THE CRIPPLE-BOY.

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PON an Indian rush-mat spread,

Where burr-oak boughs a coolness shed,
Alone he sat, a cripple-child,

With eyes so large, so dark and wild,
And fingers thin and pale to see,
Lock'd upon his trembling knee.
A-gathering nuts, so blithe and gay,
The children early tripp'd away;

And he his mother had besought.
Under the oak to have him brought :

It was ever his seat when blackbirds sung

The wavy rustling trees among;

They calm'd his pain, they cheer'd his loneliness

The gales-the music of the wilderness.

Upon a prairie wide and wild

Look'd oft that suffering cripple-child :
The hour was breezy, the hour was bright-
Oh, 'twas a lively, a lovely sight!

An eagle sailing to and fro,

Around a flitting cloud so white, Across the billowy grass below

Darting swift their shadows light;
And mingled noises sweet and clear,
Noises out of the ringing wood,
Were pleasing trouble to his ear,

A shock how pleasant to his blood!
O happy world! Beauty and blessing slept
On everything but him—he felt, and wept.

Humming a lightsome tune of yore
Beside the open log-house door,

Tears upon his sickly cheek

Saw his mother, and so did speak.

66 I do! I wish that I could be

A sailor on the rolling sea;

In the shadow of the sails

I would ride and rock all day, Going whither blow the gales,

As I have heard a seaman say;

I would, I guess, come back again,
For my mother, now and then,
And the curling fire so bright,
When the prairie burns at night,

And tell the wonders I had seen

Away upon the ocean green."

Hush, hush! talk not about the ocean so;

Better at home a hunter hale to go."

Between a tear and sigh he smiled,

And thus spoke on the cripple-child :

"I would I were a hunter hale,

Nimbler than the nimble doe,
Bounding lightly down the dale;
But that will never be, I know!
Behind the house the woodlands lie,
A prairie wide and green before,
And I have seen them with my eye
A thousand times or more;
Yet in the woods I never stray'd,
Or on the prairie border play'd:
O mother dear, that I could only be
A sailor-boy upon the rocking sea!"

You would have turnèd with a tear,

A tear upon your cheek;

She wept aloud, the woman dear,
And further could not speak.
The boy's it was a bitter lot

She always felt, I trow;
Yet never till then its bitterness
At heart had griev'd her so.
Nature had waked the eternal wish-
Liberty, far and wide!

And now, to win him health, with joy

She would that morn have died.
Till noon she kept the shady doorway chair,
But never a measure of that ancient air.

Piped the March wind; pinch'd and slow
The deer were trooping in the snow;
He saw them out of the cottage door,
The lame boy sitting upon the floor :-
"Mother, mother, how long will it be
Till the prairie go like a waving sea?

Will the bare woods ever be green, and when?
Oh, will it ever be summer again?"

She look'd in silence on her child:

That large eye, ever so dark and wild, Oh me, how bright!—it may have been That he was grown so pale and thin. It came, the emerald month, and sweetly shed Beauty for grief, and garlands for the dead.

TO THE BEE.

10, while summer suns are bright, Take at large thy wandering flight; Go and load thy tiny feet

With every rich and varied sweet; Cling around the flowering thorn, Dive in the woodbine's honied horn, Seek the wild rose that shades the dell, Explore the foxglove's freckled bell; Or in the heath-flower's fairy cup

Drink the fragrant spirit up.

But when the meadows shall be mown,

And summer garlands overblown,

Then come, thou little busy bee,

And let thy homestead be with me ;

There, shelter'd by the straw-built hive,

In my garden thou shalt live;

There for thee in autumn blows

The Indian pink and latest rose ;
The mignionette perfumes the air,
And stocks, unfading flowers, are there.
Yet think not, when the tempests come,
And drive thee to thy waxen home,
That I shall then most treacherously
For thy honey murder thee;
Ah, no! throughout the winter drear
I'll feed thee, that another year
Thou may'st renew thy industry
Among the flowers, thou busy bee!