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Here have seen, as now, pass by,
King-fisher, and dragon-fly;

Those bright things that have their dwelling,
Where the little streams are welling.

Down in valleys green and lowly,
Murmuring not and gliding slowly;
Up in mountain-hollows wild,
Fretting like a peevish child;
Through the hamlet, where all day
In their waves the children play;
Running west, or running east,
Doing good to man and beast-
Always giving, weary never,
Little streams, I love you ever.

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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;
And o'er the pebbles leaps,
Like happy hearts by holiday made light.

May not its course express,

In characters which they who run may read,
The charms of gentleness,

Were but its still small voice allowed to plead

What are the trophies gained
By power, alone, with all its noise and strife,

To that meek wreath, unstained,
Won by the charides that gladden life?

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
heaven

Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent.
At first, a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether, but by swift degrees,
In heaps on heaps the doubled vapor sails
Along the loaded sky, and, mingling deep,
Sits on the horizon round, a settled gloom;
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope, of every joy,

The wish of nature. Gradual sinks the breeze
Into a perfect calm, that not a breath

Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods diffused
In glassy breadth, seem, through delusive lapse,
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye
The falling verdure. Hushed in short suspense,
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off,
And wait the approaching sign, to strike at once
Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,
And forests, seem impatient to demand
The promised sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise
And looking lively gratitude. At last

The clouds consign their treasures to the fields,
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow
In large effusion o'er the freshened world.
The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard
By such as wander through the forest walks,
Beneath the umbrageous multitude of leaves.
JAMES THOMSON,

THE ANGLER'S SONG.

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How vast the mossy forest-halls,

Silent, and full of gloom!
Through the high roof the daybeam falls,
Like torch-light in a tomb.
The old trunks of trees rise round

Like pillars in a church or old,
And the wind fills them with a sound
As if a bell were tolled.

Where falls the noisy stream,

In many a bubble bright,
Along whose grassy margin gleam
Flowers gaudy to the sight,
There silently I stand,

Watching my angle play,
And eagerly draw to the land
My speckled prey.

Oft, ere the carrion bird has left

His eyrie, the dead tree,

Or ere the eagle's wing hath cleft
The cloud in heaven's blue sea,

Or ere the lark's swift pinion speeds
To meet the misty day,

My foot hath shaken the bending reeds,
My rod sought out its prey.

And when the twilight, with a blush
Upon her cheek, goes by,

And evening's universal hush
Fuls all the darkened sky,
And steadily the tapers burn

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 !
Each brilliant star, that sparkles through,
Each gilded cloud, that wanders free
In evening's purple radiance, gives
The beauty of its praise to Thee.
God of the rolling orbs above!

Thy name is written clearly bright
In the warm day's unvarying blaze,
Or evening's golden shower of light.
For every fire that fronts the sun,

And every spark that walks alone
Around the utmost verge of heaven,

Were kindled at Thy burning throne.

God of the world! the hour must come
And nature's self to dust return ;
Her crumbling altars must decay;

Her incense-fires shall cease to burn;
But still her grand and lovely scenes

Have made man's warmest praises flow;

For hearts grow holier as they trace
The beauty of the world below.

WILLIAM B. PEABODY.

SIGNS OF RAIN.

ISAAC MCLELLAN,

HYMN OF NATURE.

OD of the earth's extended plains!

The dark green fields contented lie:
The mountains rise like holy towers,

Where the man might commune with the
sky:

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!
Where the summer breezes sweetly flow,
Or, gathering in their angry might,

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,
30 And in a russet coat is dressed.
31 Though June, the air is cold and still,
32 The mellow blackbird's voice is shrill;
33 My dog, so altered in his taste,
34 Quits mutton-bones on grass to feast;

35 And see yon rooks, how odd their flight! 36 They imitate the gliding kite,

37 And seem precipitate to fall,
38 As if they felt the piercing ball.

39 'T will surely rain; I see with sorrow
40 Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow.
EDWARD JENNER.

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BEFORE THE RAIN.

E knew it would rain, for all the morn,
A spirit on slender ropes of mist
Was lowering its golden buckets down
Into the vapory amethyst

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens―
Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,
Dipping the jewels out of the sea,

To sprinkle them over the land in showers.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed
The white of their leaves, the amber grain
Shrunk in the wind-and the lightning now
Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

AFTER THE RAIN.

HE rain has ceased, and in my room
The sunshine pours an airy flood;
And on the church's dizzy vane
The ancient cross is bathed in blood.
From out the dripping ivy-leaves,
Antiquely carven, gray and high,
A dormer, facing westward, looks
Upon the village like an eye:
And now it glimmers in the sun,
A square of gold, a disk, a speck:
And in the belfry sits a dove
With purple ripples on her neck.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

THE ANGLER'S WISH.

