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RURAL LIFE.

COME, take thy stand upon this gentle ridge,
Which overlooks yon sweet secluded vale;
Before us is a rude and rustic bridge,

A simple plank; and by its side a rail
On either hand, to guide the footsteps frail
Of first or second childhood: while below
The murmuring brooklet tells its babbling tale,
Like a sweet under-song, which in its flow
It chanteth to the flowers that on its margin grow.

For many a flow'ret blossoms there to bless
The gentle loveliness whose charms imbue
Its border;-strawberry of the wilderness;
The star-like daisy; violet brightly blue;
Pale Primrose, in whose cup the pearly dew
Glistens till noontide's languid, listless hour;
And last of all, and sweetest to the view,

The lily of the vale, whose virgin flower
Trembles at every breeze within its leafy bower.

Now glance thine eye along the streamlet's banks
Up through yon quiet valley; thou wilt trace
Above, the giant mountains in their ranks,
Of bald and varied outline; little space
Below their summits, far above their base
Umbrageous woods: and last of all, thine eye
Will rest on many an humble dwelling-place
Of happy human beings; and descry

The lowly temple where they worship the Most
High.

How quietly it stands within the bound

Of its low wall of gray and mossy stone! And like a shepherd's peaceful flock around Its guardian gather'd,-graves, or tombstones

strown,

Make their last narrow resting-places known,
Who, living, loved it as a holy spot;

And, dying, made their deep attachment shown
By wishing here to sleep when life was not,
That so their turf, or stone, might keep them un-
forgot!

It is a bright and balmy afternoon,
Approaching unto eventide; and all
Is still except that streamlet's placid tune,
Or hum of bees, or lone wood-pigeon's call,
Buried amid embow'ring forest tall,

Which feathers, half-way up, each hill's steep side:
Dost thou not feel such landscape's soothing thrall;
And wish, if not within its bowers t' abide,
At least to explore its haunts, and know what joys
they hide?

Nor need'st thou wish a truer luxury

Than in its depths, delighted, thou might'st share; I will not say that naught of agony,

Blest as it is, at times may harbour there,

For man is born to suffer and to bear:

But could I go with thee, from cot to cot, And show thee how this valley's inmates fare, Thou might'st confess, to live in such a spot, And die there in old age, were no unlovely lot. BARTON.

LAKE LEMAN.

CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction: once I loved Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

It is the hush of night, and all between

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darken'd Jura, whose capp'd heights appear
Precipitously steep; and, drawing near,

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;

He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill;
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill;
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instil,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse
Deep into nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent as we stand in thoughts too deep:-
All heaven and earth are still: from the high host
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast,
All is concentred in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

BYRON.

OH! SAY NOT "TWERE A KEENER BLOW.

OH! say not 't were a keener blow
To lose a child of riper years,
You cannot feel a mother's woe,
You cannot dry a mother's tears;
The girl who rears a sickly plant,
Or cherishes a wounded dove,

Will love them most, while most they want
The watchfulness of love!

Time must have changed that fair young brow!
Time might have changed that spotless heart!
Years might have taught deceit but now
In love's confiding dawn-we part!
Ere pain or grief had wrought decay,
My babe is cradled in the tomb;
Like some fair blossom torn away
Before its perfect bloom.

With thoughts of peril and of storm,
We see a bark first touch the wave;
But distant seems the whirlwind's form,
As distant as an infant's grave!
Though all is calm, that beauteous ship
Must brave the whirlwind's rudest breath;
Though all is calm, that infant's lip

Must meet the kiss of Death!

T. H. BAILEY.

A REMEMBERED FACE.

AH there!-and comest thou thus again-
Thou phantom of delight?

How oft, in hours of lonely pain,

Thou risest on my sight!

Since last we met, what suns have known

Their rising and decline!

But none of all those suns have shown

A fairer face than thine.

"Tis many a year since I look'd on
Those meek and loving eyes;

And thousands since have come and gone,
Like meteors through the skies.
But thine-they often come to me,
With lustre so benign,

Though memory of all others flee,
"T will make but dearer thine.

As not alone, the gorgeous arch

Rear'd in heaven's summer dome,
Gleams proudly on its silent march,
And heralds good to come,

But leaves, where'er its glory pass'd,
A fragrancy divine,*

So freshly on my soul is cast

The odorous light of thine.

Then welcome to my lonely hours,
Thou visionary thing,

Come with thy coronal of flowers,
Flowers of a vanish'd spring.
For gleeful souls let others roam,
But, till life's cords untwine,
In my heart's depth shall find a home
That pensive face of thine.

WILLIAM HOWITT

ST. VALERIE.

RAISED on the rocky barriers of the sea,
Stands thy dark convent, fair St. Valerie!
Lone like an eagle's nest, the pine-trees tall
Throw their long shadows on the heavy wall,

*"The ancients," says Lord Bacon, in his "Ten Centuries of Natural History," "believed that where the rainbow rested it left a delicate and heavenly odour."

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