Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day;

Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;

And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse,

Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.

There's not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane:
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again;

I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high:
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.

The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree,

And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,

And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er the wave, But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.

Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early early morning the summer sun 'ill shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,
When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.

When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light
You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool
On the oat-grass, and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.

You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And you'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.

I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now;
You'll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go ;
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild,
You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child.

If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;
Tho' you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
Tho' I cannot speak a word, I shall harken what you say,
And be often, often with you when you think I'm far away.

Goodnight, goodnight, when I have said goodnight for evermore, And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door; Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green : She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.

She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor:
Let her take 'em: they are hers: I shall never garden more:
But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rose-bush that I set
About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.

Good-night, sweet mother: call me before the day is born,
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn;

But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year,
So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.

Many of our living poets, though considered inferior in genius to Tennyson, have greatly enriched our literature with lyrics which shew them to be graceful and elegant writers, and men of refined feeling as well as undoubted taste. Amongst this number may be included Bryan Walter Procter, who has produced many beautiful effusions under the assumed name of Barry Cornwall-Thomas K. Hervey, a sweet poet-Charles Swain, author of " The Mind," W. Monckton Milnes, M. P.-D. M. Moir, better known as the Delta of Blackwood's Magazine-and Gerald Massey.

The next extract is very touching and beautiful. It is from the pen of D. M. Moir, on the death of his infant son, three years old, on whom the pet name of "Casa Wappy" had been self-conferred.

Illustration.

CASA WAPPY.

And hast thou sought thy heavenly home, Our fond dear boy

The realms where sorrow dare not come,
Where life is joy?

Pure at thy death as at thy birth,
Thy spirit caught no taint from earth;
Even by its bliss we mete our death,
Casa Wappy!

Despair was in our last farewell,
As closed thine eye;

Tears of our anguish may not tell

When thou didst die;

Words may not paint our grief for thee,

Sighs are but bubbles on the sea

Of our unfathomed agony,

Casa Wappy!

Thou wert a vision of delight
To bless us given ;
Beauty embodied to our sight,
A type of heaven:

So dear to us thou wert, thou art
Even less thine own self than a part
Of mine and of thy mother's heart,
Casa Wappy!

Thy bright brief day knew no decline,
"Twas cloudless joy;

Sunrise and night alone were thine,
Beloved boy!

This morn beheld thee blithe and gay,
That found thee prostrate in decay,
And ere a third shone, clay was clay,

Casa Wappy!

We mourn for thee when blind blank night
The chamber fills;

We pine for thee when morn's first light

Reddens the hills:

The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea,
All, to the wall-flower and wild pea,

Are changed-we saw the world through thee,
Casa Wappy!

And though, perchance, a smile may gleam
Of casual mirth,

It doth not own whate'er may seem,

An inward birth:

We miss thy small step on the stair;
We miss thee at thine evening prayer!
All day we miss thee, everywhere,

Casa Wappy!

Snows muffled earth when thou didst go,
In life's spring bloom,

Down to the appointed house below,

The silent tomb,

But now the green leaves of the tree,
The cuckoo and the busy bee,'
Return-but with them bring not thee,
Casa Wappy!

'Tis so; but can it be (while flowers
Revive again)-

Man's doom, in death that we and ours
For aye remain?

Oh! can it be, that o'er the grave

The grass renewed, should yearly wave,
Yet God forget our child to save ?—
Casa Wappy!

It cannot be for were it so

Thus man could die,

Life were a mockery, Thought were wo,

And Truth a lie;

Heaven were a coinage of the brain,

Religion frenzy, Virtue vain,

And all our hopes to meet again,

Casa Wappy!

Then be to us, O dear, lost child!
With beam of love,

A star, death's uncongenial wild
Smiling above;

Soon, soon thy little feet have trod
The skyward path, the seraph's road,
That led the back from man to God,
Casa Wappy!

Yet 'tis sweet balm to our despair,
Fond, fairest boy,

That heaven is God's, and thou art there,
With him in joy:

There past are death and all its woes,

There beauty's stream for ever flows,
And pleasure's day no sunset knows,
Casa Wappy!

Farewell, then-for a while, farewell-
Pride of my heart!

It cannot be that long we dwell,

Thus torn apart:

Time's shadows like the shuttle flee :
And, dark howe'er life's night may be,
Beyond the grave I'll meet with thee,
Casa Wappy!

The youngest of the living poets previously alluded to is Gerald Massey. He is a lyrist of the greatest promise. In many features of his genius, Walter Savage observes, "he bears a marvellous resemblance to Keats." He has been designated "the poet of the people." He sings "heart-stirring and melodious songs-songs of Liberty and Love, coming warmly from the heart," and the latter so pure and sweet as oft to rival the best love strains of Burns. As a lyrist of superior power Gerald Massey at present stands high. Already he has reaped a rich har