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When the young sunbeams glance among the

trees

When on the ear comes the soft song of beesWhen every branch has its own favourite bird, And songs of summer, from each thicket heard!— Where the owl flitteth,

Where the rose sitteth,
And holiness

Seems sleeping there;

While nature's prayer
Goes up to heaven

In purity,

Till all is glory

And joy to me!

High thoughts!

They are my own

When I am resting on a mountain's bosom,

And see below me strown

The huts and homes where humble virtues blossom:

When I can trace each streamlet through the

meadow

When I can follow every fitful shadow-
When I can watch the winds among the corn,

And see the waves along the forest borne:
Where blue-bell and heather

Are blooming together,

THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN.

149

And far doth come

The Sabbath bell

O'er wood and fell;
I hear the beating

Of Nature's heart:

Heaven is before me

God thou art!

High thoughts!

They visit us

In moments when the soul is dim and darkened;

They come to bless

After the vanities to which we hearkened: When weariness hath come upon the spirit(Those hours of darkness which we all inherit)— Bursts there not through a glint of warm sun.

shine,

A winged thought, which bids us not repine? In joy and gladness,

In mirth and sadness,

Come signs and tokens:
Life's angel brings

Upon its wings

Those bright communings

The soul doth keep

Those thoughts of IIeaven

So pure and deep !"

R. NICOLL.

LINES.

THEY speak of thee as one whose mind
Is careless as a child at play,
Of thought untroubled, unconfined,
For ever wild, for ever gay:
They tell me of thy joyous voice,
Thy sparkling wit, thy ready smile;
They bid me in the tale rejoice,

Nor mark how cold my brow the while.

And thou with them so blest canst be?
And thou art happy with the gay?
The past seems all delight to thee,
The future-brilliant as to-day?
Would they believe me if I told

That I have seen thy starting tear,

Have heard thee secret woes unfold,

And mourn, when others could not hear?

'Tis better thus-be wild-be gay;
I'd have thee sad to only one:

How should I feel to know that they
Had seen thee weep as I have done?

LOUISA COSTELLO.

BOOKS.

BOOKS! sweet associates of the silent hour,
What blessed aspirations do I owe
To your companionship-your peaceful power
High and pure pleasure ever can bestow,-
Of noble ones I trace the path through life,

Joy in their joys, and sorrow as they mourn; Gaze on their Christian animating strife,

And shed fond tears o'er their untimely urn; Or, with heroic beings tread the soil

Of a freed country, by themselves made free, And taste the recompence of virtuous toil, The exultation of humanity.

F. HORNBLOWER.

A WORD IN SEASON.

THEY have a superstition in the East,
That ALLAH, written on a piece of paper,
Is better unction than can come of priest,

Of rolling incense, and of lighted taper:
Holding that any scrap which bears that name,
In any characters, its front imprest on,
Shall help the finder through the purging flame,
And give his toasted feet a place to rest on.

Accordingly they make a mighty fuss

With every wretched tract and fierce oration, And hoard the leaves; for they are not like

us,

A highly civilized and thinking nation; And always stooping in the miry ways

To look for matter of this earthly leaven, They seldom, in their dust-exploring days, Have any leisure to look up to Heaven.

So I have known a country on the earth,
Where darkness sat upon the living waters,
And brutal ignorance, and toil and dearth,
Were the hard portion of its sons and daugh-

ters;

And yet, where they who should have oped the door

Of charity and light, for all men's finding, Squabbled for words upon the altar-floor,

And rent the Book, in struggles for the binding.

The gentlest man among these pious Turks
God's living image ruthlessly defaces:
Their best high churchman, with no faith in
works,

Bowstrings the Virtues in the market-places.

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