Their shattered leaves all recklessly,
Nor left a bud behind!
Well let them go! if we have walked
O'er green and flowery lawns,
Oh! let us murmur not, though now
Our path is thick with thorns!
How brimming was the revel-cup
We lifted to our lip
In early time-but, oh! how brief
Our spirits' fellowship
With sunny hours and bursting flowers,
And Eden-colored things!
How quickly came the dimness o'er
Our bright imaginings!
The sunlight hath departed,
And the tempest broodeth now
Above our path! I fear it not-
Katrinah! fearest thou?
Nay! let it burst !-for we have lived
Till Life's delights are gone-
And what on earth should tempt us now
To live and linger on ?
THE LAZY MIST.
THE lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,
Concealing the course of the dark winding rill;
How languid the scenes late so sprightly appear,
As autumn to winter resigns the pale year.
The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,
And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,-
How quick time is flying, how keer fate pur-
sues!
How long I have lived-but how much lived in vain!
How little of life's scanty span may remain! What aspects old Time in his progress has worn! What ties cruel fate in my bosom has torn!
How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd! And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how pain'd!
This life's not worth having with all it can giveFor something beyond it poor man sure must live. ROBERT BUrns.
34 BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES.
BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES.
I NEVER see a young hand hold
The starry bunch of white and gold,
But something warm and fresh will start
About the region of my heart.
My smile expires into a sigh,
I feel a struggling in the eye,
"Twixt humid drop and sparkling ray,
Till rolling tears have won their way;
For soul and brain will travel back
Through memory's chequered mazes,
To days when I but trod life's track
For buttercups and daisies.
Tell me, ye men of wisdom rare,
Of sober speech and silver hair,
Who carry counsel, wise and sage,
With all the gravity of age;
Oh! say, do ye not like to hear
The accents ringing in your ear,
When sportive urchins laugh and shout,
Tossing their precious flowers about,
Springing with bold and gleesome bound,
Proclaiming joy that crazes,
And chorussing the magic sound
Of buttercups and daisies?
BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES. 33
Are there, I ask, beneath the sky
Blossoms that knit so strong a tie
With childhood's love? Can any please
Or light the infant eye like these?
No, no! there's not a bud on earth,
Of richest tint or warmest birth,
Can ever fling such zeal and zest
Into the tiny hand and breast.
Who does not recollect the hours
When burning words and praises
Were lavished on those shining flowers,
Buttercups and daisies ?
There seems a bright and fairy spell
About their very names to dwell;
And though old Time has marked my brow
With care and thought, I love them now.
Smile, if ye will, but some heart-strings
Are closest linked to simplest things;
And these wild flowers will hold mine fast,
Till love, and life, and all be past.
And then the only wish I have
Is that the one who raises
The turf sod o'er me, plant my grave
With buttercups and daisies.
THIS is my birth-day! Twenty five years old! Methinks I stand midway between two deathsThe one, which was before my birth-the other, That which ere long will wrap me in its shades. And standing thus, how many thoughts spring forth
(Even as stars, watching the eclipsed moon,
Swarm out in heaven)-into the dark abyss
Which time has made my heart. It is not long
That I have walked the pathways of the world;
And yet the shadowy phantoms of dead hopes,
Withered affections and unnurtured love,
Throng round my path and in the memory-
(Even as glooms that throng around the stars,)
Making life dark, a lightless wilderness.
* * * * * * * *
Alas for my unsandalled feet! They bleed, Pierced by the thorns which strew the paths of life.
I rushed into my youth with burning hopes,
High aspirations after starry Fame.
The hopes which were the planets that did light
My life, are gone-for Time has hidden them
With the pale shadow of his stern eclipse.
And I have wandered many a day and long
Amid the world--and tried its friendship well;
And I have struggled with cold poverty,
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