Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds,
But animated nature sweeter still,
To soothe and satisfy the human ear.

And not alone to thee is given

The homage of the pilgrim's knee, But oft the sweetest birds of heaven Glide down and sing to thee.

Here daily from his beechen cell,

The hermit squirrel steals to drink, And flocks, which cluster to their bell, Recline along thy brink.

And here the wagoner blocks his wheels,

To quaff the cooling, generous boon; llere, from the sultry harvest-fields, The reapers rest at noon.

And oft the beggar, masked with tan, With rusty garments gray with dust,

Here sits and dips his little can,
And breaks his scanty crust.

And lulled beside thy whispering stream,

Off drops to slumber unawares, And sees the angels of his dream Upon celestial stairs.

Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one The livelong night; nor these alone, whose

notes

Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain,
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sub-
lime

In still repeated circles, screaming loud,
The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl
That hails the rising moon, have charms for
me.

Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where peace forever

reigns,

And only there, please highly for their sakes. WILLIAM COWPER.

THE WAYSIDE SPRING.

AIR dweller by the dusty way, Bright saint within a mossy shrine, The tribute of a heart to-day,

Weary and worn is thine.

The earliest blossoms of the year,
The sweet-brier and the violet,
The pious hand of spring has here
Upon thine altar set.

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

Dear dweller by the dusty way,
Thou saint within a mossy shrine,
The tribute of a heart to-day
Weary and worn is thine.

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

And oft beneath the sun or moon,

Their swift and eager falchions glow; While, like a storm-vexed wind, the rune Comes chafing through some beard of snow.

And when the far North flashes up
With fires of mingled red and gold,
They know that many a blazing cup
Is brimming to the absent bold.
Up signal then, and let us hail

Yon looming phantom as we pass!
Note all her fashion, hull and sail,
Within the compass of your glass.

And speak her well; for she might say,

If from her heart the words could thaw,
Great news from some far frozen bay,
Or the remotest Esquimaux;

Might tell of channels yet untold,

That sweep the pole from sea to sea;
Of lands which God designs to hold
A mighty people yet to be;

Of wonders which alone prevail

Where day and darkness dimly meet,
Of all which spreads the arctic sail;
Of Franklin and his venturous fleet;
How, haply, at some glorious goal,

His anchor holds, his sails are furled; That Fame has named him on her scroll, "Columbus of the Polar World;"

Or how his plunging barques wedge on, Through splintering fields, with battered

shares,

Lit only by that spectral dawn,

The mask that mocking darkness wears;

Or how, o'er embers black and few,
The last of shivered masts and spars,
He sits amid his frozen crew,

In council with the norland stars.

No answer but the sullen flow

Of ocean heaving long and vast; An argosy of ice and snow, The voiceless North swings proudly past. THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

FAIRY GOLD.

N the lore that is known to our childhood,

The beautiful story is told
That under the foot of the rainbow

The fairies have hidden their gold, Forever eluding but tempting,

The sunshine is bright on the rain, And over the hills and the valleys • We follow the glory-in vain.

Though we stand where we thought it had rested,

Yet distant it ever appears;

For what seems the rainbow to others
To those at its foot may be tears.
The strongest of charms is upon it,
This treasure, which never is gain-
ed;

And bright, with a glory celestial,
Is the goal that is never attained.
MIRIAM K. DAVIS.

THE SEA.

TTF sealt, the neth, the ever

The blue, the fresh, the ever free; Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth's wide regions round; It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies, Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!

I am where I would ever be;
With blue above, and the blue below,
And silence whereso'er I go;

If a storm should come and awake the deep.
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou'west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea.

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean-child!