THE WORLD IN THE OPEN AIR.

A memory of the gentle dead,
A lingering spell of love.
Murmuring the names of mighty men,
Thay bid our streams roll on,

And link high thoughts to every glen
Where valiant deeds were done.

Teach them your children round the hearth,
When evening fires burn clear,
And in the fields of harvest mirth,

And on the hills of deer.

So shall each unforgotten word,
When far those loved ones roam,

Call back the hearts which once it stirred
To childhood's holy home.

The green woods of their native land
Shall whisper in the strain,
The voices of their household band
Shall breathe their names again;
The heathery heights in vision rise,
Where, like the stag, they roved.
Sing to your sons those melodies,
The songs your fathers loved!

THE WORLD IN THE OPEN AIR

COME, while in freshness and dew it lies,
To the world that is under the free blue skies!
Leave ye man's home, and forget his care-
There breathes no sigh on the dayspring's air.

Come to the woods, in whose mossy dells
A light all made for the poet dwells-
A light, coloured softly by tender leaves,
Whence the primrose a mellower glow receives.

The stock-dove is there in the beechen tree,
And the lulling tone of the honey-bee;
And the voice of cool waters 'midst feathery fern,
Shedding sweet sounds from some hidden urn.

There is life, there is youth, there is tameless mirth,
Where the streams, with the lilies they wear, have birth ;
There is peace where the alders are whispering low :
Come from man's dwellings with all their woe!

Yes! we will come-we will leave behind
The homes and the sorrows of human kind.

It is well to rove where the river leads

Its bright blue vein along sunny meads:

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It is well through the rich wild woods to go,
And to pierce the haunts of the fawn and doe;
And to hear the gushing of gentle springs,
When the heart has been fretted by worldly stings;

And to watch the colours that flit and pass,
With insect-wings, through the wavy grass;
And the silvery gleams o'er the ash-tree's bark,
Borne in with a breeze through the foliage dark.

Joyous and far shall our wanderings be,
As the flight of birds o'er the glittering sea:
To the woods, to the dingles where violets blow,
We will bear no memory of earthly woe.

But if by the forest-brook we meet
A line like the pathway of former feet;
If, 'midst the hills, in some lonely spot,
We reach the grey ruins of tower or cot;-

If the cell, where a hermit of old hath prayed,
Lift up its cross through the solemn shade;
Or if some nook, where the wild flowers wave,
Bear token sad of a mortal grave,-

Doubt not but there will our steps be stayed,
There our quick spirits awhile delayed;
There will thought fix our impatient eyes,
And win back our hearts to their sympathies.

For what though the mountains and skies be fair,
Steeped in soft hues of the summer air?
'Tis the soul of man, by its hopes and dreams,
That lights up all nature with living gleams.

Where it hath suffered and nobly striven,

Where it hath poured forth its vows to heaven;
Where to repose it hath brightly passed,
O'er this green earth there is glory cast.

And by the soul, 'midst groves and rills,
And flocks that feed on a thousand hills,
Birds of the forest, and flowers of the sod,
We, only we, may be linked to God!

KINDRED HEARTS.

OH! ask not, hope thou not too much
Of sympathy below!

Few are the hearts whence one same touch
Bids the sweet fountains flow-

Few-and by still conflicting powers
Forbidden here to meet :

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Such ties would make this life of ours
Too fair for aught so fleet.

It may be that thy brother's eye
Sees not as thine, which turns
In such deep reverence to the sky,
Where the rich sunset burns:
It may be that the breath of spring,
Born amidst violets lone,

A rapture o'er thy soul can bring-
A dream, to his unknown.

The tune that speaks of other times-
A sorrowful delight!

The melody of distant chimes,
The sound of waves by night,
The wind that, with so many a tone,
Some chord within can thrill,-

These may have language all thine own,
To him a mystery still.

Yet scorn thou not, for this, the true
And steadfast love of years;
The kindly, that from childhood grew,
The faithful to thy tears!

If there be one that o'er the dead

Hath in thy grief borne part,

And watched through sickness by thy bed,-
Call his a kindred heart!

But for those bonds all perfect made

Wherein bright spirits blend,

Like sister flowers of one sweet shade,

With the same breeze that bend

For that full bliss of thought allied
Never to mortals given,

Oh! lay thy lovely dreams aside,
Or lift them unto heaven.

THE TRAVELLER AT THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

IN sunset's light, o'er Afric thrown,

A wanderer proudly stood

Beside the well-spring, deep and lone,

Of Egypt's awful flood

The cradle of that mighty birth,

So long a hidden thing to earth!

He heard in life's first murmuring sound,

A low mysterious tone

A music sought, but never found

By kings and warriors gone.

He listened and his heart beat high:
That was the song of victory!

The rapture of a conqueror's mood
Rushed burning through his frame,—
The depths of that green solitude
Its torrents could not tame;

Though stillness lay, with eve's last smile,
Round those far fountains of the Nile.

Night came with stars. Across his soul
There swept a sudden change:
E'en at the pilgrim's glorious goal

A shadow dark and strange

Breathed from the thought, so swift to fall
O'er triumph's hour-and is this all?1

No more than this! What seemed it now
First by that spring to stand?

A thousand streams of lovelier flow

Bathed his own mountain-land!
Whence, far o'er waste and ocean track,
Their wild, sweet voices, called him back.

They called him back to many a glade,
His childhood's haunt of play,
Where brightly through the beechen shade
Their waters glanced away;

They called him, with their sounding waves,
Back to his father's hills and graves.

But, darkly mingling with the thought
Of each familiar scene,

Rose up a fearful vision, fraught

With all that lay between

The Arab's lance, the desert's gloom,

The whirling sands, the red simoom!

Where was the glow of power and pride?

The spirit born to roam ?

His altered heart within him died

With yearnings for his home!

A remarkable description of feelings thus fluctuating from triumph to despondency, is given in Bruce's Abyssinian Travels. The buoyant exultation of his spirits on arriving at the source of the Nile, was almost immediately succeeded by a gloom, which he thus portrays :-"I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference, which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh and the fountains of the Nile, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan, rise in one hill. I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy."

All vainly struggling to repress
The gush of painful tenderness.

He wept! The stars of Afric's heaven
Beheld his bursting tears,

E'en on that spot where fate had given
The meed of toiling years!—

O Happiness! how far we flee

Thine own sweet paths in search of thee!

CASABIANCA.1

THE boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm-
A creature of heroic blood,

A proud, though child-like form.

The flames rolled on-he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud:-" Say, father, say
If yet my task is done!

He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

"Speak, father!" once again he cried,
"If I may yet be gone!"

And but the booming shots replied,

And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,

And in his waving hair,

And looked from that lone post of death

In still yet brave despair;

And shouted but once more aloud,

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'My father! must I stay?"

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,

The wreathing fires made way.

1 Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the Admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.