The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking from, they too would shrink; To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling; They loved, but their story we cannot unfold; They died, ay! they died! and we things that are now, Yea! hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain, 'T is the wink of an eye, 't is the draught of a breath, WILLIAM KNOX. The Whistler. "You have heard," said a youth to his sweetheart, who stood While he sat on a corn-sheaf, at daylight's decline,— "You have heard of the Danish boy's whistle of wood: I wish that the Danish boy's whistle were mine." "And what would you do with it? Tell me," she said, While an arch smile played over her beautiful face. "I would blow it," he answered, "and then my fair maid Would fly to my side and would there take her place." "Is that all you wish for? Why, that may be yours And she playfully seated herself by his side. "I would blow it again," said the youth; "and the charm Would work so that not even modesty's check Would be able to keep from my neck your white arm.” She smiled and she laid her white arm round his neck. "Yet once more I would blow; and the music divine Would bring me a third time an exquisite bliss,— You would lay your fair cheek to this brown one of mine; And your lips stealing past it would give me a kiss." The maiden laughed out in her innocent glee,— "What a fool of yourself with the whistle you 'd make! For only consider how silly 't would be To sit there and whistle for what you might take." ROBERT STORY. We'll Go to Sea no More. O, BLITHELY shines the bonny sun Upon the Isle of May, And blithely comes the morning tide Into St. Andrew's Bay. Then up, gudeman, the breeze is fair, That sails sae weel the sea! When haddocks leave the Firth o' Forth, An' mussels leave the shore, When oysters climb up Berwick Law, We'll go to sea no more. I've seen the waves as blue as air, We'll go to sea no more. I never liked the landsman's life, Gie me the fields that no man plows, Gie me the bonny fish that glance So gladly through the sea. When sails hang flapping on the masts While through the waves we snore, We'll go to sea no more. The sun is up, and round Inchkeith The breezes softly blaw; The gudeman has the lines on board,— Awa, my bairns, awa! An' ye be back by gloamin' gray, An' bright the fire will low, An' in your tales and sangs we 'll tell When life's last sun gaes feebly down, When a' the world 's a dream to us, We'll go to sea no more, No more, We'll go to sea no more. MISS CORBETT. Eeehale. THE blackbird is singing on Michigan's shore, As sweetly and gayly as ever before; For he knows to his mate he at pleasure can hie, The sun looks as ruddy, and rises as bright, And reflects o'er the mountains as beamy a light As it ever reflected, or ever expressed, When my skies were the bluest, my dreams were the best. The fox and the panther, both beasts of the night, Retire to their dens on the gleaming of light, And they spring with a free and a sorrowless track, For they know that their mates are expecting them back. Each bird and each beast, it is blessed in degree; All nature is cheerful, all happy, but me. I will go to my tent, and lie down in despair; But they died not by hunger, or lingering decay— This snake-skin, that once I so sacredly wore, Its spirit hath left me, its spell is now broke. O, then I shall banish these cankering sighs, I will dig up my hatchet, and bend my oak bow; Nor lakes shall impede me, nor mountains, nor snows; They came to my cabin when heaven was black; HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT. I Would not Live Alway. I WOULD not live alway: I ask not to stay |