Encircled with mountains where fir trees are seen, And crags jutting outward all covered with ferns, And lichen o'ershadowed with tints of the green, The eye there the blue bell though distant dis

cerns.

Here thickets abound of the laurel and nut,
Where the traveller may rest when the noon set-
teth in,

And see on the mountain the hill and the hut,
The home of the peasant and the village inn.

The church in the valley conspicuous afar,
A valley as lovely as ever was known,
Comparison cannot its loveliness mar,

Nor a lovelier show by the Rhine or the Rhone.

Behold there the squirrel ascending the tree,
With paces so nimble, so free, and so fast,
As a monkey sure footed and blithe as a bee,
Not so fast is the sailor ascending the mast.

Behold where the mountain's all studded with white, 'Tis the fold of the shepherd ascending its breast Like flocks of the snow-drift they seem to the sight From the half way declivity up to its crest.

Turn aside for a moment and look down below, Where the river is running away to the West, And see how its banks all luxuriant show,

And their image reveal and repeat in its breast.

Still follow its course as it flows far away,
Till lost like the future in distance of time,
And follows the sun to the fall of the day
And bursts on the ear with the music of rhyme.
April 9, 1860.

THE POPE'S EXCOMMUNICATION.

Excommunicatio major!

A thousand to one I will wager,

That those against whom he is hurling,

Their lips with contempt will be curling.

What sayeth Napoleon Tertius?

Best without temporals that the Church is,
For me I am fain to believe it,

And that Victor was right to bereave it.

We smile at Pope Pius's banning,

Only care for the thunder of cannon,

The Vatican's mild as the stage's,

Makes us smile but no longer enrages.

Makes us smile-but a grief causes after,
(The subject's too serious for laughter,)
That where Julius Cæsar was ruling
There should be such nonsense and fooling.

But the play's last act nigh is ended,
From Pius the sceptre is rended;
Too weak is his hand to be wielding
To Napoleon's star he is yielding.
April 10, 1860.

SPRING.

The air is full of pleasant voices,
Oh like a bride the earth rejoices,
Her bridal wreath when she assumeth,
And like the rose in summer bloometh.

The ground is white with hawthorn flowers
Descending from the trees in showers,
The footfall's echoes gently hushing,
As the white blossoms it is crushing.

The birds are singing from the bushes,
In liquid notes their music gushes,
I think I know their tender meaning,
As on the style I listen leaning.

The lark's rich music down descending,
Its high notes to the chorus lending,
Till, near its home, its music stoppeth,
Then like a fallen star it droppeth.

The spring in all its beauty flushes,
Green are the meadows to the bushes,
The bank beneath golden primroses,
Anemones and ferns discloses.

The bleating lambs, the cattle lowing, The stream with gentle murmur flowing, Birds, insects, bees, yes, all things living, Are joining in one loud thanksgiving. April 13, 1860.

ON THE SHAKSPERIAN EXEGESIS.

You learned doctors, grave and sage,

Why waste

you thus your

learned rage?

In arguing about Shakespeare's text,
Avon's sweet bard, what will you next?

'Tis past your power, but if you could,
You'd foul the crystal of his flood,
The march majestic of his verse,
Oh 'tis enough to make one curse.

About a word why struggle so?
As though you fought with mortal foe;
If you'd your will I know in time,
To prose you'd turn his noble rhyme.

The heir of fame to endless time

To mar his verse I hold a crime;
A wicked sacrilegious sin,

An insult to the sense within.

Forbear, and lay your pens aside,
And let your learned ink be dried,
Reserving for some other use,

Your pens of steel, or quills of goose.

Forbear, O critics, spare the man,
Or take to you the poet's ban,

Worse crime our Shakspeare's verses marred, The bones than digging of the bard.