TO A FLYING SWAN.

She silvers the landscape, and crowds the stream
With shadows that flit like a fairy dream;

Then wheeling her flight through the gladden'd air,
The Spirit of Beauty is everywhere.

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TO A FLYING SWAN

AT MIDNIGHT, IN THE VALE OF THE HURON.*

BY LEWIS L. NOBLE.

Он, what a still, bright night! It is the sleep
Of beauteous Nature in her bridal hall.

See, while the groves shadow the shining lake,
How the full-moon does bathe their melting green !—-

I hear the dew-drop twang upon the pool.

Hark, hark, what music! from the rampart hills,
How like a far-off bugle, sweet and clear,
It searches through the list'ning wilderness!
A Swan-I know it by the trumpet-tone :
Winging her pathless way in the cool heavens,
Piping her midnight melody, she comes.
Beautiful bird! upon the dusk still world
Thou fallest like an angel-like a lone
Sweet angel from some sphere of harmony.
Where art thou, where ?-no speck upon the blue
My vision marks from whence thy music ranges.
And why this hour-this voiceless hour-is thine,
And thine alone, I cannot tell. Perchance,

While all is hush and silent but the heart,

* The river Huron rises in the interior of Michigan, and flows into Lake Erie. Its clear waters gave it the name of its more mighty kinsman, Lake Huron.

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TO A FLYING SWAN.

E'en thou hast human sympathies for heaven,
And singest yonder in the holy deep
Because thou hast a pinion. If it be,
Oh, for a wing, upon the aerial tide
To sail with thee a minstrel mariner!

When to a rarer height thou wheelest up,
Hast thou that awful thrill of an ascension-
The lone, lost feeling in the vasty vault?
Oh, for thine ear, to hear the ascending tones
Range the ethereal chambers!—then to feel
A harmony, while from the eternal depth
Steals nought but the pure star-light evermore!
And then to list the echoes, faint and mellow,
Far, far below, breathe from the hollow earth,
For thee, soft, sweet petition, to return.

And hither, haply, thou wilt shape thy neck; And settle, like a silvery cloud, to rest, If thy wild image, flaring in the abyss, Startle thee not aloft. Lone aeronaut, That catchest, on thine airy looking-out, Glassing the hollow darkness, many a lake, Lay, for the night, thy lily bosom here. There is the deep unsounded for thy bath, The shallow for the shaking of thy quills, The dreamy cove, or cedar-wooded isle, With galaxy of water-lilies, where, Like mild Diana 'mong the quiet stars, 'Neath over-bending branches thou wilt move, Till early warblers shake the crystal shower, And whistling pinions warn thee to thy voyage.

But where art thou !-lost,-spirited away To bowers of light by thy own dying whispers? Or does some billow of the ocean-air,

TO A FLYING SWAN.

In its still roll around from zone to zone,
All breathless to the empyrean heave thee?.
There is a panting in the zenith-hush!-

The Swan - how strong her great wing times the silence !

She passes over high and quietly.

Now peals the living clarion anew;
One vocal shower falls in and fills the vale.
What witchery in the wilderness it plays!-
Shrill snort the affrighted deer; across the lake
The loon, sole sentinel, screams loud alarm;
The shy fox barks ;-tingling in every vein
I feel the wild enchantment ;—hark! they come,
The dulcet echoes from the distant hills,
Like fainter horns responsive; all the while,
From misty isles, soft-stealing symphonies.

Thou bright, swift river of the bark canoe,
Threading the prairie-ponds of Washtenung,
The day of romance wanes. Few summers more,
And the long night will pass away unwaked,
Save by the house-dog, or the village bell;
And she, thy minstrel queen, her ermine dip
In lonelier waters.

Ah! thou wilt not stoop:

Old Huron, haply, glistens on thy sky.

The chasing moon-beams, glancing on thy plumes,
Reveal thee now, a little beating blot,

Into the pale Aurora fading.

There!

Sinks gently back upon her flowery couch

The startled Night;-tinkle the damp wood-vaults
While slip the dew-pearls from her leafy curtains.
That last soft whispering note, how spirit-like!
While vainly yet mine ear another waits,
A sad, sweet longing lingers in my heart.

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THE LITTLE BEACH-BIRD.

BY RICHARD H. DANA.

THOU little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice?
And with that boding cry

O'er the waves dost thou fly?

Oh, rather, bird, with me

Through the fair land rejoice!

Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,
As driven by a beating storm at sea;

Thy cry is weak and scared,

As if thy mates had shared

The doom of us: Thy wail-
What does it bring to me?

Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge,

Restless and sad, as if, in strange accord

With the motion and the roar

Of waves that drive to shore,

One spirit did ye urge➡

The Mystery-the Word.

Of thousands, thou both sepulchre and pall,
Old Ocean, art! A requiem o'er the dead,
From out thy gloomy cells

A tale of mourning tells-
Tells of man's woe and fall,

His sinless glory fled.

Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring

THE FAMILY MEETING.

Thy spirit never more.

Come, quit with me the shore,

For gladness and the light,

Where birds of summer sing.

THE FAMILY MEETING.

BY CHARLES SPRAGUE.

WE are all here!

Father, Mother,

Sister, Brother,

who hold each other dear.
Each chair is fill'd-we're all at home:
To-night let no cold stranger come:
It is not often thus around

Our old familiar hearth we 're found:
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot;
For once be every care forgot;
Let gentle Peace assert her power,
And kind Affection rule the hour;
We're all-all here.

We're not all here!

Some are away—the dead ones dear,
Who throng'd with us this ancient hearth,
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Look'd in and thinn'd our little band:
Some like a night-flash pass'd away,
And some sank, lingering, day by day;
The quiet graveyard-some lie there-
And cruel Ocean has his share-

We're not all here,

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