TO A CITY PIGEON.

STOOP to my window, thou beautiful dove!
Thy daily visits have touch'd my love.
I watch thy coming, and list the note
That stirs so low in thy mellow throat,
And my joy is high

To catch the glance of thy gentle eye.

Why dost thou sit on the heated eaves,

And forsake the wood with its freshen'd leaves? Why dost thou haunt the sultry street,

When the paths of the forest are cool and sweet? How canst thou bear

This noise of people-this sultry air?

Thou alone of the feather'd race

Dost look unscared on the human face;

Thou alone, with a wing to flee,

Dost love with man in his haunts to be;
And the "the gentle dove"

Has become a name for trust and love.

It is no light chance. Thou art kept apart,
Wisely by Him who has tam'd thy heart,
To stir the love for the bright and fair
'That else were seal'd in the crowded air;
I sometimes dream

Angelic rays from thy pinions stream.

Come then, ever, when daylight leaves
The page I read, to my humble eaves,
And wash thy breast in the hollow spout,
And murmur thy low sweet music out,
I hear and see

Lessons of Heaven, sweet bird, in thee!

ON A PICTURE OF A BEAUTIFUL BOY.

A BOY! yet in his eye you trace
The watchfulness of riper years,

And tales are in that serious face
Of feelings early steep'd in tears;
And in that tranquil gaze

There lingers many a thought unsaid,
Shadows of other days,

Whose hours with shapes of beauty came and fled.

And sometimes it is even so!

The spirit ripens in the germ;

The new-seal'd fountains overflow,

The bright wings tremble in the worm.

The soul detects some passing token,
Some emblem, of a brighter world,
And, with its shell of clay unbroken,
Its shining pinions are unfurl'd,

And, like a blessed dream,

Phantoms, apparrell'd from the sky,

Athwart its vision gleam,

As if the light of Heaven had touch'd its gifted eye.

'Tis strange how childhood's simple words Interpret Nature's mystic book—

How it will listen to the birds,

Or ponder on the running brook,
As if its spirit fed.

And strange that we remember not,
Who fill its eye, and weave its lot,

How lightly it were led

Back to the home which it has scarce forgot.

ON THE PICTURE OF A "CHILD TIRED OF PLAY."

TIRED of play! Tired of play!

What hast thou done this livelong day?
The birds are silent, and so is the bee;

The sun is creeping up steeple and tree;
The doves have flown to the sheltering eaves,
And the nests are dark with the drooping leaves,
Twilight gathers, and day is done-

How hast thou spent it, beautiful one!

Playing? But what hast thou done beside
To tell thy mother at even tide?

What promise of morn is left unbroken?
What kind word to thy playmate spoken?
Whom hast thou pitied, and whom forgiven?
How with thy faults has duty striven?
What hast thou learned by field and hill,