English

BY WILLIAM B. FAIRCHILD .

Oh, beautiful, most beautiful
Each impulse of the heart,
Ere care hath twined its meshes round
And planted there its dart —
When youthful blood is coursing through
Each clear, transparent vein,
With a beauty and a mystery
That spurn at reason's rein.

Oh, then the " tell-tale countenance "
Each thought embodies forth,

Why with so piteous a melancholy
And with so inconsolable a plaint,
As though your wistful heart were broken wholly,
Within your bosom quaint,
Do you, my little gossip of the air,
Make all the night to ring,
With your lorn quavering
As for some ancient, irremediable despair?
O-o-o! O-o-o-o!
Do you not know?

BY WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER .

Lady — I know thee only
Through the breathings of thy song,
But my thought has often pictured thee
The loveliest of the throng,
Who, in our free, wild forest-land,
Have knelt them at the shrine
Of Eloquence and Poesy —
The thrilling, the divine.

The ever-verdant islands
That dot Mind's soundless sea,
Seem pleasure-walks, and pilgrim-spots,

NEW YEAR'S GOOD WISHES .

Pretty maiden! let love and let pleasure attend thee,
And joy hover round — and affection defend thee:
And twirling thy distaff be smiling and gay,
And have all thy wishes, and have all thy way;
Let thy thread just be thick or be thin at thy will,
But hang not so far o'er the high window-sill;
I fear me thy spindle thou'lt break, which would vex thee;
Thy thread thou wilt lose, and that would perplex thee;
So take my good wishes — as meant — not amiss,

BY HARVEY D. LITTLE .

I come once more, a wearied man,
To look upon that holy spot,
Where first my infant life began
To journey through its changeful lot.
I come! — A thousand shadows play
Upon the mirror of my mind —
The phantoms of a happier day
In memory's sacred keeping shrined.

I gaze! and lo! before me rise
The shades of many a hallowed form:

I.

Peace, busie Soul, let distant Things alone,
Only the present Time's thy own;
Leave to the Gods what shall hereafter be,
Forbear the Search of dark Futurity.
If thou'lt at once more than one Minute live,
Thou must design or dread or grieve;
In turning back Remembrance represents,
Black Images of Discontent.
What happen'd to torment a Year ago,
Altho' it really ceases to do so?
If thou will't ruminate, 'tis still A Woe.
Thus what is past will always present be,
And in Idea ever torture thee;

For Landon

If drops of rain within the lily bells
When shaken forth in shimmerings crystalline,
Could sound as sweetly as the lily smells,
I'd liken unto them your notes divine.

If golden, quivering sunlit skeins that glance
Reflected upward o'er the swan's white breast,
Could chime as silverly as light they dance,
I'd say: " So calls the Wood-thrush near his nest. "

If each fair, lovely, lonely little star,

BY JAMES B. MARSHALL .

Touch gently with thy taper finger,
The string of some lov'd lute, —
The cherish'd sound will with thee linger,
E'en when the string is mute.
And thus I 'd have thy thoughts recur,
When far away from thee,
To him who leaves a tribute here
For friendship's memory.

Over the azure sky above,
Clouds sweep in caravans,

BY EPKRAIM PEABODY .

These lovely shores! how lone and still
 A hundred years ago,
The unbroken forest stood above,
 The waters dash'd below:—
The waters of a lonely sea,
 Where never sail was furl'd,
Embosomed in a wilderness,
 Which was itself a world.

A hundred years! go back; and lo!
 Where, closing in the view,
Juts out the shore, with rapid oar
 Darts round a frail canoe.—
'T is a white voyager, and see,
 His prow is westward set

RY CHARLES D. DARKE
.

An eagle flew up in his heavenward flight,
Far out of the reach of human sight,
And gazed on the earth from his lordly height
In the clouds of the upper air:
" And this is life, " he exultingly screams,
" To soar without fear where the lightning gleams,
And look unblenched on the sun's gorgeous beams,
And know no harrowing care. "

A lion sprang forth from his bloody bed,
And roared till it seemed he would wake the dead;
And man and beast from him trembling fled,