THOUGHT.

There when the gloaming comes,

Low in the heather blooms,

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be,
Emblem of happiness,

Blessed is thy dwelling place!
O, to abide in the desert with thee!

131

J. HOGG.

THOUGHT.

What is thought? it is a mine
Whose gems are of a land divine,
A power no tyrant may control!

An emanation of the soul!

A spark of a celestial fire,

To favoured man in mercy given:
Spirit of an immortal sire!

A plant whose flower is heaven!
O! not beneath the sky's array

May highest thought with man unite;
'Tis but a gleam of that fine light,

Whose glory shines through an eternal day.

132

THE POWER OF MEMORY.

THE POWER OF MEMORY.

[This incident, so strongly illustrating the power of memory and association in lower animals, is not a fiction.

I heard it many years

ago in the Island of Mull, from the family to whom the bird belonged.]

The deep affections of the breast,
That Heaven to living things imparts,
Are not exclusively possessed

By human hearts !

A parrot from the Spanish main,

Full young and early caged, came o’er,
With bright wings to the bleak domain,
Of Mulla's shore.

The spicy groves where he had won
His plumage of resplendent hue,
His native fruits, and skies, and sun,

He bade adieu !

For these he changed the smoke of turf—

A heathery land and misty sky,

And turn'd on rocks and raging surf

His golden eye.

THE HOME FEVER.

But, petted in our climate cold,

He lived and chatter'd many a day;
Until with age, from green and gold,
His wings grew grey.

At last, when blind and seeming dumb-
He scolded, laugh'd, and spoke no more;
A Spanish stranger chanced to come
To Mulla's shore.

He hail'd the bird in Spanish speech;
The bird in Spanish speech replied;
Flapp'd round his cage with joyous screech,
Dropp'd down and died.

133

T. CAMPBELL.

THE HOME FEVER.

A RECOLLECTION OF THE WEST INDIES.

We sat in a green verandah's shade,
Where the verdant "tye-tye" twined
Its fairy net-work around us, and made

A harp for the cool sea wind;

That came there with its low wild tones at night,
Like a sigh that is telling of past delight.

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THE HOME FEVER.

And that wind with its tale of flowers had come
From the island groves away,

And the waves like wanderers returning home
To the beach came wearily;

And the conch's far home call, the parrot's cry,
Had told that the sabbath of night was nigh.

We sat alone in that trellised bower
And gazed o'er the darkening deep,
And the holy calm of that twilight hour
Came over our hearts like sleep.—

And we dreamt of the "banks and bonny braes"
That had gladden'd our hearts in childhood's days.

But he, the friend at my side that sat,

Was a boy whose path had gone

Through the flowers and fields of joy; that fate Like a mother had smiled upon;

But alas for the time when our hopes have wings, And when memory to grief like a syren sings.

His home had been on the stormy shore

Of Alleyn's mountain land;

His ear was tuned to the breakers' roar,
And he loved the bleak sea sand;
The torrent's din, and the howling breeze,
Had all his soul's wild symathies.

THE HOME FEVER.

They had told him tales of sunny

That rose over Indian seas,

135

lands

Where gold shone sparkling from river sands,
And strange fruit bent the trees;

They had wiled him away from his father's hearth,
With its light of peace, and voice of mirth.

Now, that fruit and the river gems were near,
And he stray'd 'neath the tropic sun;

But the voice of promise that thrilled in his ear
At that joyous moment was gone;

And the hope he had chased mid the wilds of night
Had melted away like a fire-fly's light.

O! I have watched him gazing long
Where the home-bound vessels lay;
Cheating sad thoughts with some old song,
And wiping his tears away.

Ah! well I knew that his weary breast,
Like the dove of the deluge, pined for rest.

There was a worm in the bud," whose fold
Defied the leech's art;

Consumption's hectic plague spot told

The tale of a broken heart.

The boy knew that he was dying, but the sleep
Of death is bliss to those who watch and weep.