Without disease, the healthful life;

The household of continuance ;

The meaņ diet, no delicate fare ;

True wisdom joined with simpleness ; The night dischargéd of all care,

Where wine the wit may not oppress ;

Flashes the lovelight, increasing the glory, Beaming from bright eyes with warmth of the

soul, Telling of trust and content the sweet story, Lifting the shadows that over us roll.

King, king, crown me the king:

Home is the kingdom, and Love is the king ! Richer than miser with perishing treasure,

Served with a service no conquest could bring ; Happy with fortune that words cannot measure, Light-hearted I on the hearthstone can sing. King, king, crown me the king : Home is the kingilom, and Love is the king.

REV. WILLIAM RANKIN DURYEA.

THE FIRESIDE.

A SHEPHERD'S LIFE.

FROM

THIRD PART OF HENRY VI."

Dear Chloe, while the busy crowd, The vain, the wealthy, and the proud,

In folly's maze advance ; Though singularity and pride Be called our choice, we'll step aside,

Nor join the giddy dance.

From the gay world we'll oft retire To our own family and fire,

Where love our hours employs ; No noisy neighbor enters here, No intermeddling stranger near,

To spoil our heartfelt joys.

King Henry. O God! methinks, it were a

happy life, . To be no better than a homely swain ; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run; How many make the hour full complete ; How many hours bring about the day ; How many days will finish up the year; How many years a mortal man may live. When this is known, then to divide the times, So many hours must I tend my flock; So many hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate ; So many hours must I sport myself; So many days my ewes have been with young ; So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean ; So many years ere I shall shear the fleece : Sominutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, Passed over to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah, what a life were this ! how sweet ! how lovely ! Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroidered canopy To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?

If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies,

And they are fools who roam ;
The world hath nothing to bestow,
From our own selves our bliss must flow,

And that dear hut, our home.

Our portion is not large, indeed; But then how little do we need,

'For nature's calls are few ; In this the art of living lies, To want no more than may suffice,

And make that little do.

SHAKESPEARE.

We 'll therefore relish with content Whate'er kind Providence has sent,

Nor aim beyond our power ; For, if our stock be very small, 'T is prudence to enjoy it all,

Nor lose the present hour.

THE MEANS TO ATTAIN HAPPY LIFE.

MARTIAL, the things that do attain

The happy life be these, I find, The riches left, not got with pain ;

The fruitful ground, the quiet mind, The equal friend; no grudge, no strife ;

No charge of rule, nor governance ;

To be resigned when ills betide,
Patient when favors are denied,

And pleased with favors given, -
Dear Chloe, this is wisdom's part,
This is that incense of the heart,
Whose fragrance smells to heaven.

NATHANIEL COTTON,

A WINTER'S EVENING HYMN TO MY

FIRE.

Meanwhile thou mellowest every word,
A sweetly unobtrusive third :
For thou hast magic beyond wine,
To unlock natures each to each ;
The unspoken thought thou canst divine;
Thou fillest the pauses of the speech
With whispers that to dream-land reach,
And frozen fancy-springs unchain
In Arctic outskirts of the brain ;
Sun of all inınost confidences !
To thy rays doth the heart unclose
Its formal calyx of pretences,
That close against rude day's offences,
And open its shy midnight rose.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

HOMESICK FOR THE COUNTRY.

O Thou of home the guardian Lar,
And when our earth hath wandered far
Into the cold, and deep snow covers
The walks of our New England lovers,
Their sweet secluded evening-star !
"T was with thy rays the English Muse
Ripened her mild domestie hues :
'T was by thy flicker that she conned
The fireside wisdom that enrings
With light from heaven familiar things ;
By thee she found the homely faith
In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'th,
When Death, extinguishing his torch,
Gropes for the latch-string in the porch ;
The love that wanders not beyond
His earliest nest, but sits and sings
While children smooth his patient wings :
Therefore with thee I love to read
Our brave old poets : at thy touch how stirs
Life in the withered words ! how swift recede
Time's shadows ! and how glows again
Through its dead mass the incandescent verse,
As when upon the anvils of the brain
It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought
By the fast-throbbing hammers of the poet's

thought!
Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred,
The aspirations unattained,
The rhythins so rathe and delicate,
They bent and strained
And broke, beneath the sombre weight
Of any airiest mortal word.

I'd kind o’like to have a cot
Fixed on some sunny slope ; a spot

Five acres more or less,
With maples, cedars, cherry-trees,
And poplars whitening in the breeze.

'T would suit my taste, I guess, To have the porch with vines o'erhung,

With bells of pendant woodbine swung,

In every bell a bee ;
And round my latticed window spread
A clump of roses, white and red.

To solace mine and me,
I kind o' think I should desire
To hear around the lawn a choir

Of wood-birds singing sweet ;
And in a dell I'd have a brook,
Where I might sit and read my book.

As who would say, “i'T is those, I ween, Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean

That win the laurel" ; While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, To softest outline rounds the roof, Or the rude North with baffled strain Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane ! Now the kind nymph to Bacchus borne By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems Gifted upon her natal morn By him with fire, by her with dreams. Nicotia, dearer to the Muse Than all the grapes' bewildering juice, We worship, unforbid of thee ; And, as her incense floats and curls In airy spires and wayward whirls, Or poises on its tremulous stalk A flower of frailest revery, So winds and loiters, idly free, The current of unguided talk, Now laughter-rippled, and now caught In smooth dark pools of deeper thought.

Such should be my retreat,
Far from the city's crowd and noise :
There would I rear the girls and boys,

(I have some two or three.)
And if kind Heaven should bless my store
With five or six or seven more,
How happy I would be !

ANONYMOUS.

I KNEW BY THE SMOKE THAT SO

GRACEFULLY CURLED.

I KNEW by the smoke that so gracefully curled

Above the green elms, that a cottage was near, And I said, “If there 's peace to be found in the

world, A heart that is humble might hope for it here :"

THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand !
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land ;
The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry Homes of England !
Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light.
There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childish tale is told ;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
The blessed Homes of England !
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness
That breathes from Sabbath hours !
Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other Inds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.

The cottage Homes of England !
By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet-fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves ;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.

The free, fair Homes of England !
Long, long in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall !
And green forever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God.

MRS. HEMANS.