A PICTURE.

'HE farmer sat in his easy-chair,

Smoking his pipe of clay,

While his hale old wife, with busy care,
Was clearing the dinner away;

A sweet little girl, with fine blue eyes,
On her grandfather's knee was catching flies.

The old man laid his hand on her head,
With a tear on his wrinkled face;
He thought how often her mother, dead,
Had sat in the self-same place.

As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye,

"Don't smoke!" said the child; "how it makes you

cry!"

The house dog lay stretched out on the floor,
Where the shade after noon used to steal;
The busy old wife, by the open door,

Was turning the spinning-wheel;
And the old brass clock on the mantel-tree
Had plodded along to almost three.

Still the farmer sat in his easy-chair,

While close to his heaving breast The moistened brow and the cheek so fair Of his sweet grandchild were pressed; His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay: Fast asleep were they both, that summer day! CHARLES GAMAGE EASTMAN.

THE POET'S SONG TO HIS WIFE,

*OW many summers, love,

Have I been thine?

How many days, thou dove,

Hast thou been mine?

Time, like the winged wind
When 't bends the flowers,
Hath left no mark behind,
To count the hours!

Some weight of thought, though loath,
On thee he leaves;

Some lines of care round both

Perhaps he weaves;

Some fears,-a soft regret

For joys scarce known;

Sweet looks we half forget ;—

All else is flown!

Ah!-With what thankless heart

I mourn and sing!

Look, where our children start,

Like sudden spring!

With tongues all sweet and low

Like a pleasant rhyme,

They tell how much I owe

To thee and time!

BRYAN WALLER Procter (Barry Cornwall.)

HOMESICK.

OME to me, O my Mother! come to ne,
Thine own son slowly dying far away!
Through the moist ways of the wide ocean
blown

By great invisible winds, come stately ships
To this calm bay for quiet anchorage;
They come, they rest awhile, they go away,
But, O my Mother, never comest thou!

The snow is round thy dwelling, the white snow,
That cold soft revelation pure as light,

And the pine-spire is mystically fringed.

Why am I from thee, Mother, far from thee?

Far from the frost enchantment, and the woods
Jewelled from bough to bough? O home, my home!
O river in the valley of my home,
With mazy-winding motion intricate,
Twisting thy deathless music underneath
The polished ice-work-must I nevermore
Behold thee with familiar eyes, and watch
Thy beauty changing with the changeful day,
Thy beauty constant to the constant change?

DAVID GRAY.

MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING.

HE is a winsome wee thing,

aR

She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.

I never saw a fairer,

I never lo'ed a dearer,

And neist my heart I'll wear her,

For fear my jewel tine.

She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.

The warld's wrack we share o't,
The warstle and the care o't:
Wi' her I'll blythely bear it,

And think my lot divine.

ROBERT BURNS.

THE RECONCILIATION.

S through the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,—
Oh, we fell out, I know not why,

And kiss'd again with tears.

For when we came where lies the child

We lost in other years,

There above the little grave,

Oh, there above the little grave,

We kiss'd again with tears.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

I KNEW BY THE SMOKE THAT SO GRACE

FULLY CURLED.

KNEW by the smoke that so gracefully curled

Above the green elms, that a cottage was near, And I said, "If there's peace to be found in the world,

A heart that is humble might hope for it here!"

It was noon, and on flowers that languished around
In silence reposed the voluptuous bee;
Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound

But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

And "Here in this lone little wood," I exclaimed, "With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye, Who would blush when I praised her, and weep if I blamed,

How blest could I live, and how calm could I die! "By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to recline, And to know that I sighed upon innocent lips, Which had never been sighed on by any but mine!" THOMAS Moore.

ADAM TO EVE.

FAIREST of creation, last and best

Of all God's works, creature in whom celled

A WISH.

INE be a cot beside the hill;

A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear;
A willowy brook that turns the mill,
With many a fall shall linger near.

