Below, as o'er its ocean breadth

The air's light currents run, The wilderness of moving leaves Is glancing in the sun.

I look around to where the sky
Meets the far forest line,
And this imperial domain-

This kingdom--all is mine!

This bending heaven, these floating clouds, Waters that ever roll,

And wilderness of glory, bring

Their offerings to my soul.

My palace, built by God's own hand,
The world's fresh prime hath seen:
Wide stretch its living halls away,

Pillared and roofed with green:
My music is the wind that now
Pours loud its swelling bars,
Now lulls in dying cadences,-
My festal lamps are stars.

Though when in this my lonely home, My star-watched couch I press,

I hear no fond "good-night"-think not I am companionless.

Oh no! I see my father's house,

The hill, the tree, the stream,

And the looks and voices of my home
Come gently to my dream.

And in these solitary haunts,
While slumbers every tree
In night and silence, God himself
Seems nearer unto me.

I feel his presence in these shades,
Like the embracing air;

And as my eyelids close in sleep, My heart is hushed in prayer.

Nathaniel Parker Willis.

AMERICAN.

Willis (1807-1867) was a native of Portland, Maine, and was graduated at Yale College in 1827. He ventured upon a magazine enterprise, the American Monthly, in 1829, but it expired in two years. From 1831 to 1835 he travelled in Europe; and having taken an English wife, he returned home, and settled at a place on the Susquehanna River, which he named Glenmary. In 1844 he revisited Europe, and, having become a widower, in 1846

married his second wife, Miss Grinnell. The remainder of his life was passed chiefly at his well-known place on the Hudson, near Newburgh, to which he gave the name of Idlewild. He was associated with George P. Morris in editing the Home Journal, a New York weekly paper. Willis's first volume of poems was published in Boston in 1829. He wrote no long poem that can be pronounced successful; though his "Scriptural Poems" were highly popular in their day. Of his prose works, his "Pencillings by the Way" gave him a reputation, both in England and at home, as a graceful and original sketcher, and one of the most attractive of the magazine writers. His sketches of Count D'Orsay, Moore, Campbell, Jerrold, D'Israeli, Hood, Lamb, Procter, Leigh Hunt, Bulwer, are witty, graphic, and entertaining. He wrote two dramatic pieces, but they attained no success on the stage. As a poet, Willis's contemporary fame exceeded his posthumous; but a true poet he was, and he would have shown it more clearly to the world if ambition to shine as a man of society had not withdrawn him from the right path of literary labor. To younger authors he was kind and generous, and left many warm friends among them.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

I love to look on a scene like this,
Of wild and careless play,

And persuade myself that I am not old,
And my locks are not yet gray;

For it stirs the blood of an old man's heart,
And makes his pulses fly,

To catch the thrill of a happy voice,
And the light of a pleasant eye.

I have walked the world for fourscore years, And they say that I am old;

That my heart is ripe for the reaper Death, And my years are well-nigh told:

It is very true; it is very true;

I'm old, and I "bide my time;"

But my heart will leap at a scene like this, And I half renew my prime.

Play on play on! I am with you there, In the midst of your merry ring;

I can feel the thrill of the daring jump,
And the rush of the breathless swing.

I hide with you in the fragrant hay,
And I whoop the smothered call,
And my feet slip up on the seedy floor,
And I care not for the fall.

I am willing to die when my time shall come,
And I shall be glad to go-

For the world, at best, is a weary place,
And my pulse is getting low ;.

But the grave is dark, and the heart will fail
In treading its gloomy way;
And it wiles my breast from its dreariness
To see the young so gay.

THIRTY-FIVE.

"The years of a man's life are threescore and ten."
O, weary heart! thou'rt half-way home!
We stand on Life's meridian height-
As far from childhood's morning come,
As to the grave's forgetful night.
Give Youth and Hope a parting tear-
Look onward with a placid brow-
Hope promised but to bring us here,

And Reason takes the guidance now-One backward look-the last--the last! One silent tear-for Youth is past!

Who goes with Hope and Passion back? Who comes with me and Memory on? Oh, lonely looks the downward trackJoy's music hushed-Hope's roses gone! To Pleasure and her giddy troop

Farewell, without a sigh or tear! But heart gives way, and spirits droop, To think that Love may leave us here! Have we no charm when Youth is flownMidway to death left sad and lone!

Yet stay!-as 'twere a twilight star

That sends its thread across the wave,

I see a brightening light, from far,

Steal down a path beyond the grave!
And now-bless God!-its golden line
Comes o'er-and lights my shadowy way--
And shows the dear hand clasped in mine!
But list! what those sweet voices say!
"The better land's in sight,
And, by its chastening light,

All love from life's midway is driven
Save hers whose claspéd hand will bring thee on to
Heaven!"

THE SPRING IS HERE.

The Spring is here-the delicate-footed May,
With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers;
And with it comes a thirst to be away,
Wasting in wood-paths its voluptuous hours-
A feeling that is like a sense of wings,
Restless to soar above these perishing things.