'N these flowery meads would be,
These crystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise,
I with my angle would rejoice,

Sit here, and see the turtle-dove,
Court his chaste mate to acts of love:
Or on that bank, feel the west wind
Breathe health and plenty, please my mind
To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers,
And then wash off by April showers:

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
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.
IZAAK WALTON.

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN.

'HERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore.
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar ;

I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own;
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan— Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole; or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of eternity-the throne

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.

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SUNSET AT NORHAM CASTLE

AY set on Norham's castled steep,

And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;

The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loop-hole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.

The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,

Seemed forms of giant height;
Their armor, as it caught the rays,
Flashed back again the western blaze
In lines of dazzling light.

St. George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray

Less bright, and less, was flung;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the donjon tower,
So heavily it hung.

The scouts had parted on their search,
The castle gates were barred;

Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,

The warder kept his guard,
Low humming, as he paced along,
Some ancient border-gathering song.

A distant tramping sound he hears ;
He looks abroad and soon appears,
O'er Horncliff hill, a plump of spears

Beneath a pennon gay;

A horseman, darting from the crowd,
Like lightning from a summer cloud,
Spurs on his mettled courser proud,
Before the dark array.

Beneath the sable palisade,
That closed the castle barricade,
His bugle-horn he blew;
The warder hasted from the wall,
And warned the captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew;
And joyfully that knight did call
To sewer, squire, and seneschal.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THE ICEBERG.

'WAS night-our anchored vessel slept

Out on the glassy sea;

And still as heaven the waters kept,
And golden bright—as he,

The setting sun, went sinking slow

Beneath the eternal wave;

And the ocean seemed a pall to throw
Over the monarch's grave.

There was no motion of the air

To raise the sleeper's tress,

And no wave-building winds were there
On ocean's loveliness;

But ocean mingled with the sky
With such an equal hue,

That vainly strove the 'wildered eye
To part their gold and blue.

And ne'er a ripple of the sea
Came on our steady gaze,

Save when some timorous fish stole out
To bathe in the woven blaze-
When, flouting in the light that played

All over the resting main,

He would sink beneath the wave, and dart
To his deep, blue home again.

Yet, while we gazed, that sunny eve,

Across the twinkling deep,

A form came ploughing the golden wave,
And rending its holy sleep;

It blushed bright red, while growing on
Our fixed, half-fearful gaze ;

But it wandered down with its glow of light,
And its robe of sunny rays.

It seemed like molten silver, thrown
Together in floating flame;

And as we looked, we named it then,
The fount whence all colors came :
There were rainbows furled with a careless grace,
And the brightest red that glows;
The purple amethyst there had place,

And the hues of a full-blown rose.

And the vivid green, as the sun-lit grass
Where the pleasant rain hath been;
And the ideal hues, that, thought-like, pass
Through the minds of fanciful men ;

They beamed full clear-and that form moved on,
Like one from a burning grave;

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
With a deep, disturbing motion:

The far down waters shrank away,
With a gurgling rush upheaving,
And the lifted waves grew pale and sad,
Their mother's bosom leaving.

Yet, as it passed our bending stern,
In its throne-like glory going,

It crushed on a hidden rock, and turned
Like an empire's overthrowing.

The uptorn waves rolled hoar—and, huge,
The far-thrown undulations

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,
Or, eddying wildly, round thy cliffs are borne ;
When tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws
His billowy mist amid the thunder's home!
Far down the deep ravines the whirlwinds come,
And bow the forests as they sweep along ;
While, roaring deeply from their rocky womb,
The storms come forth—and, hurrying darkly on,
Amid the echoing peaks, the revelry prolong!

And, when the tumult of the air is fled,
And quenched in silence all the tempest flame,
There come the dim forms of the mighty dead,
Around the steep which bears the hero's name.
The stars look down upon them-and the same
Pale orb that glistens o'er his distant grave,
Gleams on the summit that enshrines his fame,
And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave—
The richest, purest tear, that memory ever gave!

Mount of the clouds, when winter round thee throws
The hoary mantle of the dying year,

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.

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How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, how sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sunlight falls;
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruined shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;
And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich, restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam

Of the warm west-as if inlaid
With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span
The unclouded skies of Peristan !
And then, the mingling sounds that com、
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,

Banqueting, through the flowery vales,→ And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine, And woods, so full of nightingales!

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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;
And where he vital breathes, there must be joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey: there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where universal love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns,
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in him, in light ineffable;

Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise,
JAMES THOMSON.

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