The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch,
Shalt twitter from her clay-built nest;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
And share my meal, a welcome guest.

Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew,
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
In russet gown and apron blue.

The village-church among the trees,
When first our marriage vows were given,
With merry peals shall swell the breeze
And point with taper spire to heaven.
SAMUEL ROGERS.

THE OLD LOG CABIN.

Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
.How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,
Defaced, deflowered, and now to death devote!
Rather, how hast thou yielded to transgress
The strict forbiddance, how to violate
The sacred fruit forbidden! Some cursed fraud
Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruined, for with thee
Certain my resolution is to die.

How can I live without thee, how forego
Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,
To live again in these wild woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

However, I with thee have fixed my lot,
Certain to undergo like doom; if death
Consort with thee, death is to me as life;
So forcible within my heart I feel
The bond of nature draw me to my own,
My own in thee, for what thou art is mine;
Our state cannot be severed, we are one,
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.
JOHN MILTON.

A man who is not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition. It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin; but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised among the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada.

Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if ever I fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared it, and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name, and the name of my posterity, be blotted forever from the memory of mankind!

DANIEL WEBSTER.

THE HAPPY MAN.

"E'S not the Happy Man to whom is given A plenteous fortune by indulgent Heaven; Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise, And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes; Whose table flows with hospitable cheer, And all the various bounty of the year; Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe the spring, Whose carved mountains bleat, and forests sing; For whom the cooling shade in Summer twines, While his full cellars give their generous wines; From whose wide fields unbounded Autumn pour A golden tide into his swelling stores; Whose winter laughs; for whom the liberal gales Stretch the big sheet, and toiling commerce sails; When yielding crowds attend, and pleasure serves; While youth, and health, and vigor string his nerves. Ev'n not all these, in one rich lot combined, Can make the Happy Man, without the mind; When Judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys The chain of Reason with unerring gaze; Where Fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes, His fairer scenes and bolder figures rise; Where social Love exerts her soft command, And plays the passions with a tender hand, Whence every virtue flows, in rival strife, And all the moral harmony of life.

JAMES THOMPSON.

MY MOTHER'S PICTURE.

Y mother, when I learned that thou wast dead,

Say, was thou conscious of the tears I
shed?

Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son-
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun?
I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day;
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away;
And, turning from my nursery-window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!
But was it such? It was. Where thou art gone,
Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown;
May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting word shall pass my lips no more.
Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern,
Oft gave me promise of thy quick return;
What ardently I wished, I long believed,
And, disappointed still, was still deceived-
By expectation every day beguiled,
Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.
Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,
Till, all my stock of infant sorrows spent,
I learned at last submission to my lot;
But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot.
Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more;
Children not thine have trod my nursery floor;
And where the gardener Robin, day by day,

Drew me to school along the public way—
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet cap,—
Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours
When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers—
The violet, the pink, the jessamine—

I pricked them into paper with a pin,
(And thou wast happier than myself the while-
Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile,)
Could those few pleasant days again appear,
Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?
But no! What here we call our life is such,
So little to be loved, and thou so much,
That I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

WILLIAM COWPER.

CHRISTMAS TIME.

EAP on more wood !--the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer:
And well our Christian sires of old

Loved when the year its course had rolled,
And brought blithe Christmas back again,
With all his hospitable train.
Domestic and religious rite
Gave honor to the holy night:

On Christmas eve the bells were rung ;
On Christmas eve the mass was sung;
That only night, in all the year,
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry-men go,
To gather in the mistletoe.
Then opened wide the baron's hall
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And Ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose;
The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of "post and pair."
All hailed, with uncontrolled delight
And general voice, the happy night
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.

The fire, with well-dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide;
The huge hall-table's oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone the day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn,
By old blue-coated serving-man ;

Then the grim boar's head frowned on high,
Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell
How, when and where the monster fell;
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The wassail round, in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pie;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high-tide, her savory goose.
Then came the merry maskers in,

And carols roared with blithesome din;
If unmelodious was the song,

It was a hearty note, and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;
White skirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visors made:
But, O, what maskers richly dight
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
'T was Christmas broached the mightiest ale;
'T was Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the year.
SIR WALTER Scott.

