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ANONYMOUS.

Then meet me again in this casement niche,

On the spot where we're standing now.

Nay, question not wherefore! Perhaps, with me,
To look out on the night, and the broad, bright sea,
And to hear its majestic flow!

Well, we're met here again; and the moonlight sleeps

On the sea, and the bastion'd wall,

wind brings

And the flowers there below.-How the night
Their delicious breath on its dewy wings!
"But there's one," say you, "sweeter than all!"

Far sweeter! and where, think you, groweth the plant That exhaleth such perfume rare?

Look about, up and down--But take care, or

you'll break, With your elbow, the poor little thing that's so weak:

"Why, 'tis that smells so sweet, I declare!"

Ah ha! is it that? Have you found out now
Why I cherish that odd little fright?

All is not gold that glitters, you know;

And it is not all worth makes the greatest show
In the glare of the strongest light.

There are human flowers full many, I trow,
As unlovely as that by your side,
That a common observer passeth by
With a scornful lip and a careless eye,

In the heyday of pleasure and pride.

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

But move one of these to some quiet spot,

From the mid-day Sun's broad glare,

Where domestic peace broods with dove-like wing;
And try if the homely, despised thing,

May not yield sweet fragrance there.

The Reaper and the Flowers.

Longfellow.

THERE is a Reaper whose name is Death,

T

And with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,

And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;
"Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kissed their drooping leaves :

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves.

239

They shall all bloom in fields of light, Transplanted by my care;

And saints, upon their garments white

These sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain, Those flowers she most did love;

She knew she should find them all again In the fields of light above.

Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
'Twas an Angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.

The Sun.

Southey.

I

MARVEL not, O Sun! that unto thee

In adoration men should bend the knee,

And pour forth prayers of mingled awe and love; For like a god thou art, and on thy way

Of glory sheddest with benignant ray,

Beauty and life and joyance from above.

No longer let these mists thy radiance shroud,

These cold, raw mists that chill the comfortless day; But shed thy splendor thro' the opening cloud, And cheer the world once more. The languid flowers Lie scentless, beaten down with heavy rain; Earth asks thy presence, saturate with showers; O Lord of light! put forth thy beams again, For damp and cheerless are the gloomy bowers.

11

The Falls of the Passaic.

Washington Irving.

IN

N a wild, tranquil vale, fringed with forests of green, Where Nature had fashioned a soft, sylvan scene, The retreat of the ringdove, the haunt of the deer, Passaic in silence rolled gentle and clear.

No grandeur of prospect astonished the sight,
No abruptness sublime mingled awe with delight;
Here the wild flow'ret blossomed, the elm proudly waved,
And pure was the current the green bank that laved.

But the Spirit that ruled o'er the thick-tangled wood,
And deep in its gloom fixed his murky abode,
Who loved the wild scene that the whirlwinds deform,
And gloried in thunder, and lightning, and storm;

All flushed from the tumult of battle he came,
Where the red men encountered the children of flame,
While the noise of the war-whoop still rang in his ears,
And the fresh bleeding scalp as a trophy he bears: