Respecting in each other's case
The gifts of nature and of grace.

Those Christians best deserve the name, Who studiously make peace their aim; Peace both the duty and the prize Of him that creeps and him that flies.

THE RAVEN.

RAVEN, while with glossy breast
Her new-laid eggs she fondly pressed,
And, on her wicker-work high
mounted,

Her chickens prematurely counted
(A fault philosophers might blame,
If quite exempted from the same),
Enjoyed at ease the genial day ;
'T was April, as the bumpkins say,
The legislature called it May.
But suddenly a wind, as high
As ever swept a winter sky,

Shook the young leaves about her ears,

And filled her with a thousand fears, Lest the rude blast should snap the bough, And spread her golden hopes below. But just at eve the blowing weather And all her fears were hushed together; "And now," quoth poor unthinking Ralph, ""T is over, and the brood is safe." (For ravens, though, as birds of omen, They teach both conjurers and old women To tell us what is to befall,

Can't prophesy themselves at all.)

The morning came, when neighbor Hodge,
Who long had marked her airy lodge,
And destined all the treasure there
A gift to his expecting fair,

Climbed like a squirrel to his dray,
And bore the worthless prize away.

MORAL.

"T is Providence alone secures

In every change both mine and yours:
Safety consists not in escape

From dangers of a frightful shape ;
An earthquake may be bid to spare
The man that 's strangled by a hair.

Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread; Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.

ERE is a bird who, by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow;

A great frequenter of the church,
Where, bishop-like, he finds a perch,
And dormitory too.

Above the steeple shines a plate,
That turns and turns, to indicate

From what point blows the weather;

Fond of the speculative height,
Thither he wings his airy flight,
And thence securely sees

The bustle and the raree-show
That occupy mankind below,
Secure and at his ease.

You think, no doubt, he sits and muses
On future broken bones and bruises,
If he should chance to fall.
No; not a single thought like that
Employs his philosophic pate,
Or troubles it at all.

He sees that this great roundabout,
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,

Its customs, and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,

And says what says he? Caw.

Thrice happy bird! I too have seen
Much of the vanities of men ;

And, sick of having seen 'em,
Would cheerfully these limbs resign
For such a pair of wings as thine
And such a head between 'em.

THE DOG AND THE WATER-LILY.

HE noon was shady, and soft airs
Swept Ouse's silent tide,

When, 'scaped from literary cares,

I wandered on his side.

My spaniel, prettiest of his race,

And high in pedigree

(Two nymphs adorned with every grace That spaniel found for me),

Now wantoned lost in flags and reeds,
Now starting into sight,

Pursued the swallows o'er the meads
With scarce a slower flight.

It was the time when Ouse displayed
His lilies newly blown ;
Their beauties I intent surveyed,
And one I wished my own.