VI.

(Written on a small sheet of note-paper upon which a lady had requested the author to indite some verses.)

WERE I the Poet Laureate of the Fairies,
Who in a rose-leaf finds too broad a page,
Or could I, like your beautiful canaries,
Sing with free heart and happy, in a cage,
Perhaps I might within this little space
(As in some Eastern tale by magic power
A giant is imprisoned in a flower)

Have told you something with a poet's grace;
But I need wider limits, ampler scope,

A world of freedom for a world of passion,
And even then the glory of my hope

Would not be uttered in its stateliest fashion;
Yet, lady when fit language shall have told it,
You'll find one little heart enough to hold it.

WILLIAM H. TIMROD.

AN AUTUMNAL DAY IN CAROLINA.

SLEEPS the soft South, nursing its delicate breath To fan the first buds of the early spring;

And Summer, sighing, mourns his faded wreath,
Its many-colored glories withering

Beneath the kisses of the new-waked North,·
Who yet in storms approaches not, but smiles
On the departing season, and breathes forth
A fragrance as of summer, till at whiles

All that is sweetest in the varying year
Seems softly blent in one delicious hour;

Waking dim visions of some former sphere
Where sorrows, such as earth owns, had no power
To veil the changeless lustre of the skies,

And mind and matter formed one Paradise.

II.

THE MAY QUEEN.

SARAH! throbbed not thy young heart on that day With innocent triumph, when the youthful throng, With rites of ancient usage, and sweet song,

Had crowned thee Queen of verdant-mantled May? And not unmeet thy triumph, — for the voice

Of thy young peers, which singled thee from all,
To circle with the rural coronal,

Spoke merit in the Queen of their free choice!
But still remember, Sarah, thou canst find
No lasting joy in earthly diadems,

Whether of flowers composed, or costly gems :
Those fade, and these oft dazzle but to blind;
And we must look to other worlds than this

For crowns of real and abiding bliss.

JOHN G. SAXE.

I.

TO A CLAM.

Dum tacent clamant.

INGLORIOUS friend! most confident I am
Thy life is one of very little ease;

Albeit men mock thee with their similes,
And prate of being "happy as a clam"!
What though thy shell protects thy fragile head
From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea?
Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee,
While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed,
And bear thee off, as foemen take their spoil,
Far from thy friends and family to roam ;
Forced, like a Hessian, from thy native home,
To meet destruction in a foreign broil !

Though thou art tender, yet thy humble bard Declares, O clam! thy case is shocking hard!

II.

BEREAVEMENT.

NAY, weep not, dearest, though the child be dead; He lives again in heaven's unclouded life,

With other angels that have early fled

From these dark scenes of sorrow, sin, and strife; Nay, weep not, dearest, though thy yearning love Would fondly keep for earth its fairest flowers, And e'en deny to brighter realms above

The few that deck this dreary world of ours: Though much it seems a wonder and a woe

That one so loved should be so early lost, And hallowed tears may unforbidden flow

To mourn the blossom that we cherished most, Yet all is well God's good design I see,

That where our treasure is, our hearts may be!