COME HOME.

This pretty lyric was taken a long time since from one of the It is supposed to be addressed by an American

American magazines

lady to her brother in London.

COME home.

Would I could send my spirit o'er the deep,
Would I could wing it like a bird to thee,
To commune with thy thoughts, to fill thy sleep
With these unwearying words of melody,
Brother, come home.

Come home.

Come to the hearts that love thee, to the eyes
That beam in brightness but to gladden thine;
Come where fond thoughts like holiest incense rise,
Where cherish'd memory rears her altar's shrine.
Brother, come home.

Come home.

Come to the hearth-stone of thy earlier days,
Come to the ark, like the o'er wearied dove,
Come with the sunlight of thy heart's warm rays,
Come to the fire-side circle of thy love.

Brother, come home.

Come home.

It is not home without thee; the lone seat

In

Is still unclaim'd where thou wert wont to be;
every echo of returning feet

In vain we list for what should herald thee.

Brother, come home.

Come home.

We've nursed for thee the sunny buds of spring,
Watch'd every germ a full-blown flowret rear,
Saw o'er their bloom the chilly winter bring
Its icy garlands, and thou art not here.

Brother, come home.

Come home.

Would I could send my spirit o'er the deep,
Would I could wing it like a bird to thee,
To commune with thy thoughts, to fill thy sleep
With these unwearying words of melody,
Brother, come home.

TO THE HUMBLE BEE.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON is not only a philosopher, he is a poet; indeed his philosophy is more the creature of the imagination than of the reason. Beautiful as are some of his essays, they will be found upon close examination to be rhapsodies rather than arguments; thoughts, not reasonings; dogmas, not proofs. But it is as a poet that we introduce him here, and no reader of the following lyric will hesitate to give him that title. The following poem might vie with Anacreon's "Ode to the Grasshopper."

BURLY, dozing, humble Bee!

Where thou art is clime for me.
Let them sail for Porto Rique.
Far-off heats through seas to seek,
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid zone!
Zigzag steerer, desert-cheerer,
Let me chase thy waving lines,
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
Singing over shrubs and vines.
Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion!

Sailor of the atmosphere,

Swimmer through the waves of air,

Voyager of light and noon,

Epicurean of June,

Wait, I prithee, till I come

Within ear-shot of thy hum—

All without is martyrdom.

When the South wind, in May days,

With a net of shining haze

Silvers the horizon wall,

And, with softness touching all,

Tints the human countenance

With a colour of romance,

And, infusing subtle heats,
Turns the sod to violets,
Thou in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods,
The green silence dost displace
With thy mellow breezy bass.
Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone,

Telling of countless sunny hours,
Long days and solid banks of flowers,
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found,
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.

Aught unsavoury or unclean

Hath my insect never seen,
But violets and bilberry bells,
Maple sap, and daffodels,

Grass with green flag half-mast high,
Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern, and agrimony,
Clover, catch-fly, adder's-tongue,
And briar-roses, dwelt among;
All beside was unknown waste,
All was picture as he past.

Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breech'd philosopher!
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,
Thou dost mock at fate and care,
Leave the chaff and take the wheat.
When the fierce north-western blast
Cools sea and land so far and fast,
Thou already slumberest deep-
Woe and want thou canst out-sleep-
Want and woe, which torture us,
Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

TO MY LOVE.

SHAKSPERE'S Sonnets are seldom read, but they abound in truest poetry. Perhaps it is that there is no reading so dull as a collection of sonnets. They are only interesting, and their beauties can only be appreciated, when perused singly, scattered among other poems of structure more various, and to the ear more pleasing. It is thus that we shall introduce the choicest sonnets in our language, to sparkle here and there amid the more conspicuous gems. So we may hope that they will be read, and receive the meed of applause that is their due.

SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date :
Sometime too hot the eye of Heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd ;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

THE BELEAGUERED CITY.

Again we turn to the pages of LONGFELLOW for one of his most effective compositions. The legend is admirably told, the ghostly picture graphically sketched by a few masterly touches, and the simile singularly apt and well sustained.

I HAVE read in some old marvellous tale-
Some legend strange and vague,—
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguer'd the walls of Prague.

Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
The wan moon overhead,

There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.

White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flow'd between.

No other voice nor sound was there,
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasp'd the air,
As clouds with clouds embrace.

But, when the old cathedral bell
Proclaim'd the hour of prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmed air.

Down the broad valley fast and far
The troubled army fled;

Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.

I have read in the marvellous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,

That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.

Encamp'd beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.

Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,

And with a sorrowful, deep sound
Flows the River of Life between.

And, when the solemn and deep church-bell
Entreats the soul to pray,

The midnight phantoms feel the spell,

The shadows sweep away.

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar

The spectral camp is fled;

Faith shineth as a morning star;
Our ghastly fears are dead.

A SUMMER MORNING.

THOMAS MILLER was a real working basket-maker, a true uneducated poet; and while following this humble calling he felt the impulses of genius, and his emotions shaped themselves into verse. He excels

in descriptions of the country, of which he is evidently a passionate lover, and his pictures of it have a truth which every reader will recognise, just as we feel the truth of a landscape by Creswick or David Cox. This passage from one of his poems is a good specimen of his capacities.

No print of sheep-track yet hath crushed a flower.
The spider's woof with silvery dew is hung