THE VANITY OF THE VULGAR GREAT.

STAY, thou ambitious rill,

Ignoble offering of some fount impure!
Beneath the rugged hill,

Gloomy with shade, thou hadst thy birth obscure;
With faint steps issuing slow,

In scanty waves among the rocks to flow.

Fling not abroad thy spray,

Nor fiercely lash the green turf at thy side!
What though indulgent May

With liquid snows hath swoln thy foaming tide?
August will follow soon,

To still thy boastings with his scorching noon.

Lo! calmly through the vale

The Po, the king of rivers, sweeps along;

Yet many a mighty sail

Bears on his breast proud vessels, swift and strong.

Nor from the meadow's side

'Neath summer's sun recedes his lessen'd tide.

Thou, threatening all around,

Dost foam and roar along thy troubled path;
In grandeur newly found,

Stunning the gazer with thy noisy wrath!
Yet, foolish stream! not one

Of all thy boasted glories is thine own.

The smile of yonder sky

Is brief, and change the fleeting seasons know;
On barren sands and dry,

Soon to their death thy brawling waves shall flow.
O'er thee, in summer's heat,

Shall pass the traveller with unmoisten'd feet.

TO THE WHIPPORWILL.

BIRD of the lone and joyless night,
Whence is thy sad and solemn lay?
Attendant on the pale moon's light,
Why shun the gairish blaze of day?
When darkness fills the dewy air,

Nor sounds the song of happier bird,
Alone, amid the silence there,

Thy wild and plaintive note is heard.
Thyself unseen, thy pensive moan
Pour'd in no living comrade's ear,
The forest's shaded depths alone
Thy mournful melody can hear.
Beside what still and secret spring,
In what dark wood the livelong day,
Sett'st thou with dusk and folded wing,
To while the hours of light away.

Sad minstrel! thou hast learn'd, like me,
'That life's deceitful gleam is vain ;
And well the lesson profits thee,

Who will not trust its charm again.
Thou, unbeguiled, thy plaint dost trill
To listening night, when mirth is o'er :
I, heedless of the warning, still
Believe, to be deceived once more.

GRENVILLE MELLEN.

MOUNT WASHINGTON.

MOUNT of the clouds, on whose Olympian height The tall rocks brighten in the ether air,

And spirits from the skies come down at night, To chant immortal songs to freedom there!

Thine is the rock of other regions; where
The world of life, which blooms so far below,
Sweeps a wide waste: no gladdening scenes ap-
pear,

Save where, with silvery flash, the waters flow Beneath the far off mountain, distant, calm, and slow.

Thine is the summit where the clouds repose, Or eddying wildly round thy cliffs are borne; When Tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws His billowy mist amid the thunder's home! Far down the deep ravines the whirlwinds come, And bow the forests as they sweep along ; While, roaring deeply from their rocky womb, The storms come forth, and, hurrying darkly on, Amid the echoing peaks the revelry prolong!

And when the tumult of the air is fled,

And quench'd in silence all the tempest flame, There come the dim forms of the mighty dead, Around the steep which bears the hero's name, The stars look down upon them; and the same Pale orb that glistens o'er his distant grave, Gleams on the summit that enshrines his fame, And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave, The richest, purest tear that memory ever gave!

Mount of the clouds! when winter round thee throws

The hoary mantle of the dying year,
Sublime amid thy canopy of snows,
Thy towers in bright magnificence appear!
'Tis then we view thee with a chilling fear,
Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue;
When, lo! in soften'd grandeur far yet clear,
Thy battlements stand clothed in Heaven's own
hue,

To swell as Freedom's home on man's unbounded view!

JAMES G. BROOKS.

JOY AND SORROW.

Joy kneels, at morning's rosy prime,
In worship to the rising sun;
But Sorrow loves the calmer time,
When the day-god his course hath run:
When Night is in her shadowy car,

Pale Sorrow wakes while Joy doth sleep; And, guided by the evening star,

She wanders forth to muse and weep.

Joy loves to cull the summer flower,
And wreath it round his happy brow;
But when the dark autumnal hour

Hath laid the leaf and blossom low;
When the frail bud hath lost its worth,
And Joy hath dash'd it from his crest,
Then Sorrow takes it from the earth,
To wither on her wither'd breast.

ANNA MARIA WELLS.

THE WHITE HARE.

It was the Sabbath eve: we went,
My little girl and I, intent

The twilight hour to pass,
Where we might hear the waters flow,
And scent the freighted winds that blow
Athwart the vernal grass.

In darker grandeur, as the day
Stole scarce perceptibly away,
The purple mountain stood,
Wearing the young moon as a crest:
The sun, half sunk in the far west,
Seem'd mingling with the flood.

The cooling dews their balm distill'd;
A holy joy our bosoms thrill'd;
Our thoughts were free as air;
And by one impulse moved, did we
Together pour, instinctively,

Our songs of gladness there.

The green-wood waved its shade hard by,
While thus we wove our harmony:
Lured by the mystic strain,

A snow-white hare, that long had been
Peering from forth her covert green,
Came bounding o'er the plain.

Her beauty 'twas a joy to note;
The pureness of her downy coat,
Her wild, yet gentle eye;
The pleasure that, despite her fear,
Had led the timid thing so near,
To list our minstrelsy!

All motionless, with head inclined,
She stood, as if her heart divined
The impulses of ours,

Till the last note had died, and then
Turn'd half reluctantly again

Back to her green-wood bowers.

Once more the magic sounds we tried;
Again the hare was seen to glide
From out her sylvan shade;
Again, as joy had given her wings,
Fleet as a bird she forward springs
Along the dewy glade.

Go, happy thing! disport at will;
Take thy delight o'er vale and hill,
Or rest in leafy bower:

The harrier may beset thy way,
The cruel snare thy feet betray!
Enjoy thy little hour!