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Have turn'd to blossoms where they fell,
And sown the earth with flowers.

There's fairy tulips in the East,
The gardens of the sun;

The very streams reflect the hues,
And blossom as they run:

While morn opes like a crimson rose,
Still wet with pearly showers;
Then, lady, leave the silken thread
Thou twinest into flowers!

WIFFEN.

BIRDS' NESTS.

SPRING is abroad! the cuckoo's note
Floats o'er the flowery lea;

Yet nothing of the mighty sea

Her welcome tones import:

Nothing of lands where she has been,
Of fortunes she has known;
The joy of this remember'd scene
Breathes in her song alone.

No traveller she, whose vaunting boast
Tells of each fair but far-off coast:
She talks not here of eastern skies,
But of home and its pleasant memories.

Spring is abroad! a thousand more
Sweet voices are around,

Which yesterday a farewell sound
Gave to some foreign shore;

I know not where-it matters not;
To-day their thoughts are bent,
To pitch, in some sequester'd spot,
Their secret summer tent;

Hid from the glance of urchins' eyes,
Peering already for the prize;
While daily, hourly intervene

The clustering leaves, a closer screen.

In bank, in bush, in hollow hole
High on the rocking tree,
On the gray cliffs that haughtily
The ocean waves control;
Far in the solitary fen,

On heath, and mountain hoar,
Beyond the foot or fear of men,
Or by the cottage door;

In grassy tuft, in ivy'd tower,
Where'er directs the instinctive power,
Or loves each jocund pair to dwell,
Is built the cone, or feathery cell.

Beautiful things! than I, no boy
Your traces may discern,
Sparkling beneath the forest fern,
With livelier sense of joy:

I would not bear them from the nest,
To leave fond hearts regretting;
But, like the soul screen'd in the breast,
Like gems in beauteous setting,
Amidst Spring's leafy, green array
I deem them; and, from day to day,
Passing, I pause, to turn aside,

With joy, the boughs where they abide.

The mysteries of life's early day
Lay thick as summer dew,

Like it, they glitter'd and they flew,
With ardent youth away:

But not a charm of yours has faded,
Ye are full of marvel still.

Now jewels cold, and now pervaded
With heavenly fire, ye thrill
And kindle into life, and bear
Beauty and music through the air:
The embryos of a shell to-day;
To-morrow, and-away! away!

Methinks, even as I gaze, there springs
Life from each tinted cone;

And wand'ring thought has onward flown
With speed-careering wings,

To lands, to summer lands afar,

To the mangrove, and the palm;
To the region of each stranger star

Led by a blissful charm:

Like toys in beauty here they lay

They are gone o'er the sounding ocean's spray;
They are gone to bowers and skies more fair,
And have left us to our march of care.

W. HOWITT.

THE WAKENING.

How many thousands are wakening now!
Some to the songs from the forest-bough,
To the rustling leaves at the lattice-pane,
To the chiming fall of the early rain.

And some, far out on the deep mid-sea,
To the dash of the waves in their foaming glee,
As they break into spray on the ship's tall side,
That holds through the tumult her path of pride.

And some-oh! well may their hearts rejoice,
To the gentle sound of a mother's voice;
Long shall they yearn for that kindly tone,
When from the board and the hearth 't is gone.

And some in the camp, to the bugle's breath,
And the tramp of the steed on the echoing heath,
And the sudden roar of the hostile gun,
Which tells that a field must, ere night, be won.

And some, in the gloomy convict-cell,

To the dull deep note of the warning bell,
As it heavily calls them forth to die,

While the bright sun mounts in the laughing sky.

And some to the peal of the hunter's horn,
And some to the sounds from the city borne;
And some to the rolling of torrent-floods,
Far 'midst old mountains, and solemn woods.

So are we roused on this chequer'd earth,
Each unto light hath a daily birth,

Though fearful or joyous, though sad or sweet,
Be the voices which first our upspringing meet.

But ONE must the sound be, and ONE the call,
Which from the dust shall awake us all!
ONE, though to sever'd and distant dooms-
How shall the sleepers arise from their tombs?
MRS. HEMANS.

AUTUMN FLOWERS.

THOSE few pale Autumn flowers,
How beautiful they are!

Than all that went before,

Than all the summer store,
How lovelier far!

And why? They are the last!
The last! the last! the last!
Oh! by that little word,

How many thoughts are stirr'd;
That sister of the past!

Pale flowers! pale perishing flowers!
Ye're types of precious things;
Types of those bitter moments,
That flit, like life's enjoyments,
On rapid, rapid wings.

Last hours with parting dear ones,
(That time the fastest spends)

Last tears in silence shed,

Last words half uttered,

Last looks of dying friends.

Who would but fain compress

A life into a day,

The last day spent with one
Who, ere the morrow's sun,
Must leave us, and for aye?

Oh, precious, precious moments!
Pale flowers! ye're types of those;
The saddest! sweetest! dearest!
Because, like those, the nearest
To an eternal close.

Pale flowers! pale perishing flowers!
I woo your gentle breath-

I leave the summer rose

For younger, blither brows;

Tell me of change and death.

ANON.

TO THE EVENING WIND.

SPIRIT, that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
Roughening their crests, and scattering high their

spray,

And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorch'd land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone-a thousand bosoms round

Inhale thee in the fullness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,
Lies the vast inland stretch'd beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

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