Let's go, for hark,

I hear the lark;

And the blackbird and the thrush on the hill-side

tree,

Shout to each other so merrily.

And the wren sings loud,

And a little crowd

Of gnats in the sun dance cheerily.
Come, come! come along with me,

For the tassels are red on the tall larch tree,

And in homesteads hilly,

The spathed daffodilly

Is growing in beauty for me and thee!

MAY.

"T is Spring! 't is Spring, all creatures know it,
The skies, the earth, the waters show it,
The freckled snakes come out i' the sun,
The leverets race in the meadows green;
The sleep of the little dormouse is done,

And the frisking squirrel again is seen!
Come, come who will,
Let us take our fill

Of delight in the valley, the field, the hill;
Let us go to the wood that so late was still;
The air is ringing

With singing, singing!

And flowers are springing

The lanes along,

The white and the red,

And the umbelled head,

And the single-blowing,

All thickly growing,

This merry May morn, a thousand strong!

The fishes are glad this May morning,

And like things of light

Through the waters bright,
Flash to and fro!

There's a sound of joy in the youthful Spring -
Hark! hark!

There sings the lark!

Why tarry we yet? let's go!

The strong lamb boundeth,

The glad foal neighs;

And joy resoundeth

A thousand ways

Over hill, and valley, and wood, and plain, Joy poureth down like a shower of rain! I'll tarry no more! come, come, let's go!

LIFF AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

THE splintered, northern mountains lay
All round about my mother's dwelling,
All full of craggy hollows grey,

Where ice-cold, sparkling streams were welling.

Upon the mountains lay the snow,

Far gleaming snows that melted never;

And deeply, darkly, far below,

Went sounding on, a lonely river.

Upon the mountain summits hung
The tempest-clouds so darkly scowling,
And winds in caverned hollows sung,
Like unto desert creatures howling.
Day after day the sunshine slept,
Night after night the moon was hidden;
And rain and wind about us kept,
Week after week, like guests unbidden.

And many a time the deep snows fell,
In the dark months of winter weather;
And quite shut in our mountain dell,
We, and our lonely flock together.

We had a little flock of sheep,

I herded them both night and morning;
My mother in the house did keep,

Her busy wheel for ever turning.
What joy it was, as brought them round,
Into their pen, at nightfall darkling,
To hear that old wheel's droning sound,
And see the cheerful wood-fire sparkling!

On stilly eves, beside my flock,

The sounds I heard will haunt me ever, The eagle rising from the rock,

The wind-borne roaring of the river:

The gathering of the coming storm,

Like far-off angry giants talking; The grey mist like a ghostly form

Over the ridgy mountain stalking!

I saw, I heard, I loved them all;

My days and nights were never weary.
Though many a passing guest would call
My life forlorn, those mountains dreary.
Would I were back among the hills;

Could see the heath, and scent the gowan,
Would I could hear those sounding rills,
And sit beneath the lonely rowan!

But our little flock of sheep are gone,
Like snowy clouds in moonlight flying;
And my mother lies 'neath the churchyard stone,
With long, dry bent-grass round her sighing!

PILGRIMS.

WITH hoary hair, and bent with age,
He goes forth on his pilgrimage,
An old man from his forest-cell,
With sandalled feet, and scallop shell;
His sight is dim, his steps are slow,
And pain and hardship must he know,
An old, way-faring man, alone,
And yet his spirit bears him on.
For what? the holy place to see;
To kneel upon Mount Calvary,
Golgotha's dreary bound to trace,
To traverse every desert place,

In which the Saviour trod of yore;
For this he beareth travail sore,
Hunger and weariness and pain,
Nor longeth for his home again!

Now see another pilgrim, gay,
And heartsome as a morn in May;
Young, beautiful, and brave, and strong,
As a wild stag he bounds along;
Mountains his path may not impede ;
The winds and waters serve his need.
He is a pilgrim bound to see

All the old lands of poesy;

At antique cross and altar-stone,

And where dim pagan rites were done;

In groves; by springs; on mountains hoar;

In classic vale; by classic shore;

Where wise men walked; where brave men fell;

Or tale of love hath left its spell,
It matters not- - his foot is there,
Joyful to breathe of classic air;
Joyful on classic forms to gaze,

And call back light from ancient days. —

It is a fond and ardent quest,
And leaves its pilgrim ill at rest!

Behold, once more! - From youth to age
Man goeth on a pilgrimage;

Or rich or poor, unwise or wise,
Before each one this journey lies;
"T is to a land afar, unknown,
Yet where the great of old are gone,
Poet and patriot, sage and seer;
All whom we worship or revere ;
This awful pilgrimage have made, —
Have passed to the dim land of shade.
Youth, with his radiant locks, is there;
And old men with their silver hair;
And children sportive in their glee ;-
A strange and countless company!
Ne'er on that land gazed human eyes;
Man's science hath not traced its skies,
Nor mortal traveller e'er brought back
Chart of that journey's fearful track.

