Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
That still delays its coming. Why so slow,
Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?

O come, and breathe upon the fainting earth
Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves
He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge,
The pine is bending his proud top, and now,
Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak
Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes!
Lo where the grassy meadow runs in waves!
The deep distressful silence of the scene
Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds
And universal motion. He is come,

Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs,
And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings
Music of birds and rustling of young boughs,
And sound of swaying branches, and the voice
Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs
Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers,
By the road-side and the borders of the brook,
Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves
Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew
Were on them yet; and silver waters break
Into small waves, and sparkle as he comes.

Summer Evening Lightning.—CARLOS WILCOX.

FAR off and low

In the horizon, from a sultry cloud,

Where sleeps in embryo the midnight storm,
The silent lightning gleams in fitful sheets,
Illumes the solid mass, revealing thus

Its darker fragments, and its ragged verge;
Or if the bolder fancy so conceive

Of its fantastic forms, revealing thus

Its gloomy caverns, rugged sides and tops
With beetling cliffs grotesque. But not so bright
The distant flashes gleam as to efface
The window's image on the floor impressed,
By the dim crescent; or outshines the light
Cast from the room upon the trees hard by,
If haply, to illume a moonless night,

The lighted taper shine; though lit in vain
To waste away unused, and from abroad
Distinctly through the open window seen,
Lone, pale, and still as a sepulchral lamp.

Spring.-N. P. WILLIS.*

THE Spring is here-the delicate-footed May,
With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers;
And with it comes a thirst to be away,

Wasting in wood-paths its voluptuous hours—

A feeling that is like a sense of wings,
Restless to soar above these perishing things.

We pass out from the city's feverish hum,
To find refreshment in the silent woods;
And nature, that is beautiful and dumb,

Like a cool sleep upon the pulses broods.
Yet, even there, a restless thought will steal,
To teach the indolent heart it still must feel.

Strange, that the audible stillness of the noon,
The waters tripping with their silver feet,
The turning to the light of leaves in June,

And the light whisper as their edges meet-
Strange that they fill not, with their tranquil tone,
The spirit, walking in their midst alone.

There's no contentment, in a world like this,
Save in forgetting the immortal dream;
We may not gaze upon the stars of bliss,
That through the cloud-rifts radiantly stream;
Bird-like, the prisoned soul will lift its eye
And sing-till it is hooded from the sky.

To Seneca Lake.-PERCIVAL.

UN thy fair bosom, silver lake,

The wild swan spreads his snowy sail,

*This is a beautiful piece of poetry-more exquisitely finished than any of Mr. Willis's poetry which we have seen. Even a prejudiced mind (and there seem to be many such) cannot but admire it.-ED.

And round his breast the ripples break,
As down he bears before the gale.

On thy fair bosom, waveless stream,
The dipping paddle echoes far,
And flashes in the moonlight gleam,
And bright reflects the polar star.

The waves along thy pebbly shore,

As blows the north wind, heave their foam,
And curl around the dashing oar,

As late the boatman hies him home.

How sweet, at set of sun, to view
Thy golden mirror spreading wide,
And see the mist of mantling blue

Float round the distant mountain's side!

At midnight hour, as shines the moon,
A sheet of silver spreads below,
And swift she cuts, at highest noon,

Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow.

On thy fair bosom, silver lake,

O! I could ever sweep the oar,
When early birds at morning wake,
And evening tells us toil is o'er.

Mount Washington; the loftiest Peak of the White Mountains, N. H.-G. MELLEN.

MOUNT of the clouds, on whose Olympian height
The tall rocks brighten in the ether air,

And spirits from the skies come down at night,
To chant immortal songs to Freedom there!
Thine is the rock of other regions; where
The world of life which blooms so far below
Sweeps a wide waste: no gladdening scenes appear,
Save where, with silvery flash, the waters flow
Beneath the far off mountain, distant, calm, and slow.

Thine is the summit where the clouds repose,
Or, eddying wildly, round thy cliffs are borne;

When Tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws His billowy mist amid the thunder's home! Far down the deep ravines the whirlwinds come, And bow the forests as they sweep along; While, roaring deeply from their rocky womb, The storms come forth-and, hurrying darkly on, Amid the echoing peaks, the revelry prolong!

And, when the tumult of the air is fled,

And quenched in silence all the tempest flame,
There come the dim forms of the mighty dead,
Around the steep which bears the hero's name.
The stars look down upon them-and the same
Pale orb that glistens o'er his distant grave,
Gleams on the summit that enshrines his fame,
And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave-
The richest, purest tear, that memory ever gave!

Mount of the clouds, when winter round thee throws
The hoary mantle of the dying year,
Sublime, amid thy canopy of snows,

Thy towers in bright magnificence appear!
'Tis then we view thee with a chilling fear
Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue;
When, lo! in softened grandeur, far, yet clear,
Thy battlements stand clothed in heaven's own hue,
To swell as Freedom's home on man's unbounded view!

To the dying Year.-J. G. WHITTIER.

AND thou, gray voyager to the breezeless sea
Of infinite Oblivion, speed thou on!

Another gift of Time succeedeth thee,

Fresh from the hand of GoD! for thou hast done
The errand of thy destiny, and none

May dream of thy returning. Go! and bear
Mortality's frail records to thy cold,
Eternal prison-house ;-the midnight prayer
Of suffering bosoms, and the fevered care

Of worldly hearts; the miser's dream of gold;
Ambition's grasp at greatness; the quenched light
Of broken spirits; the forgiven wrong,
And the abiding curse. Ay, bear along

These wrecks of thine own making. Lo! thy knell
Gathers upon the windy breath of night,
Its last and faintest echo! Fare thee well!

The Captain. A Fragment.*-Brainard.
SOLEMN he paced upon that schooner's deck,
And muttered of his hardships :-" I have been
Where the wild will of Mississippi's tide
Has dashed me on the sawyer; I have sailed
In the thick night, along the wave-washed edge
Of ice, in acres, by the pitiless coast

Of Labrador; and I have scraped my keel
O'er coral rocks in Madagascar seas;

And often, in my cold and midnight watch,
Have heard the warning voice of the lee shore
Speaking in breakers! Ay, and I have seen
The whale and sword-fish fight beneath my bows;
And, when they made the deep boil like a pot,
Have swung into its vortex; and I know
To cord my vessel with a sailor's skill,

And brave such dangers with a sailor's heart ;-
But never yet, upon the stormy wave,
Or where the river mixes with the main,
Or in the chafing anchorage of the bay,
In all my rough experience of harm,
Met I-a Methodist meeting-house!

Cat-head, or beam, or davit has it none,

Starboard nor larboard, gunwale, stem nor stern!
It comes in such a " questionable shape,"

I cannot even speak it! Up jib, Josey,

And make for Bridgeport! There, where Stratford Point,
Long Beach, Fairweather Island, and the buoy,
Are safe from such encounters, we'll protest!
And Yankee legends long shall tell the tale,
That once a Charleston schooner was beset,
Riding at anchor, by a meeting-house!

*The Bridgeport paper of March, 1823, said: "Arrived, schooner Fame, from Charleston, via New London. While at anchor in that harbor, during the rain storm on Thursday evening last, the Fame was run foul of by the wreck of the Methodist meeting-house from Norwich, which was carried away in the late freshet."