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The patient faith, which, unsubdued,
Grew mightier, tried through fire and blood.

One blossom, 'mid its leafy shade,

The virgin's purity pourtrayed:

And one, with cup all crimson dyed,

Spoke of a Saviour crucified;

And rich the store of holy thought
That little forest-flower brought,

Doctrine and miracle, whate'er

We draw from books, was treasured there.
Faith, in the wild wood's tangled bound,
A blessed heritage had found;
And Charity and Hope were seen
In the lone isle, and wild ravine.
Then pilgrims, through the forest brown,
Slow journeying on from town to town,
Halting 'mong mosses green and dank,
Breathed each a prayer before he drank
From waters by the pathway side.
Then duly, morn and eventide,
Before those ancient crosses grey,
Now mould'ring silently away,
Aged and young devoutly bent
In simple prayer-how eloquent!
For each good gift man then possessed
Demanded blessing, and was blest.

What though in our pride's selfish mood
We hold those times as dark and rude,
Yet give we, from our wealth of mind,
More grateful feeling, or refined?
And yield we unto Nature aught
Of loftier, or of holier thought,
Than they who gave sublimest power
To the small spring, and simple flower?

A Morning in June.

It is the hour before the labouring bee has left his golden hive; not yet the blooming day buds in the blushing East; not yet has the victorious Lucifer chased from the early sky the fainting splendour of the stars of night. All is silent, save the light breath of morn waking the slumbering leaves. Even now a golden streak breaks over the grey mountains. Hark! to shrill chanticleer! As the cock crows, the owl ceases. Hark! to shrill chanticleer's feathered rival! the mounting lark springs from the sullen earth, and welcomes, with his hymn, the coming day. The golden streak has expanded into a crimson crescent, and rays of living fire flame over the rose-enamelled east.

Man

rises sooner than the sun; and already sound the whistle of the ploughman, the song of the mower, and the forge of the smith,and hark! to the bugle of the hunter, and the baying of his deepmouthed hounds. The sun is up-the generating sun! and temple, and tower, and tree-the massy wood, and the broad field, and the distant hill, burst into sudden light—quickly upcurled is the dusky mist from the shining river-quickly is the cold dew drunk from the raised heads of the drooping flowers! - Vivian Grey.

Twilight.

The sun had already sunk behind the mountains, whose undulating forms were thrown into dark shadow against the crimson sky. The thin crescent of the new moon floated over the eastern hills, whose deep woods glowed with the rosy glories of twilight. Over the peak of a purple mountain, glittered the solitary star of evening. As the sun dropped, universal silence seemed to pervade the whole face of Nature. The voice of the birds was stilled; the breeze, which had refreshed them during the day, died away, as if its office were now completed; and none of the dark sounds and sights of hideous night yet dared to triumph over the death of day. Unseen were the circling wings of the fell bat; unheard the screech of the waking owl; silent the drowsy hum of the shade-born beetle! What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour-the sweet and soothing hour of twilight!-the hour of love, the hour of adoration, the hour of rest!-when we think of those we love, only to regret that we have not loved more dearly; when we remember our enemies, only to forgive them!—Vivian Grey.

Moonlight Views in Madeira.

The nights are delicious-so soft and balmy, with the moon walking in summer brightness. The orange trees just now are in full flower, and, in these warm evenings, load the air with perfume. It is delightful to lean out of the window, and inhale all this luxury. From the silent hills around, to the white city beneath me, every thing is sleeping so still in the moonshine—ali, save the sea, the rippling of which is distinctly visible in the bright track of light that strikes across it to the desertas. I love, too, in these warm, bright nights, to ramble in the corridors; the young vine shoots have just covered in the trellices, and the effect of the moonlight through the leafy bower is very pretty. The whole garden, indeed, at such a season, affords in its wilderness an inexhaustible store of studies, equally romantic and picturesque. The bananas, in particular, strike me; the large expanse of its light, green leaf, catches, and as it were, reflects the rays with a breadth of light and shadow quite different in its effect from that of any other tree.-Rambles in Madeira.

Poetical Pictures in June.
Morning.

The misty clouds of purple hue
Are fading from the eye;

And ruddy streaks, which morning drew,
Have left a dappled sky;

The sun has called the bees abroad,
Wet with the early hour,
By toiling for the honied load
Ere dews forsake the flower.

