I heard the distant waters dash,

I saw the current whirl and flash,

And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,
The woods were bending with a silent reach.
Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell,

The music of the village bell

Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills:

And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,

Was ringing to the merry shout,

That faint and far the glen sent out,

Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke,
Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.

If thou art worn and hard beset

With sorrows that thou wouldst forget,

If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills! No tears

Dim the sweet look that nature wears.

H. W. Longfellow.

A SUMMER MORN.

To yonder hill, whose sides, deform'd and steep
Just yield a scanty sustenance to the sheep,
With thee, my friend, I oftentimes have sped,
To see the sun rise from his healthy bed;
To watch the aspect of the summer morn,

Smiling upon the golden fields of corn,

And taste delighted of superior joys,

Beheld through Sympathy's enchanted eyes:

With silent admiration oft we view'd

The myriad hues o'er heaven's blue concave strew'd;

F

The fleecy clouds, of every tint and shade,
Round which the silvery sunbeam glancing play'd,
And the round orb itself, in azure throne,

Just peeping o'er the blue hill's ridgy zone;
We mark'd delighted, how with aspect gay,
Reviving Nature hail'd returning day;

Mark'd how the flowerets rear'd their drooping heads,
And the wild lambkins bounded o'er the meads,
While from each tree, in tones of sweet delight,
The birds sung paans to the source of light:
Oft have we watch'd the speckled lark arise,
Leave his grass bed, and soar to kindred skies,
And rise, and rise, till the pained sight no more
Could trace him in his high aërial tour;

Though on the ear, at intervals, his song
Came wafted slow the wavy breeze along;
And we have thought how happy were our lot,
Bless'd with some sweet, some solitary cot,
Where, from the peep of day, till russet eve
Began in every dell her forms to weave,
We might pursue our sports from day to day,
And in each other's arms wear life away.

H. Kirke White.

SUMMER MOODS.

I LOVE at eventide to walk alone,

Down narrow lanes o'erhung with dewy thorn, Where from the long grass underneath, the snail Jet black creeps out and sprouts his timid horn. I love to muse o'er meadows newly mown,

Where withering grass perfumes the sultry air;