Thou art a pilgrim to that shore, — Like them, thou canst return no more! Oh, gird thee, for thou needest strength For the way's peril as its length! Oh, faint not by the way, nor heed Dangers nor lures, nor check thy speed; So God be with thee, pilgrim blessed, Thou journeyest to the LAND OF REST!

I never see these flowers but they
Send back my memory far away,
To years long past, and many a day
Else perished long ago!
They bring my childhood's years again—
Our garden-fence, I see it plain,
With ficaries like a golden rain

Showered on the earth below.

A happy child, I leap, I run,
And memories come back, one by one,
Like swallows with the summer's sun,
To their old haunts of joy!
A happy child, once more I stand,
With my kind sister hand in hand,
And hear those tones so sweet, so bland,
That never brought annoy!

I hear again my mother's wheel,
Her hand upon my head I feel;
Her kiss, which every grief could heal,
Is on my cheek even now;

I see the dial over-head;

I see the porch o'er which was led,
The pyracantha green and red,

And jessamine's slender bough.

I see the garden-thicket's shade,
Where all the summer long we played,
And gardens set, and houses made,

Our early work and late;

Our little gardens, side by side,
Each bordered round with London-pride,
Some six feet long, and three feet wide,

To us a large estate!

The apple and the damson trees;
The cottage-shelter for our bees;
I see them and beyond all these,

A something dearer still;

I see an eye serenely blue,
A cheek of girlhood's freshest hue,
A buoyant heart, a spirit true,
Alike in good and ill.

Sweet Sister, thou wert all to me,
And I, sufficient friend for thee:-
Where was a happier twain than we,
Who had no mate beside?
Like wayside flowers in merry May,
Our pleasures round about us lay;-
A joyful morning had our day,

Whate'er our eve betide!

COWSLIPS.

NAY, tell me not of Austral flowers,
Or purple bells from Persia bowers,
The cowslip of this land of ours,
Is dearer far to me!
This flower in other years I knew!
I know the fields wherein it grew,
With violets white and violets blue,
Beneath the garden-tree!

THE INDIAN BIRD.

A MAIDEN had an Indian bird,

And she kept it in her bower; The sweetest bird that e'er was seen,Its feathers were of the light sea-green, And its eye had a mild intelligence, As if it were gifted with human sense:

In the English tongue it had no name,
But a gentle thing it was, and tame,
And at the maiden's call it came:

And thus it sung one twilight hour,
In a wild tone so sweet and low,
As made a luxury of woe.

"The nest was made of the silver moss,
And was built in the nutmeg tree,
Far in an ancient forest shade,

That sprung when the very world was made, In an Indian isle beyond the sea.

"There were four of us in the little nest,

And under our mother's wings we lay; And the father, the nutmeg leaves among, To the rising moon he sat and sung

For he sung both night and day. "And oh, he sung so sweetly,

The very winds were hushed!
And the elephant hunters all drew near,
In joy that wondrous song to hear,

That like wild waters gushed.
"And the little creatures of the wood
To hear it had a great delight,
All but the wild wolf-cat, that prowls
To seek his prey at night.

"The wild wolf-cat of the mountains old,
He stole to that tree of ours-

All silently he stole at night,

Like the green snake 'mong the flowers.

"His eyes were like two dismal fires,

His back was dusky grey;

And he seized our father while he sung, Then bounded with him away!

"Wild was the cry the father gave,

Till the midnight forest rang;

And 'Oh!' said the kindly hunters then,
Some savage creature, from its den
Hath pounced upon that gentle bird,
And seized it as it sang!

"All wearily passed that woful night
With our poor mother's wail;
And we watched, from out our little nest,
The great round moon go down to rest,
And the little stars grow pale.

"And then I felt our mother's heart
Flutter, as in a wild surprise;
And we saw from a leafy bongh above,
The basilisk-snake, with its stony eyes.

"It lay on the bough like a bamboo rod,

All freckled and barred with green and brown; And the terrible light of its freezing eyes Through the nutmeg boughs came down.

"And lithely towards the little nest
It slid, and nearer it drew,

And its poisonous breath, like a stifling cloud,
Mong the nutmeg leaves it threw.

"Ah me! and I felt our mother's heart, As it beat in awful fear,

And she gave a cry that any beast

But the basilisk-snake had been woe to hear.

"But he spared her not for her beautiful wings; He spared her not for her cry;

And the silence of death came down on the woods That had rung with her agony.

"And there we lay, four lonely ones!

That live-long day, and pined, and pined;
And dismally through the forest-trees
Went by the moaning wind.

"We watched the dreary stars come out,

And the pitiless moon come up the sky, And many a dreadful sound we heard The serpent's hiss and the jackal's cry, And then a hush of downy wings

The nutmeg tree went by.

