Drink in her influence; low-born care,
And all the train of mean desire,
Refuse to breathe this holy air,

And 'mid this living light expire.

The Child's Wish in June.-MRS. GILMAN.

MOTHER, mother, the winds are at play,
Prithee, let me be idle to-day.

Look, dear mother, the flowers all lie
Languidly under the bright blue sky.
See, how slowly the streamlet glides;
Look, how the violet roguishly hides;
Even the butterfly rests on the rose,
And scarcely sips the sweets as he goes.
Poor Tray is asleep in the noon-day sun,
And the flies go about him one by one;
And pussy sits near with a sleepy grace,
Without ever thinking of washing her face.
There flies a bird to a neighboring tree,
But very lazily flieth he,

And he sits and twitters a gentle note,
That scarcely ruffles his little throat.

You bid me be busy; but, mother, hear
How the hum-drum grasshopper soundeth near,
And the soft west wind is so light in its play,
It scarcely moves a leaf on the spray.

I wish, oh, I wish, I was yonder cloud,
That sails about with its misty shroud;
Books and work I no more should see,

And I'd come and float, dear mother, o'er thee.

From "The Minstrel Girl"-JAMES G. WHITTIER.

SHE leaned against her favorite tree,
The golden sunlight melting through

The twined branches, as the free

And easy-pinioned breezes flew

Around the bloom and greenness there,
Awaking all to life and motion,
Like unseen spirits sent to bear

Earth's perfume to the barren ocean
That ocean lay before her then
Like a broad lustre, to send back
The scattered beams of day again
To burn along its sunset track!
And broad and beautiful it shone;
As quickened by some spiritual breath,
Its very waves seemed dancing on
To music whispered underneath.

And there she leaned,-that minstrel girl!
The breeze's kiss was soft and meek
Where coral melted into pearl

On parted lip and glowing cheek;
Her dark and lifted eye had caught
Its lustre from the spirit's gem;

And round her brow the light of thought

Was like an angel's diadem;

For genius, as a living coal,

Had touched her lip and heart with flame,

And on the altar of her soul

The fire of inspiration came.

And early she had learned to love

Each holy charm to Nature given,

The changing earth, the skies above,
Were prompters to her dreams of Heaven!
She loved the earth-the streams that wind
Like music from its hills of green-
The stirring boughs above them twined-
The shifting light and shade between; -
The fall of waves-the fountain gush—
The sigh of winds-the music heard
At even-tide, from air and bush-
The minstrelsy of leaf and bird.
But chief she loved the sunset sky-
Its golden clouds, like curtains drawn
To form the gorgeous canopy

Of monarchs to their slumbers gone!

The sun went down,-and, broad and red
One moment, on the burning wave,

Rested his front of fire, to shed
A glory round his ocean-grave:
And sunset-far and gorgeous hung
A banner from the wall of heaven-
A wave of living glory, flung

Along the shadowy verge of even.

Description of a sultry Summer's Noon.*—
CARLOS WILCOX.

A SULTRY NOON, not in the summer's prime,
When all is fresh with life, and youth, and bloom,
But near its close, when vegetation stops,
And fruits mature stand ripening in the sun,
Soothes and enervates with its thousand charms,
Its images of silence and of rest,

The melancholy mind. The fields are still;
The husbandman has gone to his repast,
And, that partaken, on the coolest side
Of his abode, reclines, in sweet repose.
Deep in the shaded stream the cattle stana,
The flocks beside the fence, with heads all prone,
And panting quick. The fields, for harvest ripe,
No breezes bend in smooth and graceful waves,
While with their motion, dim and bright by turns,
The sunshine seems to move; nor e'en a breath
Brushes along the surface with a shade
Fleeting and thin, like that of flying smoke.
The slender stalks their heavy bended heads
Support as motionless as oaks their tops.
O'er all the woods the topmost leaves are still;
E'en the wild poplar leaves, that, pendent hung
By stems elastic, quiver at a breath,

Rest in the general calm. The thistle down,
Seen high and thick, by gazing up beside

How perfect is this description of the hot noon of a summer's day in the country! and yet how simple and unstudied! Several of its most expressive images are entirely new, and the whole graphic combination is originala quality very difficult to attain after Thomson and Cowper. The thistle alighting sleepily on the grass, the yellow-hammer mutely picking the seeds, the grasshopper snapping his wings, and the low singing of the locust-all the images, indeed, make up a picture inimitably beautiful and true to nature. ED.

Some shading object, in a silver shower
Plumb down, and slower than the slowest snow,
Through all the sleepy atmosphere descends;
And where it lights, though on the steepest roof,
Or smallest spire of grass, remains unmoved.
White as a fleece, as dense and as distinct
From the resplendent sky, a single cloud
On the soft bosom of the air becalmed,
Drops a lone shadow as distinct and still,
On the bare plain, or sunny mountain's side;
Or in the polished mirror of the lake,
In which the deep reflected sky appears
A calm, sublime immensity below.

No sound nor motion of a living thing

The stillness breaks, but such as serve to soothe,
Or cause the soul to feel the stillness more.
The yellow-hammer by the way-side picks,
Mutely, the thistle's seed; but in her flight,
So smoothly serpentine, her wings outspread
To rise a little, closed to fall as far,

Moving like sea-fowl o'er the heaving waves,
With each new impulse chimes a feeble note.
The russet grasshopper at times is heard,
Snapping his many wings, as half he flies,
Half hovers in the air. Where strikes the sun,
With sultriest beams, upon the sandy plain,
Or stony mount, or in the close, deep vale,
The harmless locust of this western clime,
At intervals, amid the leaves unseen,

Is heard to sing with one unbroken sound,
As with a long-drawn breath, beginning low,
And rising to the midst with shriller swell,
Then in low cadence dying all away.
Beside the stream, collected in a flock,
The noiseless butterflies, though on the ground,
Continue still to wave their open fans

Powdered with gold; while on the jutting twigs
The spindling insects that frequent the banks
Rest, with their thin transparent wings outspread
As when they fly. Ofttimes, though seldom seen,
The cuckoo, that in summer haunts our groves,
Is heard to moan, as if at every breath
Panting aloud. The hawk, in mid-air high,

On his broad pinions sailing round and round,
With not a flutter, or but now and then,
As if his trembling balance to regain,
Utters a single scream, but faintly heard,
And all again is still.

The Dying Child.-CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

'Tis dying! life is yielding place
To that mysterious charm,

Which spreads upon the troubled face
A fixed, unchanging calm,

That deepens as the parting breath

Is gently sinking into death.

A thoughtful beauty rests the while
Upon its snowy brow;

But those pale lips could never smile
More radiantly than now;

And sure some heavenly dreams begin
To dawn upon the soul within!

O that those mildly conscious lips
Were parted to reply-

To tell how death's severe eclipse

Is passing from thine eye;

For living eye can never see

The change that death hath wrought in thee.

Perhaps thy sight is wandering far
Throughout the kindled sky,
In tracing every infant star

Amid the flames on high ;-
Souls of the just, whose path is bent
Around the glorious firmament.

Perhaps thine eye is gazing down
Upon the earth below,

Rejoicing to have gained thy crown,
And hurried from its wo

To dwell beneath the throne of Him,
Before whose glory heaven is dim.