prayers, And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth I' the midst of roses. SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. LYING. This hand would lead thee, listen! A deep DO confess, in many a sigh, vale My lips have breathed you many a lie; And who, with such delights in view, Would lose them for a lie or two? Nay! Look not thus, with brow reproving; Astronomy must leave the skies you Or I for you, as, night and morn, And now, my gentle hints to clear, THOMAS MOORE. WOODS IN SPRING. AIL, Source of being! Uni- When first the soul of Love is sent abroad Warm through the vital air, and on the versal Soul Of heaven and earth, essen tial Presence, hail! heart Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin In gallant thought to plume the painted wing, To thee I bend the knee, to In gallant perfection touched. By thee the various vegetative tribes, Wrapped in a filmy net and clad with leaves, Draw the live ether and imbibe the dew; By thee disposed into congenial soils Stands each attractive plant, and sucks and swells The juicy tide, a twining mass of tubes; As rising from the vegetable world My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend, My panting Muse; and hark! how loud the woods Invite you forth in all your gayest trim! And try again the long-forgotten strain Ere yet the shadows fly, he, mounting, sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls the tuneful nations. Every copse up Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Superior heard, run through the sweetest length Of notes when listening Philomela deigns The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove; Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowing furze Poured out profusely, silent. Joined to these, Innumerous songsters in the freshening shade Of new-sprung leaves their modulations mix | Others apart far in the grassy dale A melancholy murmur through the whole. 'Tis love creates their melody, and all arts Of pleasing teaches; hence the glossy kind With distant awe in airy rings they rove, seem Softening the least approvance to bestow, Retire disordered; then again approach, Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods Their food its insects and its moss their nests; weave; But most in woodland solitudes delight, When by kind duty fixed. Among the roots Dry sprigs of trees in artful fabric laid But restless hurry through the busy air, sweeps The slimy pool, to build his hanging house Steal from the barn a straw, till soft and warm, Clean and complete, their habitation grows. As thus the patient dam assiduous sits, her blows, Her sympathizing lover takes his stand The tedious time away, or else supplies time With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young, Warmed and expanded into perfect life, Their brittle bondage break and come to light A helpless family demanding food Be not the Muse ashamed here to bemoan Her brothers of the grove by tyrant man Inhuman caught and in the narrow cage With constant clamor. Oh what passions From liberty confined, and boundless air. then, young; What melting sentiments of kindly care, Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull, Ragged and all its brightening lustre lost; Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes Which clear and vigorous warbles from the beech. Oh, then, ye friends of love and love-taught song, Spare the soft tribes, this barbarous art forbear, And charmed with cares beyond the vulgar If on your bosom Innocence can win, Of wandering swain the white-winged plover And yet whose tongue, when all is done, wheels Her sounding flight, and then directly on To tempt him from her nest. The wild duck, hence, Will tell thy worth? The poet's! He alone doth still Then love the poet-love his themes, O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless His thoughts, half hid in golden dreams, And later joys, like autumn flowers, Thy stream of life glides calmly on, The turbid waves of mine: Joy's sunshine on my brow, Thine scarce can be a happier doom Than I might boast of now. ALARIC A. WATTS. AN IDEAL WOMAN. SHE was my peer No weakling girl who would surrender will Her womanhood; had spread before her feet Had won a faith to which her life was brought In strict adjustment, brain and heart meanwhile Working in conscious harmony and rhythm With the great scheme of God's great universe On toward her being's end. DR. J. G HOLLAND. |