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To close the eye, and close the ear, Wrapped in a trance of bliss, And gently dream in loving arms, To swoon to that,- from this.

Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep,
Scarce asking where we are,
To feel all evil sink away,
All sorrow and all care.

Sweet souls around us! watch us still,
Press nearer to our side,
Into our thoughts, into our prayers,
With gentle helpings glide.

Let death between us be as naught,
A dried and vanished stream;
Your joy be the reality,

Our suffering life, the dream.

ALFRED BILLINGS STREET.

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[From Frontenac.] QUEBEC AT SUNSET. 'Twas in June's bright and glowing prime

The loveliest of the summer time. The laurels were one splendid sheet Of crowded blossom everywhere; The locust's clustered pearl was sweet, [air And the tall whitewood made the Delicious with the fragrance shed From the gold flowers all o'er it spread.

In the rich pomp of dying day Quebec, the rock-throned monarch, glowed,

Castle and spire and dwelling gray The batteries rude that niched their

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With bristling lines of cannon Of the deep yellow light, were gay,

crowned,

Whose muzzles o'er the landscape frowned

Blackly through their embrasures -shone.

Point Levi's woods sent many a wreath

Of mist, as though hearths smoked beneath,

Whilst heavy folds of vapor gray
Upon St. Charles, still brooding, lay;
The basin glowed in splendid dyes
Glassing the glories of the skies,
And chequered tints of light and
shade

The banks of Orleans' Isle displayed.

And the curved flood, below that lay,
In flashing glory flowed;
Beyond, the sweet and mellow smile
Beamed upon Orleans' lovely isle;
Until the downward view
Was closed by mountain-tops that,
reared

Against the burnished sky, appeared
In misty dreamy hue.

West of Quebec's embankments rose The forests in their wild repose. Between the trunks, the radiance slim

Here came with slant and quivering blaze;

Whilst there, in leaf-wreathed arbors The moose at morn the ripples

dim,

Was gathering gray the twilight's haze.

Where cut the boughs the background glow

That striped the west, a glittering belt,

The leaves transparent seemed, as though

In the rich radiance they would melt.

Upon a narrow grassy glade, Where thickets stood in grouping shade,

The light streaked down in golden mist,

Kindled the shrubs, the greensward

kissed,

Until the clover-blossoms white Flashed out like spangles large and bright.

This green and sun-streaked glade was rife

With sights and sounds of forest life. A robin in a bush was singing,

A flicker rattled on a tree; In liquid fife-like tones round ringing A thrasher piped its melody; Crouching and leaping with pointed

ear

From thicket to thicket a rabbit sped,

And on the short delicate grass a deer

Lashing the insects from off him, fed.

[From Frontenac.]

THE CANADIAN SPRING.

"TWAS May! the spring with magic bloom

Leaped up from winter's frozen tomb.

Day lit the river's icy mail;

The bland warm rain at evening sank;

Ice fragments dashed in midnight's gale;

drank.

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The butterfly new being found; Whilst round the pink may-apple's bloom,

Gave myriad drinking bees their sound.

Great fleeting clouds the pigeons made;

When near her brood the hunter strayed

With trailing limp the partridge stirred;

Whilst a quick, feathered spangle shot

Rapid as thought from spot to spot Showing the fairy humming-bird.

[From Frontenac.]

CAYUGA LAKE.

SWEET sylvan lake! in memory's gold

Is set the time, when first my eye From thy green shore beheld thee hold

Thy mirror to the sunset sky! No ripple brushed its delicate air, Kich silken tints alone were there; The far opposing shore displayed, Mingling its hues, a tender shade; A sail scarce seeming to the sight To move, spread there its pinion white,

Like some pure spirit stealing on
Down from its realm, by beauty won.
Oh, who could view the scene nor
feel

Its gentle peace within him steal,
Nor in his inmost bosom bless
Its pure and radiant loveliness?
My heart bent down its willing knee
Before the glorious Deity;
Beauty led up my heart to Him,
Beauty, though cold, and poor, and
dim

Before His radiance, beauty still
That made my bosom deeply thrill;
To higher life my being wrought,
And purified my every thought,
Crept like soft music through my
mind,

Each feeling of my soul refined,
And lifted me that lovely even
One precious moment up to heaven.

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The maple's scalloped dome beside. All weave on high a verdant roof That keeps the very sun aloof. Making a twilight soft and green

Within the columned, vaulted scene.

Sweet forest-odors have their birth From the clothed boughs and teeming earth;

Where pine-cones dropped, leaves piled and dead

Long tufts of grass, and stars of fern,

With many a wild flower's fairy inn,

A thick, elastic carpet spread: Here, with its mossy pall, the trunk, Resolving into soil, is sunk; There, wrenched but lately from its throne

By some fierce whirlwind circling past,

Its huge roots massed with earth and stone,

One of the woodland kings is cast.

Above, the forest-tips are bright With the broad blaze of sunny light; But now a fitful air-gust parts

The screening branches, and a glow Of dazzling, startling radiance darts Down the dark stems, and breaks

below:

The mingled shadows off are rolled. The sylvan floor is bathed in gold;

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