Or listened to the bird of night,

The minstrel of the star-light hours, Companion of the fire-fly's flight,

Cool dews, and closed flowers;

But deemed that spirits of the air

Had left their native homes in heaven,

And that the music warbled there

To earth awhile was given?

For with that music came the thought
That life's young purity was theirs,
And love, all artless, and untaught,
Breathed in their woodland airs.

And when, sweet boy! thy baby fingers Wake sounds of heaven's own harmony, How welcome is the thought that lingers Upon thy lyre and thee!

It calls up visions of past days,
When life was infancy and song

To us, and old remembered lays,
Unheard, unheeded long;

Revive in joy or grief within us,

Like lost friends wakened from their sleep,

With all their early power to win us

Alike to smile or weep.

And when we gaze upon that face,
Blooming in innocence and truth,
And mark its dimpled artlessness,
Its beauty and its youth;

We think of better worlds than this,
Of other beings pure as thou,

Who breathe, on winds of Paradise,

Music as thine is now.

And know the only emblem meet

Of that pure Faith the heart adores, To be a child like thee, whose feet

Are strangers on Life's shores.

Or listened to the bird of night,

The minstrel of the star-light hours, Companion of the fire-fly's flight,

Cool dews, and closed flowers;

But deemed that spirits of the air

Had left their native homes in heaven,

And that the music warbled there

To earth awhile was given?

For with that music came the thought
That life's young purity was theirs,
And love, all artless, and untaught,
Breathed in their woodland airs.

And when, sweet boy! thy baby fingers Wake sounds of heaven's own harmony, How welcome is the thought that lingers Upon thy lyre and thee!

It calls up visions of past days,
When life was infancy and song

To us, and old remembered lays,
Unheard, unheeded long;

Revive in joy or grief within us,

Like lost friends wakened from their sleep,

With all their early power to win us

Alike to smile or weep.

And when we gaze upon that face,
Blooming in innocence and truth,
And mark its dimpled artlessness,
Its beauty and its youth;

We think of better worlds than this,
Of other beings pure as thou,
Who breathe, on winds of Paradise,
Music as thine is now.

And know the only emblem meet
Of that pure Faith the heart adores,
To be a child like thee, whose feet

Are strangers on Life's shores.

NOTES.

(1) P. 4-ALNWICK CASTLE, Northumberlandshire, a seat of the Duke of Northumberland. Written in October, 1822.

From him who once his standard set.-Page 6.

(2) One of the ancestors of the Percy family was an Emperor of Constantinople.

Fought for King George at Lexington.-Page 6.

(3) The late Duke. He commanded one of the detachments of the British army, in the affair at Lexington and Concord, in 1775.

From royal Berwick's beach of sand.—Page 7.

Berwick was formerly a Principality. Richard II. was styled, "King of England, France and Ireland, and Berwick-upon-Tweed." She has now some small renown, a kind of six-mile-fame, for her salmon fishery. This exchange of the past for the present, however inglorious, is, as times go, not a bad one. Her princely title was, I believe, never worth much-her salmon are excellent.

(4) P. 10.-MARCO BozzARIS, the Epaminondas of modern Greece.-He fell in a night attack upon the Turkish Camp at Laspi, the site of the ancient Platæa, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of victory. His last words were " To die for liberty is a pleasure and not a pain.