O'er yonder hill, a dusty rout
Wakes solitude from sleep;
Shepherds have wattled pens about,
To shear their bleating sheep:
Less pleasing is the public way,
Traced with awakened toil;

And sweet are woods, shut out from day,
Where sunbeams never smile.

The woodbines, fresh with morning hours,
Are what I love to see;

The ivy-spreading darksome bowers

Is where I love to be;

Left there, as when a boy to lie

And talk to flower and tree,

And fancy, in my ecstasy,

Their silence answers me.

How sweet the fanning breeze is felt,
Breathed through the dancing boughs ;
How sweet the rural noises melt

From distant sheep and cows:
The lovely green of wood and hill,
The hummings in the air,
Serenely in my breast instil

The rapture reigning there.

*

And flowers these darksome woodlands rear, Whose shades they yearly claim,

That Nature's wond'rous mystery wear,

And bloom without a name :

What different shapes in leaves are seen

That o'er my head embower,

Clad in as many shades of green
As colours in the flower!

Here oft, though grass and moss are seen
Tanned brown for want of showers,
Still keeps the ling its darksome green,
Thick set with little flowers;

And yonder, mingling o'er the heath,

The furze delights to dwell,

Whose blossoms steal the summer's breath,

And shed a sultry smell.

Sunset.

CLARE.

[Written for Time's Telescope, by Delta of Blackwood's Magazine.]

Young Summer sheds upon the flowers

Her tenderest tints of fair array,
As bright and beautiful the hours
Of evening radiance melt away:
How gloriously the cloudless sun
Forsakes the world he shines upon !
As if to say, though ebon Night

Must take the reins, and rule awhile,
Soon shall the streaks of rosy light

Above the orient mountains smile,
And Day's red pennant be unfurled,
Resplendent, o'er a happy world.
Above the sea-athwart the sea-

He sheds abroad his crimson beams;
Bloom on, thou dark-green alder tree-
Glide by, ye waveless azure streams→
Sing on, ye little birds-the hour
Is Beauty's reign, and Feeling's dower.
Life's circling hours have few like this-
"Twere almost crime to think of grief;
Give up the bosom to its bliss,

Although its visions may be brief;
Nor let one human care alloy,
This trance of unpolluted joy!

Twilight.

An American Scene.

The haze of gathering twilight Nature spreads,
And pale and paler wax the changeful clouds:
Then sunk the breeze into a breathless calm;
The silent dews of evening dropt like balm ;
The hungry nighthawk from his lone haunt flies,
To chase the viewless insect through the skies:
The bat began his lantern-loving flight;
The lonely whip-poor-will, our bird of night,

Ever unseen, yet ever seeming near,
His shrill note quavered in the startled ear;
The buzzing beetle forth did gaily hie,
With idle hum, and careless blund'ring eye;
The little trusty watchman of pale night,
The fire-fly, trimmed anew his lamp so bright,
And took his airy circuit round

The sparkling meadow's green and fragrant bound,
Where blossomed clover, bathed in balmy dew,
In fair luxuriance, sweetly blushing, grew.

Backwoodsman.

JULY.

THIS month received the name of Julius, in memory of Julius Cæsar, who was born on the 12th of July. The sign for this month is Leo.- Venison feasts predominate in July, particularly in London, among the civic corporations, the appetites of whose members for venison and other good things, 250 years ago, proved 'offensive' to her Majesty (Queen Elizabeth) and her nobility, and called forth the following curious letter from Lionel Ducket, Lord Mayor of London, to Lord Burghley, upon the reformation of excessive feasting in the Halls of the City Companies, and in Taverns.' It is printed in Mr. Ellis's valuable work, so often referred to, the Original Letters,' Second Series, vol. iii, p. 37, and is as follows:

Our dutie to yor Lordship humbly done; it may please the same to be advertised that for auoyding the excessive spending of venison and other vitail in the Halles of this Citie, which we understand to haue ben offensive to her Matie and the Nobilitie, we haue by act of Comon Counsel forbidden such festes hereafter to be kept, and haue restrained the same only to necessarie metinges in wh also no venison is permitted, as by the copie of the Act herewth sent unto yor L. may appere. And further, for that we finde not only great expense of venison to haue ben in Tauernes and Cookes houses, but also very many and great enormities bothe of dronkennesse, seditions, rumors, unthrifty assemblies, incontinence, and other euelles to growe of inordinate resorting to tauernes and tippling houses, specially by the meaner sort, we have sought meane to redresse such disorder by restrain

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