DEAR is my little native vale,

The ring-dove builds and murmurs there;

Close by my cot she tells her tale

To every passing villager.

The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,

And shells his nuts at liberty.

In orange-groves and myrtle-bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
I charm the fairy-footed hours

With my loved lute's romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave,
For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day, The ballet danced in twilight glade, The canzonet and roundelay

Sung in the silent green-wood shade; These simple joys, that never fail,

Shall bind me to my native vale.

THE ALPS AT DAY-BREAK.

THE sun-beams streak the azure skies, And line with light the mountain's brow: With hounds and horns the hunters rise, And chase the roebuck thro' the snow.

From rock to rock, with giant-bound,
High on their iron poles they pass;
Mute, lest the air, convulsed by sound,
Rend from above a frozen mass.

The goats wind slow their wonted way, Up craggy steeps and ridges rude; Marked by the wild wolf for his prey, From desert cave or hanging wood.

And while the torrent thunders loud,
And as the echoing cliffs reply,
The huts peep o'er the morning-cloud,

Perched, like an eagle's nest, on high.

ON A TEAR.

OH! that the Chemist's magic art Could crystallize this sacred treasure! Long should it glitter near my heart, A secret source of pensive pleasure.

The little brilliant, ere it fell,

Its lustre caught from CHLOE's eye;
Then, trembling, left its coral cell—
The spring of Sensibility!

Sweet drop of pure and pearly light!
In thee the rays of Virtue shine;
More calmly clear, more mildly bright,
Than any gem that gilds the mine.

Benign restorer of the soul!

Who ever fly'st to bring relief,

When first we feel the rude controul

Of Love or Pity, Joy or Grief.

The sage's and the poet's theme,

In every clime, in every age;
Thou charm'st in Fancy's idle dream,
In Reason's philosophic page.

That very law which moulds a tear, And bids it trickle from its source, That law preserves the earth a sphere, And guides the planets in their course.