Whilst we who make the world our home,
'To softer climes impatient roam,
Where Summer, still on some green isle,
Rests, with her sweet and lovely smile.
Thus speeding, far and far away,
We leave behind the shortening day."

""Tis true, (the red-breast answered meek,)
No other scenes I ask, or seek;
To every change alike resigned,

I fear not the cold winter's wind.
When spring returns, the circling year
Shall find me still contented here;
But whilst my warm affections rest
Within the circle of my nest,
I learn to pity those that roam,
And love the more my humble home."

AN

IMPERFECT PORTRAIT.

THERE is an hour by favouring heaven
To memory and to fancy given,
An hour of joy that not in smiles
But in a tear its warmth beguiles,—
An hour when earth and heaven are still,
And dewy vale and clouded hill,
And rustling grove and misty plain,
Are sunk in midnight's silent reign,
A deep repose that nothing breaks :
Creation sleeps-the spirit wakes.

A vision meets me in that hour,

A fairy form by fancy given,

Whose truth would task the extremest power, The utmost plastic skill of heaven ;—

It is not that the modelled form

Is ripe with beauty purely warm;
It is not that the eyes are bright
As stars in oriental night;

Nor that the golden locks are flowing
By cheeks with beauty's blushes glowing;
Whose eloquence, not heard but seen,
Speaks the mind's loveliness within:

It is not these though these alone

Might make the sternest hearts their own:
These as an index but reveal

The dearer charms the heart may feel.
The riches of the faultless mind,

From every earthly taint refined;

The heart-born smile, the winning ease,
The never-failing power to please,
And Charity's mild silent tear,

That dims but makes the eye more dear:
These breathe in beauty's every trace,
And lend new life to every grace,
As perfumes closed the vase within
Give worth to that they're buried in.

And was it but a visioned beam-
A fancied form-a pictured dream?
On earth has no such image stood
Of such a bright similitude?

I asked-if there was one like this;
And hope and memory answered-Yes!

W. H. A.

ALINE LORRAINE.

My mother had a maid called Barbara:
She was in love; and he she loved forsook her.
She had a song of Willow;

An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune,
And she died singing it.

Othello.

"I'm never merry when I hear sweet music;" and it was at such a time, and in such a frame of mind, that I first saw Aline Lorraine. One evening, soon after my arrival in Lyons, I had crossed the noble bridge which leads to the suburb de la Guillotiere; and wandered about, in the soft twilight, with that heedlessness of purpose, and in that soothed state of feeling, which are the natural influences of such an hour. I left the river and the suburb behind me, and followed, almost unconsciously, a direction from which the sound of merriment came faintly on my ear. The path which I pursued wound through a little thicket of fragrant shrubs and tangled underwood; sheltered beneath the shade of tall pines, along whose stems the wild vine and jasmine twined in rival luxuriance; and interspersed with little copses of laurels and laburnums. The sounds of light

hearted laughter became more frequent and distinct as I advanced; and the cause and scene of it were revealed, as I emerged from the shaded road which I had hitherto followed, into the bright moonlight. In front of me arose a group of scattered hills, covered, to their summits, with the beauty of the vintage harvest; and dotted with tall elms, along whose boughs the graceful tendrills, rich with their purple clusters, were trained, in picturesque beauty and fantastic forms. On the green slope of one of these rising grounds lay a small hamlet; with its white walls relieved against their dark back-ground, and its little spire just seen above a grove of limes. On the smooth sward in front of the village, youths and girls were dancing to the sound of the flageolet; and the bursts of mirth which had attracted me proceeded from a group of children, who were laughing and shouting in the irrepressible glee of their young hearts, and the mystery of their joy, so incomprehensible to all but themselves.

There are moments when the heart takes a tone of utter repugnance to even the sounds of happiness; against which it is, for the time, vain to contend. The very effort to shake off the oppressive feeling, but increases its power over us; and I have, long since, learned to yield to an evil, against which I have ever found it hopeless to struggle. Solitude is never so solitary as in the midst of crowds; and sadness is