Away from the chamber and dusky hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth,
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And Youth is abroad in my green domains.

The First of March.

THE bud is in the bough
And the leaf is in the bud,
And Earth's beginning now

In her veins to feel the blood,
Which, warm'd by summer's sun
In th' alembic of the vine,
From her founts will overrun
In a ruddy gush of wine.

The perfume and the bloom

That shall decorate the flower,

Are quickening in the gloom

Of their subterranean bower;
And the juices meant to feed
Trees, vegetables, fruits,
Unerringly proceed

To their pre-appointed roots.

FF

How awful the thought

Of the wonders underground,
Of the mystic changes wrought
In the silent, dark profound;
How each thing upwards tends
By necessity decreed,

And a world's support depends
On the shooting of a seed!

The Summer's in her ark,
And this sunny-pinion'd day
Is commission'd to remark
Whether Winter holds her sway;
Go back, thou dove of peace,
With the myrtle on thy wing,
Say that floods and tempests cease,
And the world is ripe for Spring.

Thou hast fann'd the sleeping Earth Till her dreams are all of flowers,

And the waters look in mirth

For their overhanging bowers;

The forest seems to listen

For the rustle of its leaves, And the very skies to glisten

In the hope of summer eves.

Thy vivifying spell

Has been felt beneath the wave,

By the dormouse in its cell,

And the mole within its cave; And the summer tribes that creep, Or in air expand their wing, Have started from their sleep, At the summons of the Spring.

The cattle lift their voices

From the valleys and the hills, And the feather'd race rejoices

With a gush of tuneful bills And if this cloudless arch

s;

Fills the poet's song with glee, O thou sunny first of March,

Be it dedicate to thee!

L. E. LANDON.

Descriptive Sketch.

(From the Literary Gazette, No. 375.)

It is a lovely lake, with waves as blue
As e'er were lighted by the morning ray
To topaz-crowded with an hundred isles,
Each named from some peculiar flower it bears:
There is the Isle of Violets, whose leaves,
Thick in their azure beauty, fill the air
With most voluptuous breathings; the Primrose
Gives name to one; the Lillies of the Valley,
Like wreath'd pearls, to another; Cowslips glow,
Ringing with golden bells the fragrant peal
Which the bees love so, in a fourth. How sweet
Upon a summer evening, when the lake
Lies half in shadow, half in crimson light,
Like hope and fear holding within the heart
Divided empire, with a light slack sail
To steer your little boat amid the isles,

Now gazing in the clouds like fiery halls,

Till head and eye are filled with gorgeous thoughts
Of golden palaces in fairyland;

Or, looking thro' the clear, yet purple wave,
See the white pebbles, shining like the hearts
Pure and bright even in this darksome world!
There is one gloomy isle, quite overgrown
With weeping willows; green, yet pensively
Sweep the long branches down to the tall grass;
And in the very middle of the place

There stands a large old yew-beneath its shade
I would my grave might be: the tremulous light,
Breaking at intervals. thro' the sad boughs,
Yet without power to warm the ground below,
Would be so like the mockery of hope.

No flowers grow there-they would not suit my tomb:

It should be only strewed with withered leaves;
And on a willow, near, my harp might hang,

Forgotten and forsaken, yet at times
Sending sweet music o'er the lake.