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Behold him perch'd in ecstasies,
Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My sight he dazzles, half deceives,
A bird so like the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain

He mock'd and treated with disdain
The voiceless form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.

WORDSWORTH.

TO MY CHILD.

THEY say thou art not fair to others' eyes,
Thou who dost seem so beautiful in mine!
The stranger coldly passes thee, nor asks
What name, what home, what parentage are thine;
But carelessly, as though it were by chance,
Bestows on thee an unadmiring glance.

Art thou not beautiful?-To me it seems
As though the blue veins in thy temples fair-
The crimson in thy full and innocent lips-
The light that falls upon thy shining hair-
The varying colour in thy rounded cheek-
Must all of nature's endless beauty speak!

The very pillow which thy head hath prest
Through the past night, a picture brings to me
Of rest so holy, calm, and exquisite,

That sweet tears rise at thought of it and thee;
And I repeat, beneath the morning's light,

The mother's lingering gaze, and long good night!

Yea, even thy shadow, as slanting falls,
(When we two roam beneath the setting sun,)
Seems, as it glides along the path I tread,
A something bright and fair to gaze upon;
I press thy little eager hand the while,
And do not even turn to see thee smile!

Art thou not beautiful?—I hear thy voice-
Its musical shouts of childhood's sudden mirth-
And echo back thy laughter, as thy feet

Come gladly bounding o'er the damp spring-earth.
Yet no gaze follows thee but mine. I fear
Love hath bewitch'd mine eyes-my only dear!

Beauty is that which dazzles-that which strikes-
That which doth paralyze the gazer's tongue,
Till he hath found some rapturous word of praise
To bear his proud and swelling thoughts along;
Sunbeams are beautiful-and gilded halls-
Wide terraces-and showery waterfalls.

Yet are there things which through the gazing eye
Reach the full soul, and thrill it into love,
Unworthy of those rapturous words of praise,
Yet prized, perchance, the brightest things above;
A nook that was our childhood's resting place-
A smile upon some dear familiar face.

And therefore did the discontented heart
Create that other word its thoughts to dress;
And what it could not say was beautiful,
Yet gain'd the dearer term of loveliness.
The loved are lovely:-so art thou to me,
Child in whose face strange eyes no beauty see!

HON. MRS. NORTON.

REFLECTIONS OF A BELLE.

I'm weary of the crowded ball; I'm weary of the mirth,

Which never lifts itself above the grosser things of earth;

I'm weary of the flatterer's tone: its music is no more, And eye and lip may answer not its meaning as before; I'm weary of the heartless throng-of being deem'd

as one,

Whose spirit kindles only in the blaze of fashion's sun.

I speak in very bitterness, for I have deeply felt The mockery of the hollow shrine at which my spirit knelt;

Mine is the requiem of years, in reckless folly pass'd, The wail above departed hopes, on a frail venture cast,

The vain regret, that steals above the wreck of squander'd hours,

Like the sighing of the autumn wind above the faded flowers.

Oh! it is worse than mockery to list the flatterer's tone, To lend a ready ear to thoughts the cheek must blush

to own,

To hear the red lip whisper'd of, and the flowing curl

and eye

Made constant themes of eulogy, extravagant and high,

And the charm of person worshipp'd, in a homage offered not

To the perfect charm of virtue, and the majesty of thought.

Away! I will not fetter thus the spirit God hath given, Nor stoop the pinion back to earth that beareth up to

heaven;

I will not bow a tameless heart to fashion's iron rule, Nor welcome, with a smile, alike the gifted and the fool:

No-let the throng pass coldly on; a treasure few may find,

The charm of person doubly dear beneath the light of mind.

N. E. WEEKLY REVIEW.

THE SWALLOW.

THE gorse is yellow on the heath,

The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,
The oaks are budding, and beneath
The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
The silver wreath of May.

The welcome guest of settled spring,
The swallow, too, is come at last;
Just at sunset, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,
And hail'd her as she pass'd.

Come, summer visitant, attach

To my reed roof your nest of clay,
And let my ear your music catch,
Low twittering underneath the thatch
At the gray dawn of day.

As fables tell, an Indian sage,

The Hindostani woods among,
Could, in his desert hermitage,
As if 't were mark'd in written page,
Translate the wild bird's song.

I wish I did his power possess,

That I might learn, fleet bird, from thee,
What our vain systems only guess,
And know from what wide wilderness
You came across the sea.

I would a little while restrain

Your rapid wing, that I might hear Whether on clouds, that bring the rain, You sail'd above the western main, The wind your charioteer.

In Afric does the sultry gale

Through spicy bower and palmy grove
Bear the repeated cuckoo's tale?
Dwells there a time the wand'ring quail,
Or the itinerant dove?

Were you in Asia? O, relate

If there your fabled sister's woes
She seem'd in sorrow to narrate;
Or sings she but to celebrate

Her nuptials with the rose.

I would inquire how, journeying long
The vast and pathless ocean o er,
You ply again those pinions strong,
And come to build anew among
The scenes you left before;

But if, as colder breezes blow,
Prophetic of the warning year,
You hide, though none know when or how,
In the cliff's excavated brow,

And linger torpid here;

Thus to life, what favouring dream
Bids you to happier hours awake,
And tells that, dancing in the beam,
The light gnat hovers o'er the stream,
The May-fly on the lake.

Or if, by instinct taught to know,
Approaching dearth of insect food,
To isles and willowy aits you go,
And, crowding on the pliant bough,
Sink in the dimpling flood.

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