Birthday ornament of Spring, That the Spring-days soon will reach us, We die as the violets died- Ah! when winter winds are swinging All thy red bells into ringing, With a bee in every bell, Almond bloom, we greet thee well. How daintily he dilates upon the charm of Woman's gentle voice : Not in the swaying of the summer trees, When evening breezes sing their vesper hymn- Nor ripples breaking on the river's brim, Is earth's best music; these may have awhile High thoughts in happy hearts, and carking cares beguile : But even as the swallow's silken wings, So doth one sound the sleeping spirit wake An excellent thing it is! and ever lent To truth, and love, and meekness; they who own Ever by quiet step and smile are known: By kind eyes that have wept, hearts that have sorrowed- An excellent thing it is-when first in gladness Pales at its paleness, sorrows at its cries; Its food and sleep, and smiles and little joys— All these come ever blent with one low, gentle voice. The following lines, simple and homely, yet touchingly beautiful, are by CHARLOTTE YOUNG: How like a tender mother, with loving thoughts beguiled, Hark to the gentle lullaby, that through the trees is creeping! peeping, Like a tender nurse, to see if all her little ones are sleeping. One little fluttering bird, like a child in a dream of pain, Has chirped and started up, then nestled down again. Oh, a child and a bird, as they sink to rest, are as like as any twain. ALFRED B. STREET's picturesque sketches of American Forest Scenery are excellent. It is evident that he is a lover of the meadows, woods, and streams, as well as of the wildest and most romantic of Nature's solitudes. Shall we roam with him through one of our primeval wildernesses : A lovely sky, a cloudless sun, A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers, The beech displays its marbled bark, The spruce its green tent stretches wide, Making a twilight soft and green, Within the columned vaulted scene. Sweet forest-odours have their birth From the clothed boughs and teeming earth; Where pine-cones dropped, leaves piled and dead, Long tufts of grass, and stars of fern, A thick, elastic carpet spread; There, wrenched but lately from its throne, The little milk-snake glides away, On each side shrinks the bowery shade; Before me spreads an emerald glade; Sun-streaks, and glancing wings, and sky, These fine lines, to The Nightingale, are by HARTLEY COLE RIDGE 'Tis sweet to hear the merry lark, that bids a blithe good-morrow; But sweeter to hark in the twinkling dark to the soothing song of sorrow. Oh, nightingale, what does she ail? And is she sad or jolly? |