He, who hath no peer, was born
Here, upon a red March morn;
But his famous fathers dead
Were Arabs all, and Arab-bred,
And the last of that great line
Trod like one of a race divine !
And yet,
he was but friend to one,
Who fed him at the set of sun

By some lone fountain fringed with green;
With him, a roving Bedouin,

He lived (none else would he obey
Through all the hot Arabian day),
And died untamed upon the sands
Where Balkh amidst the desert stands !

BARRY CORNWALL.

LAMBS AT PLAY.

SAY, ye that know, ye who have felt and seen Spring's morning smiles, and soul-enlivening green,

Say, did you give the thrilling transport way,
Did your eye brighten, when young lambs at play
Leaped o'er your path with animated pride,
Or gazed in merry clusters by your side?
Ye who can smile to wisdom no disgrace
At the arch meaning of a kitten's face;
If spotless innocence and infant mirth
Excites to praise, or gives reflection birth;
In shades like these pursue your favorite joy,
Midst nature's revels, sports that never cloy.
A few begin a short but vigorous race,
And indolence, abashed, soon flies the place :
Thus challenged forth, see thither, one by one,
From every side, assembling playmates run;
A thousand wily antics mark their stay,
A starting crowd, impatient of delay;
Like the fond dove from fearful prison freed,
Each seems to say, "Come, let us try our speed";
Away they scour, impetuous, ardent, strong,
The green turf trembling as they bound along
Adown the slope, then up the hillock climb,
Where every mole-hill is a bed of thyme,
Then, panting, stop; yet scarcely can refrain,
A bird, a leaf, will set them off again:
Or, if a gale with strength unusual blow,
Scattering the wild-brier roses into snow,
Their little limbs increasing efforts try;
Like the torn flower, the fair assemblage fly.
Ah, fallen rose ! sad emblem of their doom;
Frail as thyself, they perish while they bloom!

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

FOLDING THE FLOCKS. SHEPHERDS all, and maidens fair, Fold your flocks up; for the air

'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops, how they kiss
Every little flower that is;
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a string of crystal beads.
See the heavy clouds low falling
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from underground;
At whose rising, mists unsound,
Damps and vapors, fly apace,
And hover o'er the smiling face
Of these pastures; where they come,
Striking dead both bud and bloom.
Therefore from such danger lock
Every one his loved flock;

And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come as a scout
From the mountain, and ere day,
Bear a lamb or kid away;
Or the crafty, thievish fox,
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourself from these,
Be not too secure in ease;

So shall you good shepherds prove,
And deserve your master's love.

Now, good night! may sweetest slumbers
And soft silence fall in numbers
On your eyelids. So farewell:
Thus I end my evening knell.

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

TO A MOUSE,

ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH
NOVEMBER, 1785.

WEE, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie !
Thou need na start awa' sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin' wi' the laive,
And never miss 't!

Calls all her chirping family around,
Fed and defended by the fearless cock,
Whose breast with ardor flames, as on he walks,
Graceful, and crows defiance. In the pond
The finely checkered duck before her train
Rows garrulous. The stately-sailing swan
Gives out her snowy plumage to the gale;
And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet
Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier-isle,
Protective of his young. The turkey nigh,
Loud-threatening, reddens; while the peacock
spreads

His every-colored glory to the sun,
And swims in radiant majesty along.
O'er the whole homely scene, the cooing dove
Flies thick in amorous chase, and wanton rolls
The glancing eye, and turns the changeful neck.
JAMES THOMSON.

... UPSPRINGS the lark, Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn : Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush And woodlark, o'er the kind-contending throng Superior heard, run through the sweetest length Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns To let them joy, and purposes, in thought Elate, to make her night excel their day. The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake; The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove; Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze Poured out profusely, silent: joined to these Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade

THE BELFRY PIGEON.

