The jasmin from outside would meet, Her heart is not with our old hall, She wept to leave the fond roof where Yes, memory has honey cells, And some of them are ours; For in the sweetest of them dwells In yon wide world she cannot meet Loving, and loved, her own sweet will She has a fairy home; but still Our own seems desolate. We may not wish her back again, Not for her own dear sake: Oh, love! to form one happy chain, L. E. LANDON. LESSON LXIII. THE BRIDE. I CAME,-but she was gone. In her fair home, There lay her lute, just as she touched it last, At summer twilight, when the woodbine cups Filled with pure fragrance. On her favorite seat Lay the still open work-box, and that book Which last she read, its penciled margin marked By an ill-quoted passage, traced, perchance, With hand unconscious, while her lover spake That dialect, which brings forgetfulness Of all beside. It was the cherished home, Where from her childhood she had been the star Of hope and joy. I came,—and she was gone. Yet I had seen her from the altar led, With silvery vail but slightly swept aside, The fresh, young rose-bud deepening in her cheek, Haply his thought Traversed the grass-grown prairies, and the shore Mock not with mirth A scene like this, ye laughter-loving ones! Joy, serious and sublime, Such as doth nerve the energies of prayer, Should swell the bosom, when a maiden's hand, Filled with life's dewy flow'rets, girdeth on MRS. SIGOURNEY. LESSON LXIV. THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL. WHY do I weep ?-To leave the vine I leave thee, sister! We have played Where the silvery green of the olive shade Yes, thou and I, by stream, by shore, In song, in prayer, in sleep, I leave thee, father! Eve's bright moon With the gathered grapes, and the lyre in tune, Thy homeward step to greet. Thou, in whose voice, to bless thy child Lay tones of love so deep, Whose eye o'er all my youth hath smiled; Mother! I leave thee! On thy breast, Pouring out joy and woe, I have found that holy place of rest Still changeless-yet I go! Lips, that have lulled me with your strain, Will earth give love like yours again? MRS. HEMANS. LESSON LXV. THE FAMILY MEETING. WE are all here! Father, mother, Sister, brother, All who hold each other dear. Our old familiar hearth we're found: We're not all here! Some are away, the dead ones dear, We're not all here. We are all here! Even they, the dead-though dead, so dear, Fond Memory, to her duty true, Brings back their faded forms to view. We are all here! Father, mother, Sister, brother, You that I love with love so dear. This may not long of us be said; Soon must we join the gathered dead, C. SPRAGUE. LESSON LXVI. UNWRITTEN MUSIC. THERE is unwritten music. The world is full of it. I hear it every hour that I wake, and my waking sense is surpassed by my sleeping, though that is a mystery. There is no sound of simple nature that is not music. It is all God's work, and therefore harmony. You may mingle, and divide, and strengthen the passages of its great anthem, and it is still melody-melody. The low winds of summer blow over the waterfalls and the brooks, and bring their voices to your ear, as if their sweetness were linked by an accurate finger; yet the wind is but a fitful player; and you may go out when the tempest is up, and hear the strong trees moaning as they lean before it, and the long grass hissing as it sweeps through, and its own solemn monotony over all,—and the dimple of that same brook, and the waterfall's unaltered base shall still reach you in the intervals of its power, as much in harmony as before, and as much a part of its perfect and perpetual hymn. There is no accident of nature's causing which can bring in discord. The loosened rock may fall into the abyss, and the overblown tree rush down through the branches of the wood, and the thunder peal awfully in the sky; and sudden and violent as these changes seem, their tumult goes up with the sound of winds and waters, and the exquisite ear of the musician can detect no jar. It is not mere poetry to talk of the "voices of summer." It is the day time of the year, and its myriad influences are audibly at work. Even by night, you may lay your ear to the ground, and hear that faintest of murmurs, the sound of grow |