THE OLD HEARTHSTONE.

Y son, thou wilt dream the world is fair,
And thy spirit will sigh to roam,

And thou must go; but never, when there,
Forget the light of home!

Though pleasure may smile with a ray more bright,
It dazzles to lead astray;

Like the meteor's flash, 'twill deepen the night
When treading thy lonely way:-

But the hearth of home has a constant flame,
And pure as vestal fire-

'Twill burn, 'twill burn forever the same,
For nature feeds the pyre.

The sea of ambition is tempest-toss'd,

And thy hopes may vanish like foam-
When sails are shiver'd and compass lost,
Then look to the light of home!

And there, like a star through midnight cloud,
Thou'lt see the beacon bright;
For never, till shining on thy shroud,
Can be quench'd its holy light.

The sun of fame may guild the name,
But the heart ne'er felt its ray;

And fashion's smiles, that rich ones claim,
Are beams of a wintry day:

Dare's wha my heart is turning ebber-
Dare's wha de old folks stay.

All up and down de whole creation,
Sadly I roam;

Still longing for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.

All de world am sad and dreary,

Eb'rywhere I roam ;

Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home.

All round de little farm I wandered,
When I was young;

Den many happy days I squandered,
Many de songs I sung.

When I was playing wid my brudder,
Happy was I;

Oh! take me to my kind old mudder!
Dare let me live and die!

One little hut among de bushes—
One dat I love-

Still sadly to my memory rushes,

No matter where I rove.

When will I see de bees a-humming,
All round de comb?

When will I hear de banjo tumming
Down in my good old home?

STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

RIGHT flag at yonder tapering mast,
Fling out your field of azure blue;
Let star and stripe be westward cast,
And point as Freedom's eagle flew !
Strain home! O lithe and quivering spars!
Point home my country's flag of stars!
My mother, in thy prayer to-night

There come new words and warmer tears; On long, long darkness breaks the light, Comes home the loved, the lost for years. Sleep safe, O wave-worn mariner !

Fear not to-night, or storm or sea: The ear of Heaven bends low to her! He comes to shore who sails with me. The wind-tossed spider needs no token How stands the tree when lightnings blaze; And, by a thread from heaven unbroken, I know my mother lives and prays.

NATHANIEL P. WILLIS.

From a broad window my neighbor,

Looks down on our little cot,

And watches the "poor man's blessing"

I cannot envy his lot.

He has pictures, books, and music,
Bright fountains, and noble trees,
Rare store of blossoming roses,

Birds from beyond the seas.

But never does childish laughter
His homeward footsteps greet;
His stately halls ne'er echo

To the tread of innocent feet.

This child is our "sparkling picture,"
A birdling that chatters and sings,
Sometimes a sleeping cherub,

(Our other one has wings.)

When the glory of sunset opens

The highway by angles trod, And seems to unbar the city Whose builder and maker is God

Close to the crystal portal,

I see by the gates of pearl,
The eyes of our other angel-
A twin-born little girl.

And I ask to be taught and directed
To guide his footsteps aright;
So to live that I may be ready
To walk in sandals of light-

And hear, amid songs of welcome,
From messengers trusty and fleet,
On the starry floor of heaven,
The patter of little feet.

THE FIRESIDE.

F solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies;
And they are fools who roam :
The world has nothing to bestow;
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear place—our home.

Our portion is not large, indeed;
But then how little do we need!
For nature's calls are few:

In this the art of living lies,
To want no more than may suffice,
And make that little do.

We'll therefore relish with content
Whate'er kind Providence has sent,
Nor aim beyond our power;
For, if our stock be very small,
'Tis prudence to enjoy it all,

Nor lose the present hour.