ON the cross-beam under the Old South bell
The nest of a pigeon is builded well.
In summer and winter that bird is there,
Out and in with the morning air;
I love to see him track the street,
With his wary eye and active feet;
And I often watch him as he springs,
Circling the steeple with easy wings,
Till across the dial his shade has passed,
And the belfry edge is gained at last;
T is a bird I love, with its brooding note,
And the trembling throb in its mottled throat;
There's a human look in its swelling breast,
And the gentle curve of its lowly crest;
And I often stop with the fear I feel,
He runs so close to the rapid wheel.

Whatever is rung on that noisy bell, Chime of the hour, or funeral knell, The dove in the belfry must hear it well. When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon,

When the sexton cheerly rings for noon,
When the clock strikes clear at morning light,
When the child is waked with "nine at night,"
When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air,
Filling the spirit with tones of prayer,
Whatever tale in the bell is heard,
He broods on his folded feet unstirred,
Or, rising half in his rounded nest,
He takes the time to smooth his breast,
Then drops again, with filméd eyes,
And sleeps as the last vibration dies.

Sweet bird! I would that I could be
A hermit in the crowd like thee!
With wings to fly to wood and glen,
Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men ;
And daily, with unwilling feet,
I tread, like thee, the crowded street,
But, unlike me, when day is o'er,
Thou canst dismiss the world, and soar;
Or, at a half-felt wish for rest,

Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast,
And drop, forgetful, to thy nest.

I would that in such wings of gold

I could my weary heart upfold ;
I would I could look down unmoved

(Unloving as I am unloved),

And while the world throngs on beneath,
Smooth down my cares and calmly breathe;
And never sad with others' sadness,
And never glad with others' gladness,
Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime,
And, lapped in quiet, bide my time.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.

TO THE CUCKOO.

HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove !
Thou messenger of spring!
Now heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.

Soon as the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear.
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant! with thee

I hail the time of flowers, And hear the sound of music sweet From birds among the bowers.

The school-boy, wandering through the wood
To pull the primrose gay,

Starts, thy most curious voice to hear,
And imitates thy lay.

O to abide in the desert with thee !

Wild is thy lay and loud

Far in the downy cloud,

Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.

Where, on thy dewy wing,

Where art thou journeying?

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

O'er fell and fountain sheen,

O'er moor and mountain green,

O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, Over the cloudlet dim,

Over the rainbow's rim,

Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!
Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place,

O to abide in the desert with thee !

TO THE SKYLARK.

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart

JAMES HOGG.

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever

singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the setting sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

TO THE WEST-WIND.

ing.

Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes. O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Luch like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odors plain and hill :
Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's

commotion,

Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and

ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning; there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thon dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain and fire and hail will burst: O hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams
Beside a pumice isle in Baie's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble, and despoil themselves : O hear !

If I were a dead leaf thon mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thon, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip the skyey speed

I fall upon the thorns of life I blewa!

| A heavy weight of hours has chained and1s One too like thee: tameless and swifi ijtim

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is
What if my leaves are falling like its ow%

The tumult of thy mighty harmles

1

Will take from both a deep autatunal tone,
Sweet though in sadness Be third, offt Det
My spirit be thou me, impet jous one

| Drive my dead thoughts over the unavene
Like withered leaves to quicken a new
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished to arth
Ashes and sparks, my words among luata al
Be through my lips to unawake.ed earth.
The trumpet of a prophecy O wizi,
If winter comes, can spring be far be? 15.1

WHAT THE WINDS BRING WHICH is the wind that brings the mult

The north-wind, Fred ly, an i al toman And the sheep will samper into the fi When the north begins to b. w

Whi h is the wind that brings the best?
The south-wind, Katy; and corn w.
And peaches redden for you to eat,

When the south b gas to blow

Which is the wind that brings the rat 1

The east-wind, Arty; and farmers £2 That cows come shivering up the jane When the east begins to blow

Which is the wind that brings the ? won! The west wind, Bessy; and soft at de The birdies sing in the summer hars When the west begins to tl w

སྨོཝ་ས། །་ཞེས་པ་ན་སློགར,ཕམའི་

A VIEW ACROSS THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA. 1861.

OVER the dumb campagna-sea,

Oat in the offing through mist and rain, St Peter's Church heaves si'ently Like a mighty ship in pain,

Facing the tempest with struggle and stra