TO THE CANARY BIRD.

I CANNOT hear thy voice with others' ears,
Who make of thy lost liberty a gain;
And in thy tale of blighted hopes and fears
Feel not that every note is born with pain.
Alas! that with thy music's gentle swell

Past days of joy should through thy memory throng,

And each to thee their words of sorrow tell, While ravished sense forgets thee in thy song. The heart that on the past and future feeds, And pours in human words its thoughts divine, Though at each birth the spirit inly bleeds, Its song may charm the listening ear like thine, And men with gilded cage and praise will try To make the bard like thee forget his native sky.

NATURE.

NATURE! my love for thee is deeper far
Than strength of words though spirit-born can tell :
For while I gaze they seem my soul to bar,
That in thy widening streams would onward swell
Bearing thy mirrored beauty on its breast,—
Now, through thy lonely haunts unseen to glide,
A motion that scarce knows itself from rest,
With pictured flowers and branches on its tide;
Then, by the noisy city's frowning wall,
Whose armed heights within its waters gleam,
To rush with answering voice to ocean's call,
And mingle with the deep its swollen stream,
Whose boundless bosom's calm alone can hold,
That heaven of glory in thy skies unrolled.

THE TREE.

I LOVE thee when thy swelling buds appear
And one by one their tender leaves unfold,
As if they knew that warmer suns were near,
Nor longer sought to hide from winter's cold;
And when with darker growth thy leaves are seen
To veil from view the early robin's nest,
I love to lie beneath thy waving skreen
With limbs by summer's heat and toil opprest;
And when the autumn winds have stript thee bare,
And round thee lies the smooth untrodden snow,
When nought is thine that made thee once so fair,
I love to watch thy shadowy form below,

And through thy leafless arms to look above

On stars that brighter beam when most we need their love.

THE STRANGER'S GIFT.

I FOUND far culled from fragrant field and grove Each flower that makes our Spring a welcome

guest;

In one sweet bond of brotherhood inwove

An osier band their leafy stalks compressed;
A stranger's hand had made their bloom my own,
And fresh their fragrance rested on the air;
His gift was mine- but he who gave unknown,
And my heart sorrowed though the flowers were
fair.

Now oft I grieve to meet them on the lawn,
As sweetly scattered round my path they grow,
By One who on their petals paints the dawn,
And gilt with sunset splendors bids them glow,
For I ne'er asked who steeps them in perfume?*
Nor anxious sought His love who crowns them all
with bloom.

THY BEAUTY FADES.

THY beauty fades and with it too my love,
For 'twas the self-same stalk that bore its flower;
Soft fell the rain, and breaking from above
The sun looked out upon our nuptial hour;
And I had thought forever by thy side
With bursting buds of hope in youth to dwell,
But one by one Time strewed thy petals wide,
And every hope's wan look a grief can tell :
For I had thoughtless lived beneath his sway,
Who like a tyrant dealeth with us all,
Crowning each rose, though rooted on decay,
With charms that shall the spirit's love enthral,
And for a season turn the soul's pure eyes

From virtue's changeless bloom that time and death defies.