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Thou changest not-but I am changed,
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged;
And the grave stranger, come to see
The play-place of his infancy,
Has scarce a single trace of him,
Who sported once upon thy brim.
The visions of my youth are past-
Too bright, too beautiful to last.

I've tried the world-it wears no more
The colouring of romance it wore.
Yet well has nature kept the truth
She promised to my earliest youth;
The radiant beauty shed abroad
On all the glorious works of God,
Shows freshly, to my sober'd eye,
Each charm it wore in days gone by.

A few brief years shall pass away,
And I, all trembling, weak, and gray,
Bow'd to the earth, which waits to fold
My ashes in the embracing mould,
(If haply the dark will of fate
Indulge my life so long a date)
May come for the last time to look
Upon my childhood's favourite brook,
Then dimly on my eyes shall gleam
The sparkle of thy dancing stream;
And faintly on my ear shall fall
Thy prattle current's merry call;
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright
As when thou met'st my infant sight.

And I shall sleep-and on thy side,
As ages after ages glide,

Children their early sports shall try,
And pass to hoary age and die.

But thou, unchanged from year to year,
Gaily shalt play and glitter here;

Amid young flowers and tender grass
Thy endless infancy shalt pass;
And, singing down thy narrow glen,
Shalt mock the fading race of men.

BRYANT.

CASABIANCA.

Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the battle of the Nile,) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

THE boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck,
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,

A proud, though child-like form.

The flames roll'd on-he would not go,
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He call'd aloud-Say, father, say
If yet my task is done?'

He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

'Speak, father!' once again he cried,

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If I may yet be gone!'

And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll'd on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair;

And look'd from that lone post of death,
In still yet brave despair-

And shouted but once more aloud,

My father! must I stay?'

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,

And stream'd above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound-
The boy-oh! where is he?

-Ask of the winds that far around

With fragments strow the sea!

MRS. HEMANS.

AUTUMN.

O, WITH What glory comes and goes the year!
The buds of spring-those beautiful harbingers
Of sunny skies and cloudless times-enjoy
Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out;
And when the silver habit of the clouds
Comes down upon the autumn sun, and, with
A sober gladness, the old year takes up
His bright inheritance of golden fruits,
A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene.

There is a beautiful spirit breathing now
Its mellow richness on the cluster'd trees,
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,
And dipping in warm light the pillar'd clouds.
Morn, on the mountain, like a summer bird,
Lifts up her purple wing; and in the vales

The gentle wind-a sweet and passionate wooer-
Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life

Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimson'd,
And silver beach, and maple yellow-leaved,-
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the way-side a-weary. Through the trees
The golden robin moves; the purple finch,
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds,
A winter bird,-comes with its plaintive whistle,
And pecks by the witch-hazel; whilst aloud,
From cottage roofs, the warbling blue-bird sings;
And merrily, with oft-repeated stroke,
Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail.

O, what a glory doth this world put on
For him, that, with a fervent heart, goes forth
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
On duties well perform'd, and days well spent!
For him the wind, ay, the yellow leaves,
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings.
He shall so hear the solemn hymn, that Death
Has lifted up for all, that he shall go

To his long resting-place without a tear.

LONGFELLOW.

THE LOST DARLING.

SHE was my idol. Night and day to scan
The fine expansion of her form, and mark
The unfolding mind like vernal rose-bud start
To sudden beauty, was my chief delight.
To find her fairy footsteps follow me,
Her hand upon my garments, or her lip
Long seal'd to mine, and in the watch of night
The quiet breath of innocence to feel
Soft on my cheek, was such a full content
Of happiness, as none but mothers know.

Her voice was like some tiny harp that yields
To the slight finger'd breeze, and as it held
Brief converse with her doll, or playful soothed
The moaning kitten, or with patient care
Conn'd o'er the alphabet-but most of all
Its tender cadence in her evening prayer
Thrill'd on the ear like some ethereal tone
Heard in sweet dreams.

But now alone I sit, Musing of her, and dew with mournful tears Her little robes, that once with woman's pride I wrought, as if there were a need to deck What God had made so beautiful. I start, Half fancying from her empty crib there comes A restless sound, and breathed the accustom'd words "Hush! Hush thee, dearest." Then I bend and

weep

As though it were a sin to speak to one
Whose home is with the angels.

Gone to God!

And yet I wish I had not seen the pang
That wrung her features, nor the ghastly white
Settling around her lips. I would that Heaven
Had taken its own, like some transplanted flower,
Blooming in all its freshness.

Gone to God!

Be still, my heart! what could a mother's prayer,
In all the wildest ecstasy of hope,

Ask for its darling like the bliss of heaven?

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

THE CAPTIVE OF ALHAMA.

THE Moslem star was on the wane,
Eclipsed the Paynim powers,

And the haughty lord of Christian Spain,
Besieged Granada's towers:

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