Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks
That from the fountains of Senora glide
Into the calm Pacific-have ye fanned
A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?

Man hath no part in all this glorious work:

The Hand that built the firmament hath heaved

And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes
With herbage, planted them with island groves,
And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor
For this magnificent temple of the sky-
With flowers whose glory and whose multitude
Rival the constellations! The great heavens
Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love-
A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue

Than that which bends above the eastern hills.
As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed,
Among the high rank grass that sweeps his sides,
The hollow beating of his footstep seems
A sacrilegious sound. I think of those
Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here,
The dead of other days?—and did the dust
Of these fair solitudes once stir with life

And burn with passion? Let the mighty mounds
That overlook the rivers, or that rise

In the dim forest crowded with old oaks,

Answer. A race, that long has passed away,
Built them-a disciplined and populous race

Heaped with long toil the earth, while yet the Greek
Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms

Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock

The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields
Nourished their harvests; here their herds were fed,
When haply by their stalls the bison lowed,
And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke.
All day this desert murmured with their toils,
Till twilight blushed, and lovers walked, and wooed
In a forgotten language; and old tunes,

From instruments of unremembered form,

Gave the soft winds a voice.

The red man came

The roaming hunter-tribes, warlike and fierce,
And the mound-builders vanished from the earth-
The solitude of centuries untold

Has settled where they dwelt. The prairie wolf
Hunts in their meadows, and his fresh dug den
Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the ground
Where stood their swarming cities. All is gone-
All, save the piles of earth that hold their bones-
The platforms where they worshipped unknown gods-

The barriers which they builded from the soil
To keep the foe at bay-till o'er the walls
The wild beleaguerer broke, and one by one
The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heaped
With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood
Flocked to those vast uncovered sepulchres,
And sat, unscared and silent, at their feast.
Haply some solitary fugitive,

Lurking in marsh and forest till the sense
Of desolation and of fear became

Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die.
Man's better nature triumphed. Kindly words
Welcomed and soothed him; the rude conquerors
Seated the captive with their chiefs; he chose
A bride among their maidens, and at length
Seemed to forget-yet ne'er forgot the wife
Of his first love, and her sweet little ones
Butchered, amid their shrieks, with all his race.
Thus change the forms of being. Thus arise
Races of living things, glorious in strength,
And perish, as the quickening breath of God
Fills them, or is withdrawn. The red man, too,
Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long,
And, nearer to the Rocky Mountains, sought
A wider hunting-ground. The beaver builds
No longer by these streams, but far away,
On waters whose blue surface ne'er gave back
The white man's face. Among Missouri's springs,
And pools whose issues swell the Oregon,
He rears his little Venice. In these plains
The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leagues
Beyond remotest smoke of hunter's camp
Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shake
The earth with thundering steps-yet here I meet
His ancient footprints stamped beside the pool.
Still this great solitude is quick with life.
Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers
They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds,

And birds that scarce have learned the fear of man,
Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground,
Startingly beautiful. The graceful deer
Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee,
A more adventurous colonist than man,
With whom he came across the eastern deep,
Fills the savannas with his murmurings,
And hides his sweets, as in the golden age,
Within the hollow oak. I listen long
To his domestic hum, and think I hear
The sound of that advancing multitude

Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground
Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
Of maidens, and the sweet solemn hymn
Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain
Over the dark-brown furrows. All at once
A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream,
And I am in the wilderness alone.

THE CROCUS'S SOLILOQUY.
Down in my solitude under the snow,
Where nothing cheering can reach me;
Here, without light to see how to grow,
I'll trust to nature to teach me.

I will not despair, nor be idle, nor frown,
Locked in so gloomy a dwelling;

My leaves shall run up, and my roots shall run down,
While the bud in my bosom is swelling,

Soon as the frost will get out of my bed,
From this cold dungeon to free me,
I will peer up with my little bright head;
All will be joyful to see me.

Then from my heart will young petals diverge,
As rays of the sun from their focus;

I from the darkness of earth will emerge,
A happy and beautiful Crocus!

