I saw a babe with its mother die,

I listened to catch its parting sigh,

And I laughed to see the black billows play
With the sleeping child in their gambols gay.
I saw a girl whose arms were white

As the foam that danced on the billows' height,
And the ripples toyed with her glossy curls,
And her cheek was kissed by the wanton whirls;
But her bosom was dead to hope and fear,
For she shuddered not as the shark came near.
I poised my foot on the forehead fair
Of a lovely boy that floated there—

I looked in the eyes of the drowning brave,
As they upward gazed through the fatal wave-
I screamed o'er the bubbles that told of death,
And stooped as the last gave up his breath.
I flapped my wings, for the work was done,
The storm was hushed, and the golden sun
Sent his light abroad o'er the lulling seas-
And I tell my tale to the whispering breeze,
Of the hidden things which the waves conceal,
And the sea-bird's song can alone reveal.

LAKE SUPERIOR.

"FATHER OF LAKES!" thy waters bend Beyond the eagle's utmost view,

When, throned in heaven, he sees thee send Back to the sky its world of blue.

Boundless and deep, the forests weave
Their twilight shade thy borders o'er,
And threatening cliffs, like giants, heave
Their rugged forms along thy shore.

Pale Silence, 'mid thy hollow caves,
With listening ear, in sadness broods;

Or startled Echo, o'er thy waves,

Sends the hoarse wolf-notes of thy woods.

Nor can the light canoes, that glide
Across thy breast like things of air,

Chase from thy lone and level tide
The spell of stillness reigning there.

Yet round this waste of wood and wave,
Unheard, unseen, a spirit lives,

That, breathing o'er each rock and cave,
To all a wild, strange aspect gives.

The thunder-riven oak, that flings
Its grisly arms athwart the sky,
A sudden, startling image brings

To the lone traveller's kindled eye.

The gnarled and braided boughs, that show
Their dim forms in the forest shade,

Like wrestling serpents seem, and throw
Fantastic horrors through the glade.

The very echoes round this shore

Have caught a strange and gibbering tone; For they have told the war-whoop o'er,

Till the wild chorus is their own.

Wave of the wilderness, adieu !

Adieu, ye rocks, ye wilds and woods!

Roll on, thou element of blue,

And fill these awful solitudes!

Thou hast no tale to tell of man

. God is thy theme. Ye sounding caves—— Whisper of Him, whose mighty plan

Deems as a bubble all your waves !

B. B. THATCHER.

I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAYS.”

EARTH is the spirit's rayless cell, But then, as a bird soars home to the shade Of the beautiful wood, where its nest was made, In bonds no more to dwell ;

So will its weary wing

Be spread for the skies, when its toil is done, And its breath flow free, as a bird's in the sun, And the soft, fresh gales of spring.

O, not more sweet the tears

Of the dewy eve on the violet shed,

Than the dews of age on the "hoary head,”
When it enters the eve of years.

Nor dearer, 'mid the foam

Of the far-off sea, and its stormy roar,
Is a breath of balm from the unseen shore,

To him that weeps for home.

Wings, like a dove, to fly !—

The spirit is faint with its feverish strife ;—
O, for its home in the upper Life!

When, when will Death draw nigh!

TO A SISTER ABOUT TO EMBARK ON A

MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE.

O SISTER! Sister! hath the memory
Of other years no power upon thy soul,

That thus, with tearless eye, thou leavest me—
And an unfaltering voice-to come no more?
Hast thou forgot, friend of my better days,
Hast thou forgot the early, innocent joys

Of our remotest childhood; when our lives

Were linked in one, and our young hearts bloomed out

Like violet bells upon the self-same stem,

Pouring the dewy odors of life's spring
Into each other's bosom-all the bright
And sorrowless thoughts of a confiding love,
And intermingled vows, and blossoming hopes
Of future good, and infant dreams of bliss,
Budding and breathing sunnily about them,
As crimson-spotted cups, in spring time, hang
On all the delicate fibres of the vine?