His free-born vigour yet unbroke
By lordly man's usurping yoke,
The bounding colt forgets to play,
Basking beneath the noon-tide ray,
And stretched among the daisies pied1
Of a green dingle's sloping side:
While far beneath, where nature spreads
Her boundless length of level meads,
In loose luxuriance taught to stray,
A thousand tumbling rills inlay2
With silver veins the vale, or pass
Redundant through the sparkling grass.

Yet, in these presages rude
Midst her pensive solitude,
Fancy, with prophetic glance,
Sees the teeming months advance;
The field, the forest, green and gay,
The dappled slope, the tedded hay;
Sees the reddening orchard blow,
The harvest wave, the vintage flow;
Sees June unfold his glossy robe
Of thousand hues o'er all the globe;
Sees Ceres grasp her crown of corn,6
And plenty load her ample horn.7

T. Warton.

Pied-party-coloured or variegated like the pie, a bird so named.

2 Inlay a beautiful fancy;-the rills, like veins of silver, inlay the vale: the passage however is much marred, by the sudden abandonment of the metaphor-the expression "pass through," which follows, being purely literal. 3 Fancy, &c.-i. e. fancy discovers the future in the present. She sees in the opening buds of spring the full-blown flowers of summer, and the ripe fruits of Autumn.

Teeming-from the Anglo-Saxon tym-an, to bring forth abundantly.

5 Dappled-some derive this word from apple as if streaked or spotted like an apple; but this etymology is doubtful. The word is more probably a diminutive of dab or daub, to spot or smear, as nibble of nip, and waddle of wade; hence to dabble or dapple is to spot or streak many times, or in many places.

6 Crown of corn-Ceres, the goddess of agriculture is usually represented with a chaplet of wheat around her temples.

7 Ample horn-the horn of plenty, also called Cornucopia-the allusion is derived from ancient mythology, which informs us that Jupiter's nurse filled a goat's horn, which had been accidently broken off, with fruits, and wreathing it with flowers, gave it to the babe, who when he grew up and became powerful, made the horn the emblem of fertility. (See Ovid. Fasti, lib. v. 115-128.)

THE DYING MOTHER AND HER BABE.'

THE room I well remember, and the bed
On which she lay; and all the faces too,
That crowded dark and mournfully around.
Her father there, and mother, bending stood;
And down their aged cheeks fell many drops
Of bitterness. Her husband, too, was there,
And brothers, and they wept; her sisters, too,
Did weep and sorrow comfortless; and all
Within the house was dolorous and sad.
This I remember well-but better still
I do remember, and will ne'er forget,
The dying eye!—That eye alone was bright,
And brighter grew, as nearer death approached;
As I have seen the gentle little flower
Look fairest in the silver beam, which fell
Reflected from the thunder-cloud, that soon
Came down, and o'er the desert scattered far
And wide its loveliness. She made a sign

To bring her babe ;-'twas brought, and by her placed.
She looked upon its face, that neither smiled
Nor wept, nor knew who gazed upon it; and laid
Her hand upon its little breast, and sought
For it, with looks that seemed to penetrate
The heavens, unutterable blessings, such
As God to dying parents only grants

For infants left behind them in the world.

"God keep my child!" we heard her say, and heard
No more. The Angel of the Covenant

Was come, and faithful to his promise, stood
Prepared to walk with her through death's dark vale.3
And now her eyes grew bright, and brighter still—
Too bright for ours to look upon, suffused

This passage, though occasionally deformed by prosaic expressions, and unmusical rhythm, depicts a deeply interesting scene, in a very touching

manner.

The interruption of the narrative, at such a point, by a long simile is in very questionable taste. The effect of the supernatural brightness of the dying eye," upon the reader's mind, ought not to have been thus neutralised. 3 "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me:" Psalm xxiii, 4.

D

With many tears-and closed without a cloud.
They set as sets the morning star, which goes
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides
Obscured among the tempests of the sky,
But melts away into the light of heaven.1

Pollok.

VENI CREATOR.2

CREATOR Spirit! by whose aid

The world's foundations first were laid,
Come visit every pious mind;

Come pour thy joys on human kind;
From sin and sorrow set us free,
And make thy templess worthy thee.

O source of uncreated light,
The Father's promised Paraclete ! 4
Thrice holy fount, thrice holy fire,
Our hearts with heavenly love inspire;
Come, and thy sacred unction bring
To sanctify us, while we sing.

Plenteous of grace, descend from high,

Rich in thy sevenfold energy!

Thou strength of His almighty hand,

Whose power does heaven and earth command!

Proceeding Spirit,5 our defence,

Who dost the gifts of tongues dispense,

And crown'st thy gift with eloquence,

The comparison of the eye, whose brightness melted, as it were, into the light of an eternal day, to the morning star, is very beautiful, and it is clothed in most felicitous language. A similar thought occurs in Montgomery's poem entitled "Friends:" speaking of friends, as stars that pass away as the morning advances, he says:

"Nor sink those stars in empty night,

-They hide themselves in heaven's own light."

Ilide themselves in light!-a very striking and picturesque expression.

2 Veni Creator-"Come Creator," the first two words of a Latin hymn used in the Roman Catholic church.

3 Temples-" "Know ye not, that ye are the temples of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" 1 Cor. iii, 16.

4 Paraclete-the Greek word for "Comforter."

"The Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father :" John xv, 26.

Refine and purge our earthly parts;
But, oh! inflame and fire our hearts:
Our frailties help, our vice control,
Submit the senses to the soul;

And when rebellious they are grown,
Then lay thy hand, and hold them down.

Chase from our minds the infernal foe,
And peace, the fruit of love, bestow;
And, lest our feet should step astray,
Protect and guide us in the way.

Make us eternal1 truths receive,
And practise all that we believe:
Give us thyself, that we may see
The Father, and the Son, by thee.

Immortal1 honour, endless1 fame,
Attend the Almighty Father's name:
The Saviour Son be glorified,

Who for lost man's redemption died:
And equal adoration be,

Eternal Paraclete, to thee!

Dryden.

1

THE POPLARS.

THE poplars are felled ;-farewell to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade ;2
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse3 on its bosom their image receives.

Eternal, immortal, endless, everlasting, all convey the idea of perpetual existence-they differ in the modification of that idea :

that is Eternal-which always is.

......

......

Immortal..

lives, which can never die.

Endless...... has no termination.

Everlasting. .... neither interruption nor termination.

These words then, are most appropriately employed in the phrases "eternal truths," "immortal honour," (a figurative expression, since honour, is not a living being,) "endless fame," i.e. glory without end, "everlasting happiness." Colonnade-an architectural term designating a range of columns; here ingeniously applied to trees regularly disposed like pillars.

2

3 Ouse-the Great Ouse.

Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a view
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew :
And now in the grass behold they are laid,

And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.

The blackbird has fled to another retreat,

Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;
And the scene where his melody charmed me before,
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.

My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.

The change both my heart and my fancy employs ;
I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys;
Short-lived as we are, yet our pleasures, we see,
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.

Cowper.

TO THE WEATHERCOCK.1

THE dawn has broke, the morn is up,
Another day begun,

And there thy poised and gilded spear
Is flashing in the sun,

Upon that steep and lofty tower

Where thou thy watch2 hast kept,

A true and faithful sentinel,

While all around thee slept.

For years upon thee there has poured
The summer's noon-day heat,

And through the long, dark, starless night,
The winter storms have beat;

2 The good sense of these lines, and the originality with which a trite subject is treated, are more conspicuous than their strictly poetical merits. The style in some parts is almost prosaic, and the rhymes are occasionally incorrect, but the poem is nevertheless on the whole well worthy of preservation. It is the production of an American poet.

3 Watch-originally identical with wake, as ditch with dike or dyke. In Wycliffe's Testament we have "Wake ye and preie, &c.," for "watch ye and pray, &c." Mark xiv, 38. To watch, therefore, is to keep awake-to observe; hence the meaning of the noun is obvious.