These are Nature's ancient pleasures; these her child from her derives. What the dream but vain rebelling, if from earth we sought to flee? 'Tis our stored and ample dwelling; 'tis from it the skies we see. Wind and frost, and hour and season, land and water, sun and shade, Work with these, as bids thy reason, for they work thy toil to aid. Sow thy seed, and reap in gladness! man himself is all a seed; Hope and hardness, joy and sadness-slow the plant to ripeness lead. ERNEST JONES is the author of the following stanzas; and very beautiful they are: What stands upon the highland? what walks across the rise, What makes the trees so golden? what decks the mountain-side, She works, with touch ethereal, by changes strange to see, And breaks the billows' slumbers with a love-glance of her eye; Wakes birds that sleep in shadows; through their half-closed eyelids gleams; With her white torch through the meadows lights the shy deer to the streams. The magic moon is breaking, like a conqueror from the east, PROFESSOR WILSON is the author of the following beautiful sonnet : A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun, A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow; O'er the still radiance of the lake below; Even in its very motion there was rest; While every breath of eve that chanced to blow Emblem, methought, of the departed soul, MACKAY's heroic tribute to Valour and Virtue is excellent : Who shall be fairest? who shall be rarest ? Bearing through winter the blossoms of spring: She shall be first in the songs that we sing! Who shall be nearest, noblest, and dearest, He shall be first in our hearts evermore! Much of Mackay's healthful verse is freighted with excellent counsel; for instance, the following: What might be done if men were wise What glorious deeds, my suffering brother, Would they unite in love and right, And cease their scorn for one another! Oppression's heart might be imbued With kindling drops of loving-kindness, All vice and crime, might die together, The meanest wretch that ever trod, The deepest sunk in guilt and sorrow, And share the teeming world to-morrow. If men were wise and loved each other. PENDLETON COOKE, another of our American bards, thus chants his love-lay I loved thee long and dearly, Florence Vane! My life's bright dream and early hath come again; The ruin lone and hoary, the ruin old, Thou wast lovelier than the roses in their prime; But fairest, coldest wonder! Thy glorious clay The lilies of the valley by young graves weep, A Scottish bard, David VeddeR, is the author of those sublime lines which Dr. Chalmers was so fond of rehearsing to his theological pupils: Talk not of temples-there is one built without hands, to mankind given : Its lamps are the meridian sun, and all the stars of heaven. Its walls are the cerulean sky, its floor the earth, serene and fair; A thousand fierce volcanoes blaze, as if with hallowed victims rare; The cedar and the mountain pine, the willow on the fountain's brim, The tulip and the eglantine, in reverence bend to Him; The song-birds pour their sweetest lays, from tower, and tree, and middle air; The rushing river murmurs praise-all Nature worships there! One of N. P. WILLIS's masterpieces is his Parrhasius, yet the subject is not one that ministers pleasure to the reader. His Melanie must be perused entire in order to its due appreciation. The poem on Idleness is a fine illustration of poetic skill; but we must content ourselves with his little cabinet picture of a Child Tired of Play : "Tired of play! Tired of play !" What hast thou done this livelong day? The birds are silent, and so is the bee; The sun is creeping up steeple and tree; The doves have flown to the sheltering eaves, And the nests are dark with the drooping leaves; How hast thou spent it, restless one? |