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prayers,

And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth I' the midst of roses.

SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.

LYING.

This hand would lead thee, listen! A deep DO confess, in many a sigh,

vale

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My lips have breathed you many a lie; And who, with such delights in view, Would lose them for a lie or two?

Nay! Look not thus, with brow reproving;
Lies are, my dear, the soul of loving.
If half we tell the girls were true,
If half we swear to think and do,
Were aught but lying's bright illusion,
This world would be in strange confusion.
If ladies' eyes were every one,
As lovers swear, a radiant sun,

Astronomy must leave the skies
To learn her lore in ladies' eyes.
Oh no! believe me, lovely girl,
When Nature turns your teeth to pearl,
Your neck to snow, your eyes to fire,
Your amber locks to golden wire,
Then-only then-can Heaven decree
That should live for only me,

you

Or I for you, as, night and morn,
We've swearing kissed, and kissing sworn.

And now, my gentle hints to clear,
For once I'll tell you truth, my
dear :
Whenever you may chance to meet
Some loving youth whose love is sweet,
Long as you're false and he believes you,
Long as you trust and he deceives you,
So long the blissful bond endures,
And while he lies his heart is yours;
But oh you've wholly lost the youth.
The instant that he tells you truth.

THOMAS MOORE.

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WOODS IN SPRING.

AIL, Source of being! Uni- When first the soul of Love is sent abroad Warm through the vital air, and on the

versal Soul

Of heaven and earth, essential Presence, hail!

heart

Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin To thee I bend the knee, to In gallant thought to plume

thee my thoughts

master-hand

Hast the great whole into

wing,

the painted

Continual climb, who with a | And try again the long-forgotten strain
At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows
The soft infusion prevalent and wide
Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows
In music unconfined. Up springs the lark,
Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of
Morn;

perfection touched.

By thee the various vegetative tribes, Wrapped in a filmy net and clad with leaves, Draw the live ether and imbibe the dew; By thee disposed into congenial soils Stands each attractive plant, and sucks and swells

The juicy tide, a twining mass of tubes;
At thy command the vernal sun awakes
The torpid sap, detruded to the root
By wintry winds, that, now in fluent dance.
And lively fermentation mounting, spreads
All this innumerous-colored scene of things.

As rising from the vegetable world

My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend, My panting Muse; and hark! how loud the woods

Invite you forth in all your gayest trim!
Lend me your song, ye nightingales! Oh, pour
The mazy-running soul of melody
Into my varied verse while I deduce
From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings
The symphony of spring, and touch a theme
Unknown to fame-The Passion of the Groves.

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grassy dale

Of new-sprung leaves their modulations mix | Others apart far in the
Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw,
And each harsh pipe discordant heard alone,
Aid the full concert; while the stock-dove
breathes

Or roughening waste their humble texture

A melancholy murmur through the whole.

'Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of Love,
That even to birds and beasts the tender

arts

Of pleasing teaches; hence the glossy kind
Try every winning way inventive Love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates
Pour forth their little souls. First wide
around

With distant awe in airy rings they rove,
Endeavoring by a thousand tricks to catch
The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance
Of their regardless charmer. Should she

seem

Softening the least approvance to bestow,
Their colors burnish, and, by hope inspired,
They brisk advance; then, on a sudden
struck,

Retire disordered; then again approach,
In fond rotation spread the spotted wing
And shiver every feather with desire.

Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods
They haste away, all as their fancy leads,
Pleasure or food or secret safety prompts,
That Nature's great command may be obeyed,
Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive
Indulged in vain. Some to the holly-hedge,
Nestling, repair, and to the thicket some;
Some to the rude protection of the thorn
Commit their feeble offspring; the cleft tree
Offers its kind concealment to a few,

weave;

But most in woodland solitudes delight,
In unfrequented glooms or shaggy banks,
Steep, and divided by a babbling brook
Whose murmurs soothe them all the livelong
day

When by kind duty fixed. Among the roots
Of hazel pendent o'er the plaintive stream
They frame the first foundation of their
domes-

Dry sprigs of trees in artful fabric laid
And bound with clay together. Now 'tis
naught

But restless hurry through the busy air,
Beat by unnumbered wings. The swallow

sweeps

The slimy pool, to build his hanging house
Intent, and often from the careless back
Of herds and flocks a thousand tugging bills
Pluck hair and wool, and oft, when unob-
served,

Steal from the barn a straw, till soft and

warm,

Clean and complete, their habitation grows.

As thus the patient dam assiduous sits,
Not to be tempted from her tender task
Or by sharp hunger or by smooth delight,
Though the whole loosened spring around.

her blows,

Her sympathizing lover takes his stand
High on the opponent bank and ceaseless
sings

The tedious time away, or else supplies
Her place a moment while she sudden flits
To pick the scanty meal. The appointed

time

Their food its insects and its moss their nests; With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young,

Warmed and expanded into perfect life,
Their brittle bondage break and come to light
A helpless family demanding food

Be not the Muse ashamed here to bemoan
Her brothers of the grove by tyrant man
Inhuman caught and in the narrow cage

With constant clamor. Oh what passions From liberty confined, and boundless air. then,

What melting sentiments of kindly care,
On the new parents seize! Away they fly,
Affectionate, and, undesiring, bear
The most delicious morsel to their young;
Which equally distributed, again

The search begins. Even so a gentle pair

By fortune sunk, but formed of generous mould

Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull,
Ragged and all its brightening lustre lost;
Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes
Which clear and vigorous warbles from the
beech.

Oh, then, ye friends of love and love-taught

song,

Spare the soft tribes, this barbarous art forbear,

And charmed with cares beyond the vulgar If on your bosom Innocence can win,

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engage or Piety dissuade.

JAMES THOMSON.

SONG OF EARTH AND AIR.

TOW bountiful, how wonderful,

HOW bountiful,

Thou art, sweet air!

And yet, albeit thine odors lie
On every gust that mocks the eye,
We pass thy gentle blessings by

Without a care.

How bountiful, how wonderful,

Thou art, sweet earth,
Thy seasons changing with the sun,
Thy beauty out of darkness won!

Of wandering swain the white-winged plover And yet whose tongue, when all is done,

wheels

Her sounding flight, and then directly on
In long excursions skims the level lawn,

To tempt him from her nest. The wild

duck, hence,

Will tell thy worth?

The poet's! He alone doth still
Uphold all worth.

Then love the poet-love his themes,

O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless His thoughts, half hid in golden dreams,

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And later joys, like autumn flowers,
Have bloomed for us once more;
But never canst thou be again
What once thou wert to me:
I glory in another's chain,
And thou'rt no longer free.

Thy stream of life glides calmly on,
A prosperous lot is thine-
The brighter that it did not join

The turbid waves of mine;
Yet oh, could fondest love relume

Joy's sunshine on my brow,
Thine scarce can be a happier doom
Than I might boast of now.

ALARIC A. WATTS.

AN IDEAL WOMAN.

SHE was my peer

No weakling girl who would surrender will
And life and reason, with her loving heart,
To her possessor; no soft, clinging thing
Who would find breath alone within the arms
Of a strong master and obediently
Wait on his whims in slavish carefulness
No fawning, cringing spaniel to attend
His royal pleasure and account herself
Rewarded by his pats and pretty words;
But a sound woman who with insight keen
Had wrought a scheme of life and measured
well

Her womanhood; had spread before her feet
A fine philosophy to guide her steps;

Had won a faith to which her life was brought In strict adjustment, brain and heart mean

while

Working in conscious harmony and rhythm With the great scheme of God's great universe On toward her being's end.

DR. J. G HOLLAND,

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