There is a very touching poem by Moir, entitled Casa Wappy, which was the self-conferred pet name of his infant son ; we cite a portion of the verses :

And hast thou sought thy heavenly home, our fond, dear boy-
The realms where sorrow dare not come, where life is joy ?

Pure at thy death as at thy birth,
Thy spirit caught no taint from earth ;
Even by its bliss we mete our death,—Casa Wappy!

ear

Despair was in thy last farewell, as closed thine eye ;
Tears of our anguish may not tell when thou didst die;

Words may not paint our grief for thee,
Sighs are but bubbles on the sea
Of our unfathomed agony,—Casa Wappy!

Thou wert a vision of delight, to bless us given ;
Beauty embodied to our sight, a type of heaven:

So dear to us thou wert, thou art
Even less thine ownself than a part
Of mine and of thy mother's heart,—Casa Wappy!

Thy bright brief day knew no decline, 'twas cloudless joy ;
Sunrise and night alone were thine, beloved boy!

This morn beheld thee blithe and gay,
That found thee prostrate in decay,
And ere a third shone-clay was clay,—Casa Wappy!

The nursery shows thy pictured wall, thy bat, thy bow,
Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball; but where art thou ?

A corner holds thine empty chair,
Thy playthings, idly scattered there,
But speak to us of our despair,—Casa Wappy!

Even to the last thy every word—to glad, to grieve-
Was sweet as sweetest song of bird on summer's eve:

In outward beauty undecayed,
Death o'er thy spirit cast no shade,
And like the rainbow thou didst fade,—Casa Wappy!

*

This favourite little lyric is by Robert C. SPENCER :

Too late I stayed; forgive the crime; unheeded Aew the hours ; How noiseless falls the foot of Time that only treads on flowers ! What eye with clear account remarks the ebbing of his glass, When all its sands are diamond sparks, that dazzle as they pass ? Ah! who to sober measurement Time's happy swiftness brings, When birds of Paradise have lent their plumage for his wings?

Here is a sweet pastoral sketch, by WORDSWORTH ; let us, in imagination, go a-nutting with the philosophic poet :

Among the woods,
And o’er the pathless rocks, I forced my way
Until, at length, I came to one dear nook
Unvisited, where not a broken bough
Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign
Of devastation, but the hazels rose
Tall and erect, with milk-white clusters kung,
A virgin scene,-or beneath the trees I sate
Among the Aowers, and with the Aowers I played :
A temper known to those who, after long
And weary expectation, have been blest
With sudden happiness beyond all hope.

And I saw the sparkling foam,
And, with my cheek on one of those green stones

That, Aeeced with muss, beneath the shady trees,
Lay round me, scattered like a Aock of sheep,
I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound,
In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay
Tribute to ease: and, of its joys secure,

The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,
Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,
And on the vacant air. Then up I rose,
And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash
And merciless ravage ; and the shady nook
Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower,
Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up

Their quiet being : and, unless I now
Confound my present feelings with the past,
Even then, when from the bower I turned away
Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings,
I felt a sense of pain when I beheld
The silent trees and the intruding sky.
Then, dearest maiden! move along these shades
In gentleness of heart ; with the gentle hand
Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods.

Wordsworth, it has been said, “ appealed to the universal spirit, and strove to sound sweeter strings, and deeper depths, than others had essayed to do; and sought to make poetry a melodious anthem of human life, with all its hopes, dreads, and passions.” The apparent simplicity of his style is informed with an inner and subtle meaning, which pervades all he writes; and this characteristic is especially true of his Lines on Tintern Abbey, and his Ode to Immortality. Few poets were more ardent lovers of nature ; he tells us as much in the following stanza :

One impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, than all the sages can.

van

Many of his pastoral pieces are, consequently, fresh as the morning; as Coleridge has said, “ they have the dew upon them.” When once asked where his library was, he pointed to the woods and streams, saying, “These are my books.” So fond was he of wandering over hill and dale, by fountain or fresh shade, that De Quincey estimates his entire perambulations at about one hundred and eighty thousand miles. His calm and beautiful life, so sequestered from the noise and tunult of the town, and so replete with eloquent and sagacious teaching to the world, was extended to eighty years.

The following beautiful tribute to Woman's Worth was originally addressed to his wife, three years after marriage :

She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornamient;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,-
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair ;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn :
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
I saw her, upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty :
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet :
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food, --
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see, with eye serene,
The very pulse of the machine :
A being breathing thoughtful breath-
A traveller 'twixt life and death :
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill, —
A perfect woman, nobly planned
To warm, to comfort, and command, -
And yet a spirit still and bright,
With something of an angel light !

His fine poem on Tintern Abbey, he tells us, was composed after crossing the Wye, and during a ramble of four or five days with his sister. Not a line of it was uttered, and not any part of it