While from the rock The columbine its crimson bell suspends, Say! when the blast Of winter swept our whiten'd plains,-what clime, Did the green isles Detain thee long? or, 'mid the palmy groves O, well I know Why thou art here thus soon, and why the bowers Thou art return'd On a glad errand,—to rebuild thy nest, And thy wild strain, Pour'd on the gale, is love's transporting voice- Nor calls alone T' enjoy, but bids improve the fleeting hourBids all that ever heard love's witching tone, Or felt his power. The poet too, It soft invokes to touch the trembling wire; Yet ah, how few its sounds shall list, how few His song admire! But thy sweet lay, Thou darling of the spring! no ear disdains; Thy sage instructress, Nature, says "Be gay!" And prompts thy strains. O, if I knew Like thee to sing, like thee the heart to fire,— Youth should enchanted throng, and beauty sue To hear my lyre. Oft as the year In gloom is wrapp'd, thy exile I shall mourn— RUFUS DAWES. THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. THE Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light, At morn, I know where she rested at night, At noon she hies to a cool retreat, Where bowering elms over waters meet; She dimples the wave, where the green leaves dip, At eve, she hangs o'er the western sky And round the skirts of each sweeping fold, She hovers around us at twilight hour, When her presence is felt with the deepest power; MRS. HALE. THE LIGHT OF HOME. My boy, thou wilt dream the world is fair, And thou must go; but never, when there, Though pleasure may smile with a ray more bright, It dazzles to lead astray: Like the meteor's flash, 'twill deepen the night, But the hearth of home has a constant flame, And pure as vestal fire : "Twill burn, 'twill burn, for ever the same, For nature feeds the pyre. The sea of ambition is tempest tost, |