MELROSE ABBEY.

Will crush thee! What! dost thou not move?
Alas! thou art stiffened and dead!
Allured by the brightness of day,

To sink 'mid the shadows of night,
Too far from the cote thou didst stray,
And sadly hast ended thy flight!
For, thus, with the snow at thy breast,

With thy wing folded close to thy side,
And couched in the semblance of rest,
Alone of the cold thou hast died!

Poor Bird! thou hast pictured the fate
Of many in life's sunny day,
Who, trusting, have found but too late,
How fortune can smile to betray.
How oft, for illusions that shine
In a cold and a pitiless world,
Bewildered and palsied, like thine,

Has the wing of the spirit been furled.

The heart the most tender and light,

In its warmth to the earth has been thrown, With the chill of adversity's night,

To suffer and perish alone.

MELROSE ABBEY.

If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;

For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild but to flout the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,

And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;

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When buttress and buttress alternately

Seem framed of ebon and ivory;

When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;

When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,

Then go, but go alone the while-
Then view St. David's ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair!

THE TURKEY AND THE ANT.

A FABLE.

In other men we faults can spy,

And blame the mote that dims their eye,
Each little speck and blemish find;
To our own stronger errors blind.

A turkey, tired of common food,

Forsook the barn, and sought the wood;
Behind her ran an infant train,

Collecting here and there a grain.

"Draw near, my birds," the mother cries,
"This hill delicious fare supplies.

Behold the busy creeping race,
See millions blacken all the place!
Fear not, like me with freedom eat;
An ant is most delightful meat.
How blessed, how envied were our life,
Could we but 'scape the poulterer's knife!
But man, harsh man, on turkeys preys,
And Christmas shortens all our days ;-

CHANGE.

Sometimes with oysters we combine,
Sometimes assist the savory chine.
From the low peasant to the lord,
The turkey smokes on every board.
Sure men for gluttony are curst,
Of the seven deadly sins the worst."

An ant who climbed beyond his reach,
Thus answered from the neighboring beech:
"Ere you remark another's sin,

Bid thy own conscience look within.
Control thy more voracious bill,

Nor for a breakfast nations kill."

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CHANGE.

THE wind is sweeping o'er the hill,
It hath a mournful sound,
As if it felt the difference

Its weary wing hath found.

A little while that wandering wind
Swept over leaf and flower :
For there was green for every tree,
And bloom for every hour.

It wandered through the pleasant wood,
And caught the dove's lone song;

And by the garden beds, and bore

The rose's breath along.

But hoarse and sullenly it sweeps ;

No rose is open now

No music, for the wood-dove's nest
Is vacant on the bough.

Oh, human heart and wandering wind,

Go look upon the past;

The likeness is the same with each,

Their summer did not last.

Each mourns above the things it loved

One o'er a flower and leaf;
The other over hopes and joys,
Whose beauty was as brief.

A LION and a Bear meeting with the carcass of a Fawn in the forest, agreed to decide their title to it by force of arms. The battle was severe and tough on both sides; and they held out, tearing and worrying one another so long, that what with wounds and fatigue, they were so faint and weary they were not

able to strike another blow. Thus, while they lay upon the ground, panting and lolling out their tongues, a Fox chanced to pass that way, who, perceiving how the case stood, impudently stepped in between them, seized the booty, which they had been all this while contending for, and carried it off.

The two combatants, who lay and beheld all this, without having strength enough to stir and prevent it, were only wise enough to make this reflection :"Behold the fruits of our strife and contention! That villain, the Fox, bears away the prize; and we ourselves have deprived each other of the power to recover it of him."

MORAL.

When fools quarrel, knaves get the prize of contention.

VENICE.

THERE is a glorious city in the sea;

The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets
Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea-weed
Clings to the marble of her palaces.
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro,
Lead to her gates. The path lies o'er the sea,
Invisible; and from the land we went,
As to a floating city-steering in,
And gliding up her streets as in a dream,
So smoothly, silently-by many a dome
Mosque-like, and many a stately portico,
The statues ranged along an azure sky;
By many a pile in more than eastern splendor,