Gaily arrayed in my yellow and green,
When to their view I have risen,
Will they not wonder how one so serene
Came from so dismal a prison?

Many, perhaps, from so simple a flower
This little lesson may borrow-
Patient to-day, through its gloomiest hour,
We come out the brighter to-morrow!

-MISS H. F. GOULD.

FROST.

THE Frost looked forth one still, clear night,
And he said, "Now I shall be out of sight,
So through the valley and over the height,

I will not go on like that blustering train,
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,
Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,
But I'll be as busy as they!"

Then he went to the mountain, and powdered its crest,
He climbed up the trees, and their boughs he dressed
With diamonds and pearls, and over the breast
Of the quivering lake he spread

A coat of mail, that it need not fear
The downward point of many a spear
That he hung on its margin, far and near,
Where a rock could rear its head.

He went to the windows of those who slept,
And over each pane like a fairy crept;
Wherever he breathed, wherever he stepped,

By the light of the moon, were seen

Most beautiful things. There were flowers and trees-
There were bevies of birds, and swarms of bees-

There were cities, thrones, temples, and towers!—and these
All pictured in silver sheen!

But he did one thing that was hardly fair;
He went to the cupboard, and finding there
That all had forgotten for him to prepare,
"Now, just to set them a-thinking
I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he;
"This bloated pitcher I'll burst in three!
And the glass of water they've left for me
Shall 'tchick,' to tell them I'm drinking!"

-IBID.

THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE CONTRASTED WITH
THE CHANGES IN HUMAN LIFE.

How like eternity doth nature seem

To life of man-that short and fitful dream!
I look around me; nowhere can I trace
Lines of decay that mark our human race.

These are the murmuring waters, these the flowers
I mused o'er in my earlier, better hours.

Like sounds and scents of yesterday they come.
Long years have passed since this was last my home!
And I am weak, and toil-worn is my frame;
But all this vale shuts in is still the same:
'Tis I alone am changed; they know me not:
I feel a stranger-or as one forgot.

67

The breeze that cooled my warm and youthful brow,
Breathes the same freshness on its wrinkles now.
The leaves that flung around me sun and shade,
While gazing idly on them as they played,
Are holding yet their frolic in the air;
The motion, joy, and beauty still are there-
But not for me! I look upon the ground:
Myriads of happy faces throng me round,
Familiar to my eye; yet heart and mind
In vain would now the old communion find.
Ye were as living, conscious beings then,
With whom I talked-but I have talked with men!
With uncheered sorrow, with cold hearts I've met;
Seen honest minds by hardened craft beset;
Seen hope cast down, turn deathly pale its glow;
Seen virtue rare, but more of virtue's show.
-DANA.

RETROSPECTION.

THERE are moments in life that are never forgot,
Which brighten, and brighten, as time steals away;
They give a new charm to the happiest lot,

And they shine on the gloom of the loneliest day.
These moments are hallowed by smiles and by tears;
The first look of love, and the last parting given;
As the sun, in the dawn of his glory, appears,

And the cloud weeps and glows with the rainbow in heaven.
There are hours, there are minutes, which memory brings,
Like blossoms of Eden, to twine round the heart;
And as time rushes by on the might of his wings,
They may darken a while, but they never depart:
Oh! these hallowed remembrances cannot decay,
But they come on the soul with a magical thrill;
And in days that are darkest they kindly will stay,
And the heart, in its last throb, will beat with them still.

They come, like the dawn in its loveliness, now,
The same look of beauty that shot to my soul;

The snows of the mountain are bleached on her brow,
And her eyes in the blue of the firmament roll.
The roses are dim by her cheeks' living bloom,
And her coral lips part like the opening of flowers;
She moves through the air in a cloud of perfume,
Like the wind from the blossoms of jessamine bowers.

From her eye's melting azure there sparkles a flame
That kindled my young blood to ecstacy's glow;
She speaks-and the tones of her voice are the same
As