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LESSON LXXXIII.

April.-LONGFellow.

WHEN the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
"Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,

When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
The coming-in of storms.

From the earth's loosened mould
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives:
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
The drooping tree revives.

The softly-warbled song

Comes through the pleasant woods, and coloured wings Are glancing in the golden sun, along

The forest openings.

And when bright sunset fills

The silver woods with light, the green slope throws Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,

And wide the upland glows.

And when the day is gone,

In the blue lake, the sky, o'erreaching far,
Is hollowed out, and the moon dips her horn,
And twinkles many a star.

Inverted in the tide

Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw And the fair trees look over, side by side,

And see themselves below.

Sweet April, many a thought

Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed.

LESSON LXXXIV.

May.-J. G. Percival.

I FEEL a newer life in every gale;
The winds, that fan the flowers,

And with their welcome breathings fill the sail,
Tell of serener hours,—

Of hours that glide unfelt away
Beneath the sky of May.

The spirit of the gentle south-wind calls
From his blue throne of air,

And where his whispering voice in music falls,
Beauty is budding there;

The bright ones of the valley break
Their slumbers, and awake.

The waving verdure rolls along the plain,
And the wide forest weaves,

To welcome back its playful maten again,
A canopy of leaves;

And, from its darkening shadow, floats
A gush of trembling notes.

Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May,
The tresses of the woods,

With the light dallying of the west-wind play;
And the full-brimming floods,
As gladly to their goal they run,
Hail the returning sun.

LESSON LXXXV.

The Voice of Spring.-MRS. HEM'ANS.

I COME,
I come!-ye have called me long,-
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,

By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut-flowers,
By thousands, have burst from the forest-bowers,
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veiled with wreaths on Italian plains.
-But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have passed o'er the hills of the stormy North
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,

And the rein-deer bounds through the pasture free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,

And the moss looks bright where my step has been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh,
And called out each voice of the deep blue sky,
From the night-bird's lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-bough into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain-brows,
They are flinging spray on the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.

Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come!
Where the violets lie may be now your
home.
Ye of the rose-cheek and dew-bright eye,
And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly,
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay:
Come forth to the sunshine: I may not stay!

Away from the dwellings of care-worn men,
The waters are sparkling in wood and glen;
Away from the chamber and dusky hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth;
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains
And youth is abroad in my green domains.

But ye!-ye are changed since ye met me last;
A shade of earth has been round you cast!
There is that come over your brow and eye
Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die
Ye smile but your smile hath a dimness yet-
-Oh! what have ye looked on since last we met?

Ye are changed, ye are changed!—and I see not here
All whom I saw in the vanished year!

There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright,
Which tossed in the breeze with a play of light;
There were eyes, in whose glistening laughter lay
No faint remembrance of dull decay.

There were steps, that flew o'er the cowslip's head,
As if for a banquet all earth were spread;

There were voices that rung through the sapphire sky,
And had not a sound of mortality!

-Are they gone?—is their mirth from the green hills passed?
-Ye have looked on Death since ye met me last!

I know whence the shadow comes o'er ye now:
Ye have strown the dust on the sunny brow!
Ye have given the lovely to Earth's embrace;
She hath taken the fairest of Beauty's race!
With their laughing eyes and their festal crown,
They are gone from amongst you in silence down!

They are gone from amongst you, the bright and fair;
Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair!

-But I know of a world where there falls no blight:
I shall find them there, with their eyes of light !—
Where Death, midst the blooms of the morn, may dwell,
I tarry no longer :-farewell, farewell!

4

The summer is hastening, on soft winds borne :
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn'
For me, I depart to a brighter shore :

Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more.
I go where the loved, who have left you, dwell,

And the flowers are not Death's :-fare ye well, farewell!

LESSON LXXXVI.

Folly of deferring, to a Future Time, the religious Duties of the Present.-Wellbeloved.

THERE are few young persons so careless and indifferen, as not occasionally to look forward to the time when they shall become devout. However they may neglect God, and disregard the duties of religion at present, they hope to serve and obey God, and to live virtuously, before they die.

Alas! they reflect not, that, by a continuance in evil practices, they render it almost impossible that they should attain to any love of virtue; that, by forming habits inconsistent with piety, in the early period of their lives, they expose themselves to the almost certain hazard of never acquiring one pious sentiment, how protracted soever their existence in the present world.

Be careful, I entreat you, my young friends, not to indulge such fallacious hopes. To whatever you now devote yourselves, to that you will, most probably, continue to adhere to the last hour. Your future pursuits may be in some respects altered, but they will never be totally changed. A vicious youth almost invariably becomes a vicious man; and they whose declining years are dignified by virtue and piety, are, for the most part, those who sought wisdom early and found her.

We are the creatures of habit; and, if we wish to be found, in old age, proceeding in the paths of wisdom and virtue, we must yield ourselves to the counsels of religion in the days of our youth. It is both the safest and the easiest way to form no habits which you propose hereafter to break, to cherish no dispositions which you hope, when time has confirmed them, to relinquish; to gain a fondness for no practices which you know will, if not abandoned, disqualify you for the happiness of a future state.

If you cannot resolve to be pious now, how can you hope for the resolution hereafter? If passion exerts so strong an influence at present, how can you expect that long indulgence will lessen its power? If you neglect to form habits of virtue, when every thing invites and assists you in this important work, how can you trust to that period, when, to the labour and difficulty of acquiring new principles, will be added that of undoing all that the former years of your lives have effected?

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