Above and around to breathe of life,
Or to mingle the earth and sky in strife;
Gently to whisper, with morning light,
Yet to growl, like a fetter'd fiend, ere night;
Or to love, and cherish, and bless, to-day,
What to-morrow it ruthlessly rends away
Strange, that the sun should call into birth
All the fairest flowers and fruits of the earth,
Then bid them perish, and sce them die,
While they cheer the soul and gladden the eye.
At morn, its child is the pride of spring,
At night a shrivelled and loathsome thing!
To-day there is hope and life in its breath,
To-morrow it shrinks to a useless death.
Strange doth it seem that the sun should joy
To give life, alone, that it may destroy.

Strange that the ocean should come and go,
With its daily and nightly ebb and flow-
Should bear on its placid bosom at morn
The bark that, ere night, will be tempest-torn ;
Or cherish it all the way it must roam,
To leave it a wreck within sight of home;
To smile, as the mariner's toils are o'er,
Then wash the dead to the cottage door;
And gently ripple along the strand,
To watch the widow behold him land!

But, stranger than all, that man should die
When his plans are form'd and his hopes are high;
He walks forth a lord of the earth to-day,
And the morrow beholds him part of its clay;
He is born in sorrow, and cradled in pain,
And from youth to age—it is labour in vain ;
And all that seventy years can show
Is that wealth is trouble, and wisdom woe;
That he travels a path of care and strife
Who drinks of the poison'd cup of life!

Alas! if we murmur at things like these,
That reflection tells us are wise decrees;

That the wind is not ever a gentle breath-
That the sun is often the bearer of death-
That the ocean-wave is not always still-
And that life is chequered with good and ill:
If we know 'tis well that such change should be,
What do we learn from the things we see?
That an erring and sinning child of dust

Should not wonder nor murmur-but hope and trust!

Hall.

WINTER.

It amazes us, at this season of the year, as we walk abroad, to conceive where can have concealed themselves the infinite variety of creatures that sported through the air, earth, and waters of summer. Birds, insects, reptiles, whither are they all gone? The birds that filled the air with their music, the rich blackbird, the loud and cheerful thrush, the linnet, lark, and goldfinch, whither have they crept? The squirrel that played his antics on the forest tree; and all the showy and varied tribes of butterflies, moths, dragon-flies, beetles, wasps, and warrior hornets, bees, and cockchaffers, whither have they fled? Some, no doubt, have lived out their little term of being, and their bodies, lately so splendid, active, and alive to a thousand instincts, feelings, and propensities, are become part and parcel of the dull and wintry soil; but the greater portion have shrunk into the hollows of trees and rocks, and into the bosom of their mother earth itself, where, with millions of seeds, and roots, and buds, they live in the great treasury of Nature, ready at the call of a more auspicious season, to people the world once more with beauty and delight.

The heavens present one of the most prominent and splendid beauties of winter. The long and total absence of the sun's light, and the transparent purity of a frosty atmosphere, give an apparent elevation to the celestial concave, and a rich depth and intensity of azure, in which the stars burn with resplendent beauty; the galaxy stretches its albescent glow athwart the northern sky, and the moon, in her monthly track, sails amongst the glittering con

stellations with a more queenly grace; sometimes without the visitation of a single cloud, and at others, seeming to catch from their wind-winged speed an accelerated motion of her own. It is a spectacle of which the contemplative eye is never weary; though it is one, of all others, which fills the mind with feelings of the immensity of the universe, of the tremendous power of its Creator, and of the insignificance of self. A breathing atom, a speck, even upon the surface of a world, which is itself a speck in the universal world, we send our imagination forth amongst innumerable orbs, all stupendous in magnitude, all swarming with existence, vainly striving to reach the boundaries of space, till, astonished and confounded, it recoils from the hopeless task, aching, dazzled, and humbled to the dust. What a weary sense attends the attempt of a finite being to grasp infinity! Space beyond space! space beyond space still! There is nothing for the mind to rest its wearied wing upon, and it shrinks back into its material cell, in adoration and humility. Such are the feelings and speculations which have attended the human spirit in all ages, in contemplating this magnificent spectacle. David has beautifully expressed their effect upon him; "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?"-Howitt.

AUTUMN.

To you the beauties of the autumnal year
Make mournful emblems, and you think of man
Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirit broke,
Bending beneath the burden of his years,
Sense dull'd and fretful, full of aches and pains,
Yet clinging still to life. To me they show
The calm decay of nature, when the mind
Retains its strength, and in the languid eye
Religion's holy hopes kindle a joy

That makes old age look lovely. All to you

Is dark and cheerless; you, in this fair world,
See some destroying principle abroad.
Air, earth, and water, full of living things,
Each on the other preying; and the ways
Of man, a strange, perplexing labyrinth,
Where crimes and miseries, each producing each,
Render life loathsome, and destroy the hope

That should in death bring comfort. Oh, my friend,
That thy faith were as mine! that thou could'st see
Death still producing life, and evil still

Working its own destruction; could'st behold
The strifes and tumults of this troubled world,
With the strong eye that sees the promised day
Dawn through this night of tempest! all things then
Would minister to joy; then should thine heart
Be healed and harmonized, and thou should'st feel
God, always, every where, and all in all.-Southey.

EMPLOYMENT.

It should be always considered the duty of women to be well and actively employed; and there is ample field for the most diligent. Let not, therefore, those who waste their time in doing nothing-who sit at home in indolence, reading a novel, or drawing a flower, or embroidering a work bag excuse their own inertness by the officiousness of others. The one is far more defensible than the other: the one may be moderated or corrected, and its intention is its apology; but the other must be wholly overcome, for its principle is bad. The higher the rank, and the greater the wealth, the more important it is that sympathy should be expressed, and charity exercised. Young women, of whatever degree, should never shrink from personal effort. Neither should they think, when they do enter a cottage, or teach a school, that it is an act of condescension. It is certainly very right in them to be so employed, but it is an honour to them, too; and they should ever remember that the greatest privilege that at taches to superiority of any kind, is to render its inferiors happy and at ease.

There is, perhaps, a greater sense of the duty now than there ever was. And, if so, why should there not be more effort? Why should not societies be every where established for the relief of the poor, and the sick; and individual charity be thus concentrated and applied? In the detail of such societies, the assistance of women would often prove very valuable. They would not be appointed to the most laborious, or the most responsible offices; they would not be sent into districts where it is scarcely fit for modest women to appear; but they would be directed in all cases of difficulty; and instead of rambling about on a philanthropic crusade, they would have an assigned sphere of usefulness, and a proper and subordinate duty. The sweet Quakeress has shown what a woman can do: there would be found many such, if they were only judiciously called into action-Mrs. Sandford.

THE FLOWER AND THE WILLOW.

A LOVELY flower of rainbow hue
Beneath a weeping willow grew,
But discontent proved its vexation;
It murmur'd at its situation.

While passion shook its blushing head,
It to the weeping willow said:—
"See how I'm shaded here by you;
My lovely charms are hid from view:
Beauties like mine would surely grace
An open and conspicuous place.
Why, in this lonely shade, must I
Unnotic'd bloom, unnotic'd die?"

The goddess, from her fragrant bower,
O'erheard the discontented flower;
And straightway she its wishes granted:
'Twas to another place transplanted.
Beneath the sun's resplendent ray,
Its charms were wither'd in a day,
The willow that had been its aid,
Surveyed the change, and thus she said :-