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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,
As though a starry island were sinking down the skies?

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What makes the trees so golden? what decks the mountain-side,
Like a veil of silver folden round the white brow of a bride?
The magic moon is breaking, like a conqueror from the east,
The waiting world awaking to a golden fairy feast.

She works, with touch ethereal, by changes strange to see,
The cypress, so funereal, to a lightsome fairy tree;
Black rocks to marble turning, like palaces of kings;
On ruined windows burning a festal glory flings;
The desert halls uplighting, with falling shadows glance,
Like courtly crowds uniting for the banquet or the dance:
With ivory wand she numbers the stars along the sky,

And breaks the billows' slumbers with a love-glance of her eye;
Along the corn-fields dances, brings bloom upon the sheaf;
From tree to tree she glances, and touches leaf by leaf;

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,
And the joyous world partaking of her golden fairy feast!

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;
Long had I watched the glory moving on,

O'er the still radiance of the lake below;
Tranquil its spirit seemed, and floated slow,

Even in its very motion there was rest;

While every breath of eve that chanced to blow
Wafted the traveller to the beauteous West:

Emblem, methought, of the departed soul,
To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given,
And by the breath of Mercy made to roll
Right onward to the golden gates of heaven,
Where to the eye of faith it peaceful lies,
And tells to man his glorious destinies.

MACKAY's heroic tribute to Valour and Virtue is excellent :

Who shall be fairest? who shall be rarest ?
Who shall be first in the songs that we sing?
She who is kindest when fortune is blindest,

Bearing through winter the blossoms of spring:
Charm of our gladness, friend of our sadness,
Angel of life, when its pleasures take wing!
She shall be fairest, she shall be rarest,

She shall be first in the songs that we sing!

Who shall be nearest, noblest, and dearest,
Named but with honour and pride evermore?
He, the undaunted, whose banner is planted
On glory's high ramparts and battlements hoar;
Fearless of danger, to falsehood a stranger,
Looking not back when there's duty before!
He shall be nearest, he shall be 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,
And knowledge pour, from shore to shore,
Light on the eyes of mental blindness.
All slavery, warfare, lies, and wrongs,

All vice and crime, might die together,
And wine and corn, to each man born,
Be free as warmth in sunny weather.

The meanest wretch that ever trod,

The deepest sunk in guilt and sorrow,
Might stand erect in self-respect,

And share the teeming world to-morrow.
What might be done? This might be done,
And more than this, my suffering brother—
More than the tongue e'er said or sung,

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;
I renew, in my fond vision, my heart's dear pain,
My hope and thy derision, Florence Vane.

The ruin lone and hoary, the ruin old,
Where thou didst mark my story, at even told,—
That spot-the hues Elysian of sky and plain—
I treasure in my vision, Florence Vane.

Thou wast lovelier than the roses in their prime;
Thy voice excelled the closes of sweetest rhyme;
Thy heart was as a river without a main.
Would I had loved thee never, Florence Vane!

But fairest, coldest wonder! Thy glorious clay
Lieth the green sod under-alas the day!
And it boots not to remember thy disdain-
To quicken love's pale ember, Florence Vane.

The lilies of the valley by young graves weep,
The pansies love to dally where maidens sleep;
May their bloom, in beauty vying, never wane
Where thine earthly part is lying, Florence Vane !

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;
The dome is vast immensity—all Nature worships there!
The Alps arrayed in stainless snow, the Andean ranges yet untrod,
At sunrise and at sunset, glow like altar-fires to God!

A thousand fierce volcanoes blaze, as if with hallowed victims rare;
And thunder lifts its voice in praise-all Nature worships there!

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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;
Twilight gathers, and day is done—

How hast thou spent it, restless one?

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