Hear the wood-lark charm the forest,
Telling o'er his little joys;
Hapless bird! a prey the surest
To each pirate of the skies.

Dearly bought the hidden treasure
Finer feelings can bestow;
Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.

TO BLOSSOMS. — Herrick.

FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here a while
To blush and gently smile,
Then go at last.

What! were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we May read how soon things have Their end, though ne'er so brave And after they have shown their pride, Like you, a while, they glide

Into the grave.

THERE are gold-brigat suns in worlds above,
And blazing gems in worlds below,
Our world has Love and only Love,
For living warmth and jewel glow;
God's love is sunlight to the good,
And Woman's pure as diamond sheen,
And Friendship's mystic brotherhood
In twilight beauty lies between.

BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK.

Longfellow.

ON sunny slope and beechen swell
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down
The glory that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its brazen leaves.

Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,
Around a far-uplifted cone,

In the warm blush of evening shone;
An image of the silver lakes
By which the Indian's soul awakes.

But soon a funeral hymn was heard
Where the soft breath of evening stirred
The tall, gray forest; and a band
Of stern in heart, and strong in hand,
Came winding down beside the wave,
To lay the red chief in his grave.

They sang, that by his native bowers
He stood, in the last moon of flowers,
And thirty snows had not yet shed
Their glory on the warrior's head;
But, as the summer fruit decays,
So died he in those naked days.

A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin
Covered the warrior, and within
Its heavy folds the weapons, made
For the hard toils of war, were laid;
The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds,
And the broad belt of shells and beads.

Before, a dark-haired virgin train
Chanted the death-dirge of the slain
Behind, the long procession came
Of hoary men and chiefs of fame,
With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,
Leading the war-horse of their chief.

Stripped of his proud and martial dress,
Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless,
With darting eye, and nostril spread,
And heavy and impatient tread,
He came; and oft that eye so proud
Asked for his rider in the crowd.

They buried the dark chief; they freed
Beside the grave his battle steed;
And swift an arrow cleaved its way
To his stern heart! One piercing neigh
Arose, —and, on the dead man's plain,
The rider grasps his steed again.

198

HEAVEN.

HEAVEN. — From Festus.

Is heaven a place where pearly streams
Glide over silver sand?

Like childhood's rosy, dazzling dreams
Of some far fairy land?

Is heaven a clime where diamond dews
Glitter on fadeless flowers,
And mirth and music ring aloud
From amaranthine bowers?

Ah no; not such, not such is heaven!
Surpassing far all these;

Such cannot be the guerdon given
Man's wearied soul to please.

For saints and sinners here below,
Such vain to be have proved;
And the pure spirit will despise

What'er the sense has loved.

There shall we dwell with Sire and Son,
And with the Mother-maid,
And with the Holy Spirit, one,
In glory like arrayed;

And not to one created thing
Shall one embrace be given;
But all our joy shall be in God,
For only God is heaven.

ARNOLD WINKELRIED. — Montgomery.

"MAKE way for liberty!" he cried ; Made way for liberty, and died!

It must not be; this day, this hour,
Annihilates the oppressor's power!
All Switzerland is in the field,
She will not fly, she cannot yield, -
She must not fall; her better fate
Here gives her an immortal date.
Few were the numbers she could boast;
But every freeman was a host,
And felt as though himself were he
On whose sole arm hung victory.
It did depend on one indeed;
Behold him, Arnold Winkelried!
There sounds not to the trump of fame
The echo of a nobler name.
Unmarked he stood amid the throng,
In rumination deep and long,
Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face;
And, by the motion of his form,
Anticipate the rising storm;

And, by the uplifting of his brow,
Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

But 't was no sooner thought than done!
The field was in a moment won:
"Make way for liberty!" he cried,
Then ran, with arms extended wide,
As if his dearest friend to clasp ;
Ten spears he swept within his grasp:
"Make way for liberty!" he cried,
Their keen points met from side to side