ALFRED B. STREET's picturesque sketches of American Forest Scenery are excellent. It is evident that he is a lover of the meadows, woods, and streams, as well as of the wildest and most romantic of Nature's solitudes. Shall we roam with him through one of our primeval wildernesses : A lovely sky, a cloudless sun, A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers, The spruce its green tent stretches wide, All weave on high a verdant roof, Making a twilight soft and green, Within the columned vaulted scene. Sweet forest-odours have their birth From the clothed boughs and teeming earth; Where pine-cones dropped, leaves piled and dead, Long tufts of grass, and stars of fern, A thick, elastic carpet spread; There, wrenched but lately from its throne, By some fierce whirlwind circling past, Seems net-work as I enter there. The partridge, whose deep-rolling drum Afar has sounded on my ear, Ceasing his beatings as I come, Whirrs to the sheltering branches near; The little milk-snake glides away, The brindled marmot dives from day : On each side shrinks the bowery shade; Sun-streaks, and glancing wings, and sky, These fine lines, to The Nightingale, are by HARTLEY COLE RIDGE 'Tis sweet to hear the merry lark, that bids a blithe good-morrow; But sweeter to hark in the twinkling dark to the soothing song of sorrow. Oh, nightingale, what does she ail? And is she sad or jolly? He sings aloud to the calm blue sky, and the daylight that awakes him. As sweet a lay, as loud, as gay, the nightingale is trilling: Some beautiful lines have been written by a blind Irish girl, named FRANCES BROWN. We present the following extract, as a specimen; it is about the Woodland Streams : Your murmurs bring the pleasant breath of many a sylvan scene; The bards the ancient bards-who sang when thought and song were new, O, mighty waters! did they learn their minstrelsy from you? For still, methinks, your voices blend with all their glorious themes, Well might the sainted seer of old, who trod the tearless shore, PROCTOR'S ("Barry Cornwall") poetry is characterized by graceful images, couched in glowing words. His lyrics are especially choice; for instance, how glowing and voluptuous, yet how pure, is the following description of A Chamber Scene:— Tread softly through these amorous rooms; For every bough is hung with life, And kisses, in harmonious strife, The carpet's silken leaves have sprung, Tread softly! By a creature fair His red lips open, like the roses And Passion fills the arched halls; Tread softly-softly, like the foot Of Winter, shod with fleecy snow, Hear his homily on the Brevity of Life: We are born, we laugh, we weep, we love, we droop,—we die! Ah! wherefore do we laugh or weep? why do we live or die? Who knows that secret deep?-Alas! not I. Why doth the violet spring, unseen by human eye? Why do the radiant seasons bring sweet thoughts, that quickly fly ? Why do our fond hearts cling to things that die? We toil through pain and wrong; we fight-and fly; We love, we lose; and then, ere long, stone-dead we lie! O life! is all thy song-endure, and—die ? |