We pass out from the city's feverish hum,
To find refreshment in the silent woods;
And nature, that is beautiful and dumb,
Like a cool sleep upon the pulses broods.
Yet even there a restless thought will steal,
To teach the indolent heart it still must feel.

Strange that the audible stillness of the noon, The waters tripping with their silver feet, The turning to the light of leaves in June,

625

And the light whisper as their edges meetStrange that they fill not, with their tranquil tone, The spirit, walking in their midst alone.

There's no contentment, in a world like this,
Save in forgetting the immortal dream;
We may not gaze upon the stars of bliss,

That through the cloud-rifts radiantly stream :
Bird-like, the prisoned soul will lift its eye
And sing, till it is hooded from the sky.

ACROSTIC: SONNET.

It may be interesting to compare this sounet with one by Percival (page 482) on the same celebrated lady. Willis's has the advantage of conformity to the Petrarchan model.

Elegance floats about thee like a dress,
Melting the airy motion of thy form
Into one swaying grace; and loveliness,
Like a rich tint that makes a picture warm,
Is lurking in the chestnut of thy tress,
Enriching it, as moonlight after storm
Mingles dark shadows into gentleness.
A beauty that bewilders like a spell
Reigns in thine eye's clear hazel, and thy brow.
So pure in veined transparency, doth tell
How spiritually beautiful art thou—
A temple where angelic love might dwell.
Life in thy presence were a thing to keep,
Like a gay dreamer clinging to his sleep.

TO A CITY PIGEON.

Stoop to my window, thou beautiful dove!
Thy daily visits have touched my love.
I watch thy coming, and list the note
That stirs so low in thy mellow throat,
And my joy is high

To catch the glance of thy gentle eye.

Why dost thou sit on the heated eaves,
And forsake the wood with its freshened leaves !

Why dost thou haunt the sultry street,

When the paths of the forest are cool and sweet? How canst thou bear

This noise of people-this sultry air?

Thou alone of the feathered race

Dost look unscared on the human face; Thou alone, with a wing to flee,

Dost love with man in his haunts to be; And the "gentle dove"

Has become a name for trust and love.

A holy gift is thine, sweet bird!

Thou'rt named with childhood's earliest word! Thou'rt linked with all that is fresh and wild In the prisoned thoughts of the city child; And thy glossy wings

Are its brightest image of moving things.

It is no light chance: thou art set apart Wisely by Him who has tamed thy heart, To stir the love for the bright and fair, That else were sealed in this crowded air; I sometimes dream

Angelic rays from thy pinions stream.

Come then, ever, when daylight leaves
The page I read,-to my humble eaves,
And wash thy breast in the hollow spont,
And murmur thy low, sweet music out!

I hear and see

Lessons of heaven, sweet bird, in thee!

Jonathan Lawrence, Jr.

AMERICAN.

Lawrence (1807-1833) was a native of New York. Graduating at Columbia College before he was sixteen, he devoted himself to the study of the law; was admitted to the Bar, but died in his twenty-sixth year. A selection from his writings, including poems, of which we give the best, was published in New York in 1833. It had been first privately printed by his brother.

If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart

Look aloft and be firm, and be fearless of heart.

If the friend, who embraced in prosperity's glow, With a smile for each joy and a tear for each woe, Should betray thee when sorrows, like clouds, are

arrayed,

Look aloft to the friendship which never shall fade.

Should the visions, which hope spreads in light to thine eye,

Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly, Then turn, and, through tears of repentant regret, Look aloft to the sun that is never to set.

Should those who are dearest, the son of thy heart,
The wife of thy bosom, in sorrow depart,
Look aloft from the darkness and dust of the tomb,
To that soil where affection is ever in bloom.

And oh! when death comes, in terror to cast
His fears on the future, his pall on the past,
In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart,
And a smile in thine eye, look aloft, and depart.

John Howard Bryant.

AMERICAN.

A brother of William Cullen Bryant, John was born in Cummington, Mass., July 22d, 1807. He began to write verses while yet a boy. After receiving a good education at a school in Troy, N. Y., he went West in 1831, and in 1835 purchased of the United States Government five hundred and twenty acres of superior land in Princeton, Ill., where he took up his residence, and where he attained to wealth and honors through his own energet ic labors and exalted character. He held various offices of trust. In 1855 a volume of his poems was published in New York. It abounds in evidences of the feeling, taste, and power of expression of one who could keenly appreciate the beauties of nature, and reproduce them in apt poetic forms. But the necessity of earning a support for a growing family compelled him, as well as his brother Arthur, who also settled in Princeton, to forego those literary occupations which were congenial to their tastes.

LOOK ALOFT.

The following lines were suggested by an anecdote, said to have been related by Dr. Godman, of a ship-boy, who, about to fall from the rigging, was only saved by the mate's exclamation, "Look aloft, you lubber!"

In the tempest of life when the wave and the gale Are around and above, if thy footing should fail

THE VALLEY BROOK.

Fresh from the fountains of the wood
A rivulet of the valley came,

And glided on for many a rood,

Flushed with the morning's ruddy flame.