The forest tops are lowly cast o'er breezy hill and glen,
As if a prayerful spirit passed on nature as on men.
The clouds weep o'er the fallen world, e'en as repentant love,
Ere, to the blessed breeze unfurled, they fade in light above.
The sky is as a temple's arch, the blue and wavy air
Is glorious with the spirit-march of messengers at prayer.
The gentle moon, the kindling sun, the many stars are given,
As shrines to burn earth's incense on, the altar-fires of Heaven!

I love the old melodious lays

Which softly melt the ages through,

The songs of Spenser's golden days,
Arcadia Sidney's silver phrase,

Sprinkling o'er the noon of Time with freshest morning dew.

Whittier's style is characterized by its pure, strong Saxon: it is said that he engenders his stirring and beautiful thoughts while walking abroad, and subsequently commits them to paper. One of his graver pieces, The Reward, commences thus :

Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime,
Sees not the spectre of his misspent time;

And, through the shade

Of funeral cypress, planted thick behind,
Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind.
From his loved dead?

Who hears no trace of Passion's evil force?
Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse?
Who would not cast

Half of his future from him, but to win
Wakeless oblivion for the wrong and sin
Of the sealed Past?

Alas! the evil, which we fain would shun,
We do, and leave the wished-for good undone ;
Our strength to-day

Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall;
Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all,

Are we alway.

Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years,
Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears,
If he hath been

Permitted, weak and sinful as he was,

To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause,
His fellow-men.

His Dream of Summer is eminently poetic

Bland as the morning breath of June the southwest breezes play,
And through its haze the winter noon seems warm as summer's day.
The snow-plumed angel of the North has dropped his icy spear;
Again the mossy earth looks forth, again the streams gush clear.
The fox his hill-side cell forsakes, the muskrat leaves his nook,
The blue-bird in the meadow-brakes is singing with the brook;
"Bear up, O mother Nature," cry bird, breeze, and streamlet free;
"Our winter voices prophesy of summer days to thee.”

*

*

The Night is mother of the Day, the Winter of the Spring,
And ever upon old Decay the greenest mosses cling.

Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, through showers the sunbeams

fall;

For God, who loveth all His works, has left His hope with all.

What a grace and exquisite delicacy of touch characterize these lines :

A beautiful and happy girl, with step as soft as summer air,
And fresh young lip and brow of pearl,

Shadowed by many a careless curl of unconfined and flowing hair: A seeming child in every thing, save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,

As Nature wears the smile of Spring when sinking into Summer's

arms.

A mind rejoicing in the light which melted through its graceful bower, Leaf after leaf serenely bright

And stainless in its holy white, unfolding like a morning flower:
A heart which, like a fine-toned lute, with every breath of feeling

woke,

And, even when the tongue was mute, from eye and lip in music spoke.

How thrills once more the lengthening chain of memory at the thought of thee !

Old hopes which long in dust have lain,

Old dreams come thronging back again, and boyhood lives again in

me;

I feel its glow upon my cheek, its fulness of the heart is mine,

As when I leaned to hear thee speak, or raised my doubtful eye to thine.

I hear again thy low replies, I feel thy arm within my own,
And timidly again uprise

The fringed lids of hazel eyes with soft brown tresses overblown. Ah! memories of sweet summer eves, of moonlit wave and willowy

way,

Of stars, and flowers, and dewy leaves, and smiles and tones more dear than they!

KEBLE'S lines on The Lilies of the Field are well worthy our reciting :

Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies, bathed with soft airs, and fed with dew,

What more than magic in you lies, to fill the heart's fond view? In childhood's sports, companions gay,

In sorrow, on life's downward way,

How soothing in our last decay,

Memorials prompt and true.

Relics ye are of Eden's bowers, as pure, as fragrant, and as fair, As when ye crowned the sunshine hours of happy wanderers there. Fallen all beside,—the world of life,

How is it stained with fear and strife!

In Reason's world what storms are rife,

What passions rage and glare!

But cheerful and unchanged the while your first and perfect form ye show,

The same that won Eve's matron smile in the world's opening glow.
The stars of heaven a course are taught
Too high above our human thought;
Ye may be found if ye are sought,
And as we gaze, we know.

*

*

*

BURBIDGE's lines on a Mother's Love are very charming :—

A little in the doorway sitting, the mother plied her busy knitting; And her cheek so softly smiled,

Wherever through the ages rise The atters of self-sacrifice, Where love its armes has opened with Orman for man has calmly died I see the fence white wings outspread That hovered ver the Master's head Lip from undated time they conce The martyr snels of heathend in and to this cross and passion bring Their fellowship of suffering. The Glokith