Where the shaded fountains send their streams, With joyous music in their flow. God of the light and viewless air! The fierce and wintry tempests blow; All-from the evening's plaintive sigh, That hardly lifts the drooping flower, To the wild whirlwind's midnight cryBring forth the language of Thy power. God of the fair and open sky! How gloriously above us springs FORTY REASONS FOR NOT ACCEPTING AN INVITATION OF A FRIENE TO MAKE AN EXCURSION WITH HIM. 'HE hollow winds begin to blow; 2 The clouds look black, the glass is low, 3 The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, 4 And spiders from their cobwebs peep. 5 Last night the sun went pale to bed, 6 The moon in halos hid her head; 7 The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, 8 For see, a rainbow spans the sky! 9 The walls are damp, the ditches smell, 10 Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel. II Hark how the chairs and table crack! 12 Old Betty's nerves are on the rack; 13 Loud quacks the duck, the peacocks cry, 14 The distant hills are seeming nigh, 15 How restless are the snorting swine! 16 The busy flies disturb the kine, 17 Low o'er the grass the swallow wings, 18 The cricket, too, how sharp he sings! 19 Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws, 20 Sits wiping o'er her whiskered jaws; 21 Through the clear streams the fishes rise, 22 And nimbly catch the incautious flies. 23 The glow-worms, numerous and light, 24 Illumed the dewy dell last night; 25 At dusk the squalid toad was seen, 26 Hopping and crawling o'er the green; 27 The whirling dust the wind obeys, 28 And in the rapid eddy plays; 29 The frog has changed his yellow vest, 35 And see yon rooks, how odd their flight! 36 They imitate the gliding kite, 37 And seem precipitate to fall, 39 'T will surely rain; I see with sorrow BEFORE THE RAIN. E knew it would rain, for all the morn, Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens― To sprinkle them over the land in showers. We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed AFTER THE RAIN. HE rain has ceased, and in my room THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. THE ANGLER'S WISH. 'N these flowery meads would be, Sit here, and see the turtle-dove, Here, hear my Kenna sing a song, There, see a blackbird feed her young, Or a laverock build her nest; Here give my weary spirits rest, And raise my low-pitched thoughts above Earth, or what poor mortals love: Thus free from lawsuits, and the noise Of princes' courts, I would rejoice: Or with my Bryan and a book, Loiter long days near Shawford Brook; There sit by him, and eat my meat, There see the sun both rise and set; There bid good-morning to next day; There meditate my time away; And angle on, and beg to have APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN. 'HERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods, I love not man the less, but nature more, What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan— Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. And I have loved thee, ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror- 'twas a pleasing For I was, as it were, a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here. LORD BYRON. SUNSET AT NORHAM CASTLE AY set on Norham's castled steep, And Tweed's fair river broad and deep, The battled towers, the donjon keep, The warriors on the turrets high, Seemed forms of giant height; St. George's banner, broad and gay, Less bright, and less, was flung; The scouts had parted on their search, Above the gloomy portal arch, The warder kept his guard, A distant tramping sound he hears ; Beneath a pennon gay; A horseman, darting from the crowd, Beneath the sable palisade, SIR WALTER SCOTT. THE ICEBERG. 'WAS night-our anchored vessel slept Out on the glassy sea; And still as heaven the waters kept, The setting sun, went sinking slow Beneath the eternal wave; And the ocean seemed a pall to throw There was no motion of the air To raise the sleeper's tress, And no wave-building winds were there But ocean mingled with the sky That vainly strove the 'wildered eye And ne'er a ripple of the sea Save when some timorous fish stole out All over the resting main, He would sink beneath the wave, and dart Yet, while we gazed, that sunny eve, Across the twinkling deep, A form came ploughing the golden wave, It blushed bright red, while growing on But it wandered down with its glow of light, It seemed like molten silver, thrown And as we looked, we named it then, And the hues of a full-blown rose. And the vivid green, as the sun-lit grass They beamed full clear-and that form moved on, And we dared not think it a real thing, But for the rustling wave. The sun just lingered in our view, From the burning edge of ocean, When by our bark that bright one passed The far down waters shrank away, Yet, as it passed our bending stern, It crushed on a hidden rock, and turned The uptorn waves rolled hoar—and, huge, Swelled out in the sun's last, lingering smile, And fell like battling nations. J. O. ROCKWELL, MOUNT WASHINGTON; THE LOFTIEST PEAK OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. OUNT of the clouds, on whose Olympian height The tall rocks brighten in the ether air, And spirits from the skies come down at night, To chant immortal songs to freedom there! Thine is the rock of other regions; where The world of life which blooms so far below Sweeps a wide waste: no gladdening scenes appear, Save where, with silvery flash, the waters flow Beneath the far off mountain, distant, calm, and slow. Thine is the summit where the clouds repose, And, when the tumult of the air is fled, Mount of the clouds, when winter round thee throws Sublime, amid thy canopy of snows, Thy towers in bright magnificence appear! 'Tis then we view thee with a chilling fear Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue; When, lo! in softened grandeur, far, yet clear, Thy battlements stand clothed in heaven's own hue, To swell as freedom's home on man's unbounded view. GRENVILLE Mellen. How beauteous must have been the glow, Of the warm west-as if inlaid Banqueting, through the flowery vales,→ And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine, And woods, so full of nightingales! Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles: 'tis nought to me; Since God is ever present, ever felt, In the void waste, as in the city full; Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise, |