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And the slight cadence of a whispered word
A daughter's love may prove;

And while I speak thou knowest if I smile,
Albeit thou dost 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!

N. P. WILLIS.

ENGLAND'S OAK.

LET India boast its spicy trees,
Whose fruit and gorgeous bloom
Give to each faint and languid breeze
Its rich and rare perfume:
Let Portugal and haughty Spain
Display their orange groves;

And France exult her vines to train
Around her trim alcoves:

Old England has a tree as strong,
As stately as them all,

As worthy of a minstrel's song
In cottage and in hall.

'Tis not the yew-tree, though it lends

Its greenness to the grave;

Nor willow, though it fondly bends
Its branches o'er the wave;

Nor birch, although its slender tress
Be beautifully fair,-

As graceful in its loveliness

As maiden's flowing hair.

'Tis not the poplar, though its height

May from afar be seen;

Nor beech, although its boughs be dight

With leaves of glossy green.

All these are fair, but they may fling
Their shade unsung by me;

My favourite and the forest's king,
The British Oak shall be !

Its stem, though rough, is stout and sound;
Its giant branches throw
Their arms in shady blessings round,
O'er man and beast below;

Its leaf, though late in spring it shares
The zephyr's gentle sigh,

As late and long in autumn wears
A deeper, richer dye.

Type of an honest English heart,
It opes not at a breath;

But having opened, plays its part
Until it sinks in death.

Its acorns, graceful to the sight,
Are toys to childhood dear;
Its mistletoe, with berries white,
Adds mirth to Christmas cheer.
And when we reach life's closing stage,
Worn out with care or ill,

For childhood, youth, or hoary age,
Its arms are open still.

But prouder yet its glories shine,
When, in a nobler form,
It floats upon the heaving brine,

And braves the bursting storm;
Or when, to aid the work of love,
To some benighted clime
It bears glad tidings from above,
Of gospel truths sublime;-

Oh then, triumphant in its might,
O'er waters dim and dark,

It seems in Heaven's approving sight
A second glorious Ark.

On earth the forest's honoured king!
Man's castle on the sea!

Who will, another tree may sing—

Old England's Oak for me!

BERNARD BARTON.

VESPERS.

CHILD, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away;
Mother, with thine earnest eye
Ever following silently;
Father, by the breeze of eve
Called thy harvest-work to leave;-
Pray! ere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart and bend the knee.

Traveller, in the stranger's land,
Far from thine own household band;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this world gone;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell;
Sailor, on the darkening sea-
Lift the heart and bend the knee.

Warrior, that from battle won
Breathest now at set of sun;
Woman, o'er the lowly slain
Weeping on his burial plain;
Ye that triumph, ye that sigh,
Kindred by one holy tie
Heaven's first star alike ye see-
Lift the heart and bend the knee.

MRS. HEMANS.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

OUR bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered-
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,

By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought, from the battle-field's dreadful array
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track;
'Twas autumn, and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young: I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart.

Stay, stay with us!-rest, thou art weary and worn!
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay-

But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

CAMPBELL.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

Nor a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave of the hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow,
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;
But little he'll reck if they'll let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him!

But half of our heavy task was done

[head,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stoneBut we left him alone with his glory!

CHEVY CHASE.

GOD prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safeties all;

A woful hunting once there did
In Chevy Chase befall:

WOLFE.

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