114

ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH.

Deeper, deeper let us toil
In the mines of knowledge;
Nature's wealth and learning's spoil
Win from school or college;
Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars of diadems.

Onward, onward will we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,
Excellence true beauty;
Minds are of supernal birth,
Let us make a heaven of earth.

Close and closer then we knit,
Hearts and hands together;
Where our flre-side comforts sit
In the wildest weather;

Oh! they wander wide, who roam
For the joys of life, from home.

Nearer, dearer bands of love
Draw our souls in union,
To our Father's house above,
To its blest communion;
Thither every hope ascend,
There may all our labours end.

J. Montgomery.

SELF-APPROVAL.

SELF-APPROVAL.

115

What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted;

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;

And he but naked though locked up in steel

Whose conscience with injustice is corrup

ted.

Shakespeare,

He who hath light within his own clear breast

May sit i'th centre and enjoy bright day;While he who hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,

Benighted walks beneath the mid-day sun; Himself is his own dungeon.

"Tis joy to do an upright deed,

'Tis joy to do a kind,

Milton,

And the best reward of virtuous deeds,

Is the peace of one's own mind.

Mary Howitt.

116

FOREST MUSINGS.

FOREST MUSINGS.

The green leaves waving in the morning gale

The little birds that 'mid their freshness sing

The wild-wood flowers so tender-eyed and pale

The wood-mouse sitting by the forest spring

The morning dew-the wild bee's woodland

hum,

All woo my feet to Nature's forest home.

To the pure heart, 'tis happiness to mark The tree-tops waving in the warm sunshine

To hear thy song, thou cloud embosom'd lark,

Like that of some fair spirit all divine—

To lie upon the forest's velvet grass,
And watch the fearful deer in distance pass.

O! gloriously beautiful is earth!

The desert wild, the mountain old and hoar,

FOREST MUSINGS.

117

The craggy steep, upthrown at nature's birth, The sweeping ocean wave, the pebbled

shore,

Have much of beauty all; but none to me, Is like the spot where stands the forest tree.

There I can muse away from living men, Reclining peacefully on nature's breast, The wood-bird sending up its GOD-ward strain,

Nursing the spirit into holy rest! Alone with GOD, within HIS forest fane, The soul can feel that all save HIM is vain,

Here it can learn-will learn to love all things,

That HE hath made-to pity and for

give

All faults, all failings.

deep springs

Here he heart's

Are open'd up, and all on Earth who

live,

To me grow nearer, dearer than before-
My brother loving I my GOD adore.

Nicoll.

When I go musing in this happy time— The opening of a late, but, shining MayThrough winding lanes, which over me display

High banks, with the wood-sorrel's flower in prime,

And rich luxuriant herbage, with the rime Of night-dews slightly silver'd, when the gay, Light, young-leav'd branches all around me

sway;

And when I hear the old familiar chime
Of chaffinch and wood-creeper, and that voice
Of summer-night, the cowering corn-crake's
call;

I can no more keep down the sudden leap
Of my touch'd heart, thus bidden to rejoice,
Than I could charm back Nature into sleep,
And chill her bosom with a wintry pall.

William Howitt.

SONG.

Song should breathe of scents and flowers; Song should like a river flow;