THE VOICE OF SPRING. I COME, I come!. - ye have call'd me long, — I have breathed on the South; and the chesnut flowers, By thousands, have burst from the forest-bowers; I have pass'd on the hills of the stormy North, And the larch has hung all his tassels forth, The fisher is out on the sunny sea, The rein-deer bounds through the pasture free, And the pine has a fringe of softer green, And the moss looks bright where my step has been. I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh, From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain; Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come! Away from the dwellings of care-worn men, Away from the chamber and dusky hearth, But ye!-ye are changed since ye met me last; Ye are changed, ye are changed! - and I see not here There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright, There were steps, that flew o'er the cowslip's head, Ye have look'd on Death since ye met me last! I know whence the shadow comes o'er ye now: They are gone from amongst you, the bright and fair; Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair! But I know of a world where there falls no blight: I tarry no longer:- farewell, farewell! The summer is hastening, on soft winds borne: Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn! For me, I depart to a brighter shore: Ye are mark'd by care, ye are mine no more; I go where the loved, who have left you, dwell, farewell! - fare ye well, Mrs. Hemans. THE FALL OF THE LEAF. THIS leaf teaches a lesson. Its usefulness does not end with its life. When I cast it on the ground it will not be lost. It enriches the soil. Autumn feeds spring. The withered leaves help to bring forth the green. Here is my admonition. Minutes are the leaves of life. The decay of one year is the foliage of the next. I have been deeply impressed with a late writer's sublime parable of a man shut up in a fortress, under sentence of perpetual imprisonment, and obliged to draw water from a reservoir which he may not see, but into which no fresh stream is ever to be poured. How much it contains he cannot tell. He knows the quantity is not great; it may be extremely small. His imprisonment having been long, he has already drawn out a considerable supply. The diminution increases daily; and how, it is asked, "would he feel each time of drawing and each time of drinking it?" Not as if |