And the kind looks of friends

Peruse the sad expression in thy face,

And the child stops amid his bounding race,

And the tall stripling bends

Low to thine ear with duty unforgot

Alas! sweet mother! that thou seest them not!

But thou canst hear! and love

May richly on a human tone be pour'd,
And the least cadence of a whisper'd word
A daughter's love may prove—

And while I speak thou knowest if I smile,
Albeit thou canst not see my face the while!

Yes, thou canst hear! and He

Who on thy sightless eye its darkness hung,
To the attentive ear, like harps, hath strung
Heaven and earth and sea!

And 'tis a lesson in our hearts to know

With but one sense the soul may overflow.

ΤΟ

ON RECEIVING FROM HER A SPRAY OF LILIES OF THE VALLEY.

SMALL lily, that the careless overlook,

Though, to the finder, sweeter than the rose—

Pure, unobtrusive, fragrant-hearted flower-

How truthful is its portraiture of thee!

I've known thee until now, as floats the mist

Over the valley, silently aware

That sweetness known in heaven lay hid near by;

But, as the same mist, heavy with the night,

Falls in a dark tear to the lily's cup,

And finds it sweetest at the darkest hour,

So, thou pure girl, thy tender presence only

Has an unconscious ministry to me,

And near thee, in the night that shrouds me still,
My darkness is forgotten.

ROARING BROOK.

[A PASSAGE OF SCENERY NEAR NEW HAVEN.]

Ir was a mountain stream that with the leap
Of its impatient waters had worn out

A channel in the rock, and wash'd away
The earth that had upheld the tall old trees,
Till it was darken'd with the shadowy arch
Of the o'er-leaning branches. Here and there
It loiter'd in a broad and limpid pool
That circled round demurely, and anon
Sprung violently over where the rock
Fell suddenly, and bore its bubbles on,
Till they were broken by the hanging moss,

As anger with a gentle word grows calm.

In spring-time, when the snows were coming down-And in the flooding of the autumn rains,

No foot might enter there-but in the hot

And thirsty summer, when the fountains slept,
You could go up its channel in the shade,

To the far sources, with a brow as cool

As in the grotto of the anchorite.
Here when an idle student have I come,
And in a hollow of the rock lain down
And mused until the eventide, or read
Some fine old poet till my nook became

A haunt of faery, or the busy flow

Of water to my spell-bewilder'd ear

Seem'd like the din of some gay tournament.

Pleasant have been such hours, and though the wise

Have said that I was indolent, and they

Who taught me have reproved me that I play'd

The truant in the "leafy month of June,"

I deem it true philosophy in him

Whose path leads to the rude and busy world,

To loiter with these wayside comforters.

AN APOLOGY

FOR AVOIDING, AFTER LONG SEPARATION, A WOMAN ONCE

LOVED.

SEE me no more on earth, I pray;
Thy picture, in my memory now,
Is fair as morn, and fresh as May!
Few were as beautiful as thou!

And still I see that willowy form

And still that cheek like roses dyed—
And still that dark eye, deep and warm-

Thy look of love-thy step of pride !—
Thy memory is a star to me,

More bright as day-beams fade and flee.

But thou, indeed!-Ah! years have fled,
And thou, like others, changed the while-

For joy upon the lip lies dead

If pain but cloud the sunny smile!
And care will make the roses pale,

And tears will soil the lily's whiteness,