"And ever and ever that dreamy sound,
For a long, long hour we heard;
And then the eyes so terrible,
And the hooked beak, we knew them well,
Of the cruel dragon-bird!

"We were his prey; and then there came
In the light of the morning sun,

The giant eagle from the rock;

He swooped on the nest with a heavy shock,
And left but me, the lonely one!

"Oh sorrow comes to the feeble thing,
And I was feeble as could be!
And next the arrowy lightning came,
And smote our nutmeg tree.

"Down went the tree; down went the nest,
And I had soon been dead of cold,
But that a Bramin passing by,
Beheld me with his kindly eye:
He bore me thence, and for a space
He kept me in a holy place,
Within a little cage of gold.

"The Bramin's daughter tended me,
A gentle maid and beautiful;
And all day long to me she sung,
And all around my cage she hung
The large white-lily fresh and cool.
And so I lived, in joy I lived;
And when my wings were strong,
She placed me in a banyan tree,
Of her sweet will to set me free,
For the Bramin doth no creature wrong.

"But I could not leave that kind old man
I could not leave that maiden bright:
And so my little nest I built
Beneath their temple's roof, and dwelt
Among sweet flowers and all fair things
The Indian people's offerings;

And me she called her 'soul's delight,
In that land's speech a loving name;
And thenceforth it my name became.

"But bloody war was in the land;

The old man and the maid were slain; The precious things were borne away A ruined heap the temple lay,

And I among the spoil was ta'en. "They said I was an idol bird,

That I had been enshrined there, And that the people worshipped me, And that my gentle maiden fair Was priestess to the sea-green bird! "T was false !--yet thus they all averred, And in the city I was sold For a great price in counted gold. Thy merchant-father purchased me, And I was borne across the sea; Thou know'st the rest-I am not sad; With thee, sweet maiden, all are glad!"

THE CHILDREN'S WISH.

OH for an old, grey traveller,
By our winter fire to be,
To tell us of each foreign shore,
Of sunny seas and mountains hoar,
Which we can never see!

To tell us of those regions stern,
Covered with frost and snow,
Where, not the hardy fir can bear
The bitter cold of that northern air,—
'Mong the dwarfish Esquimaux!

Or where, on the high and snowy ridge
Of the Dofrine mountains cold,
The patient rein-deer draws the sledge,
With rattling hoofs, along the ledge
Of mountains wild and old!

Or, if that ancient traveller

Had gone o'er the hills of Spain, Of other scenes he would proudly speak, Than icy seas and mountains bleak;

And a weary way of pain.

He would tell of green and sunny vales,
Thick woods and waters clear,
Of singing birds, and summer skies,
And peasant girls with merry eyes,
And the dark-browed muleteer!
Or, think if he had been at Rome,
And in St. Peter's stood,
And seen each venerable place.
Built, when the old, heroic race

Of Rome was great and good!
And more, if he had voyaged o'er

The bright blue Grecian sea,
'Mong isles where the white-lily grows,
And the gum-cistus and the rose,
The bay and olive tree!

And had felt on old Parnassus' top
The pleasant breezes blow;

In Athens dwelt a long, long time,
And noted all of that fair clime,

Which we so long to know.

And then, as he grew old and wise,
He should go to Palestine,
And in the Holy City dwell,
Till, like his home, he knew it well,
With the Bible, line by line.

He should have stood on Lebanon,
Beneath the Cedar's shade;
And, with a meek and holy heart,
On the Mount of Olives sate apart,
And by the Jordan strayed.

And have travelled on where Babylon
Lay like a desert heap,
Where the pale hyacinth grows alone,
And where beneath the ruined stone
The bright, green lizards creep!

And if, the great world round about,
Through flowery Hindostan ;

To the Western World; to the Southern Cape,
Where dwell the zebra and the ape,

Had gone this pleasant man.

What tales he would tell on winter nights!
Of Indian hunters grim,

As they sit in the pine-bark wigwam's bound,
While the hungry wolf is barking round,
In the midnight forest dim.

Or how they meet by the council fire, Wearing the hen-hawk's feather, To hear some famous Sagum's "talk," To see them bury the tomahawk,

And smoke the pipe together.

Or of the bloody Indian wars,

When 'neath each forest-tree Was done some fell deed of affright, And the war-whoop rang at dead of night, Through the wild woods dismally.

He would tell of dim and savage coasts,
Of shipwrecks dark and dread;
Of coral reefs in sleeping seas;
Of bright isles of the Hesperides-
And more than we have read!

And oh, that such old man were here,
With his wise and travelled look,
With thought, like deep exhaustless springs;
And a memory full of wondrous things,
Like a glorious picture-book!

THE ENGLISH MOTHER

AN English matron sate at eve
Beneath the stately tree
That grew before her husband's hall,

With her young son at her knee: