'Tis like the birthday of the world,

When earth was born in bloom;

The light is made of many dyes,

The air is all perfume;

Here, scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness;

The very rainbow showers

Have turned to blossoms where they fell, And sown the earth with flowers.

There's fairy tulips in the east

The garden of the sun; The very streams reflect the hues, And blossom as they run; While morn opes like a crimson rose, Still wet with pearly showers: Then, lady, leave the silken thread Thou twinest into flowers!

THOMAS HOOD.

TO A HIGHLAND GIRL.

SWEET Highland Girl! a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower;
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head.

And these gray rocks; that household lawn;
Those trees-a veil just half withdrawn;
This fall of water, that doth make

A murmur near the silent lake;

This little bay, a quiet road
That holds in shelter thy abode-
In truth, together do ye seem
Like something fashioned in a dream-
Such forms as from their covert peep
When earthly cares are laid asleep!
But, O fair creature! in the light
Of common day so heavenly bright—
I bless thee, vision as thou art,
I bless thee with a human heart;
God shield thee to thy latest years!
Thee neither know I, nor thy peers;
And yet my eyes are filled with tears.

With earnest feeling I shall pray For thee when I am far away; For never saw I mien or face In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and homebred sense Ripening in perfect innocence.

The freedom of a mountaineer:
A face with gladness overspread;
Soft smiles, by human kindness bred;
And seemliness complete, that sways
Thy courtesies, about thee plays;
With no restraint, but such as springs
From quick and eager visitings
Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
Of thy few words of English speech-
A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife
That gives thy gestures grace and life!
So have I, not unmoved in mind,
Seen birds of tempest-loving kind
Thus beating up against the wind.

What hand but would a garland cull For thee, who art so beautiful? O happy pleasure! here to dwell Beside thee in some heathy dellAdopt your homely ways and dress, A shepherd, thou a shepherdess! But I could frame a wish for thee More like a grave reality:

Thou art to me but as a wave

Of the wild sea; and I would have
Some claim upon thee, if I could,
Though but of common neighborhood.
What joy to hear thee, and to see!
Thy elder brother I would be,
Thy father-anything to thee!

Now thanks to Heaven, that of its grace Hath led me to this lonely place! Joy have I had; and, going hence, I bear away my recompense. In spots like these it is we prize Our memory, feel that she hath eyes. Then why should I be loth to stir? I feel this place was made for her, To give new pleasure like the pastContinued long as life shall last. Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart, Sweet Highland Girl! from thee to part; For I, methinks, till I grow old,

As fair before me shall behold,

Soft sighs-for raptures it hath ne'er en

joyed;

And then she dreams of love, and strives to fill With wild and passionate thoughts the

craving void.

And thus she wanders on-half sad, half blest

Without a mate for the pure, lonely heart That, yearning, throbs within her virgin breast,

Never to find its lovely counterpart!

AMELIA B. WELBY.

MOTHER MARGERY.

Ox a bleak ridge, from whose granite edges
Sloped the rough land to the grisly north;
And whose hemlocks, clinging to the hedges,
Like a thin bandit staggered forth-
In a crouching, wormy-timbered hamlet
Mother Margery shivered in the cold,
With a tattered robe of faded camlet
On her shoulders-crooked, weak, and old.

Time on her had done his cruel pleasure;

For her face was very dry and thin, And the records of his growing measure Lined and cross-lined all her shrivelled skin. Scanty goods to her had been allotted,

Yet her thanks rose oftener than desire; While her long fingers, bent and knotted,

Fed with withered twigs the dying fire.

Raw and weary were the northern winters;
Winds howled piteously around her cot,
Or with rude sighs made the jarring splinters
Moan the misery she bemoaned not.
Drifting tempests rattled at her windows,
And hung snow-wreaths around her naked
bed;

While the wind-flaws muttered on the cinders,
Till the last spark fluttered and was dead.

Life had fresher hopes when she was younger, But their dying wrung out no complaints; Chill, and penury, and neglect, and hungerThese to Margery were guardian saints,

bending;

When she rose, it rose not any more; Faster seemed her true heart graveward tending

Than her tired feet, weak and travel-sore.

She was mother of the dead and scatteredHad been mother of the brave and fair; But her branches, bough by bough, were shattered,

Till her torn breast was left dry and

bare.

Yet she knew, though sadly desolated, When the children of the poor depart Their earth-vestures are but sublimated, So to gather closer in the heart.

With a courage that had never fitted

Words to speak it to the soul it blessed, She endured, in silence and unpitied,

Woes enough to mar a stouter breast. Thus was born such holy trust within her,

That the graves of all who had been dear, To a region clearer and serener,

Raised her spirit from our chilly sphere.

They were footsteps on her Jacob's ladder; Angels to her were the loves and hopes Which had left her purified, but sadder;

And they lured her to the emerald slopes Of that heaven where anguish never flashes Her red fire-whips,-happy land, where flowers

Bloom over the volcanic ashes

Of this blighting, blighted world of ours!

All her power was a love of goodness;
All her wisdom was a mystic faith
That the rough world's jargoning and rude-

ness

Turns to music at the gate of death. So she walked while feeble limbs allowed her,

Knowing well that any stubborn grief She might meet with could no more than crowd her

To that wall whose opening was relief.