A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew.
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace,
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned:
Yet he was kind; or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault.
The village all declared how much he knew;
"Twas certain he could write, and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could gauge;
In arguing too, the parson owned his skill,
For even though vanquished, he could argue still:
While words of learned length, and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame: the very spot
Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot.

Near yonder thorn that lifts its head on high,
Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye,
Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired.
Where grey-beard mirth and smiling toil retired;
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace

The parlour splendours of that festive place;
The whitewashed wall, the nicely-sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest, contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The Twelve Good Rules, the Royal game of Goose;
The hearth, except when winter chilled the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay;
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row.
Yes, let the rich deride, the proud disdain
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art:
Spontaneous joys, where Nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined:

But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed.

In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks—if this be joy

12.-THE CALENDAR OF FLORA.

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

[Charlotte Smith, whose maiden name was Turner, was born in Sussex, 1749. At the age of sixteen she married a West India merchant, who was subsequently ruined. Mrs. Smith, who had hitherto written for amusement, now plied a ready pen for the support of her family, and published "The Romance of Real Life,' "Emmeline, ""Marchmont," and a long series of novels. She also produced "Elegiac Sonnets and other Essays," besides several poems and tales for youth. She died in 1806.]

FAIR rising from her icy couch,
Wan herald of the floral year,

The snow-drop marks the Spring's approach,
Ere yet the primrose groups appear,

Or peers the arum from its spotted veil,

Or odorous violets scent the cold capricious gale.

Then thickly strewn in woodland bowers,
Anemones their stars unfold,

There spring the sorrel's veined flowers,
And, rich in vegetable gold,

From calyx pale the freckled cowslips born,

Receive in jasper cups the fragrant dews of morn.

Lo! the green thorn her silver buds

Expands to May's enlivening beam:
Hottonia blushes on the floods;

And, where the slowly-trickling stream
'Mid grass and spiry rushes stealing glides,
Her lovely fringed flowers fair menyanthes hides.

In the lone copse, or shadowy dale,

Wild clustered knots of harebells grow,

And droops the lily of the vale

O'er vinca's matted leaves below.

The orchis race with varied beauty charm,
And mock the exploring bee or fly's aërial form.

Wound o'er the hedge-row's oaken boughs,
The woodbine's tassels float in air,

And, blushing, the uncultured rose

Hangs high her beauteous blossoms there;
Her fillets there the purple nightshade weaves,

And pale brionia winds her broad and scalloped leaves.

To later summer's fragrant breath,
Clematis' feathery garlands dance;
The hollow foxglove nods beneath;

While the tall mullein's yellow lance,-
Dear to the mealy moth of evening-towers;
And the weak galium weaves its myriad fairy flowers.

Sheltering the coot's or wild-duck's nest,

And where the timid halcyon hides,
The willow-herb, in crimson drest,
Waves with arundo o'er the tides;

And there the bright nymphæa loves to lave,
Or spreads her golden orbs upon the dimpling wave.

And thou, by pain and sorrow blest

Papaver! that an opiate dew,
Conceal'st beneath thy scarlet vest,

Contrasting with the corn flower blue,
Autumnal months behold thy gauzy leaves

Bend in the rustling gale amid the tawny sheaves.

From the first bud, whose venturous head
The Winter's lingering tempest braves,
To those which, 'midst the foliage dead,
Sink latest to their annual graves,

AL are for health, for use, for pleasure given,

And speak, in various ways, the bounteous hand of Heaven.

13. THE RECONCILIATION.*

JOHN BANIM.

[John Banim's name stands high in the records of Irish literature. His story of "The Ghost Hunter" is a work of great power, and his tragedy "Damon and Pythias" has high merit. He was born 1789, and died 1842.]

THE old man he knelt at the altar,
His enemy's hand to take,

And at first his weak voice did falter,
And his feeble limbs did shake;

For his only brave boy, his glory,

Had been stretched at the old man's feet,

A corpse, all so haggard and gory,

By the hand which he now must greet.

And soon the old man stopt speaking,
And rage which had not gone by,
From under his brows came breaking
Up into his enemy's eye—

*The facts occurred in a little mountain-chapel, in the County of Clare, at the time efforts were made to put an end to faction-fighting among the peasantry.

And now his limbs were not shaking,
But his clench'd hands his bosom cross'd,
And he look'd a fierce wish to be taking
Revenge for the boy he lost!

But the old man he looked around him,
And thought of the place he was in,
And thought of the promise which bound him,
And thought that revenge was sin—
And then crying tears, like a woman,
"Your hand!" he said-"ay, that hand!
And I do forgive you, foeman,

For the sake of our bleeding land!"

14.-ZARA'S EAR-RINGS.

J. G. LOCKHART.

[John Gibson Lockhart was editor of the " Quarterly Review," and son-inlaw of Sir Walter Scott. Enough this to link his name with the literary history of his own time, had it not been associated with his romances, " Valerius,' "Adam Blair," "Reginald Dalton," and "Matthew Wald;" with his biographies of Burns and Napoleon, his "Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," and his splendid rendering of the "Spanish Ballads." In 1843 his politics procured for him a sinecure of 4001. a year, which he enjoyed till his death in 1854. He was born in 1793, his father being the Rev. Dr. John Lockhart, minister of the College Church, Glasgow. Mr. Lockhart distinguished himself both at the Glasgow University and at Balliol College, Oxford.]

66

My ear-rings! my ear-rings! they've dropt into the well, And what to say to Muca I cannot, cannot tell."

'Twas thus, Granada's fountain by, spoke Albuharez' daughter,“The well is deep, far down they lie, beneath the cold blue water. To me did Muca give them, when he spake his sad farewell,

And what to say when he comes back, alas! I cannot tell.

66

My ear-rings! my ear-rings! they were pearls in silver set, That when my Moor was far away, I ne'er should him forget, That I ne'er to other tongue should list, nor smile on other's tale, But remember he my lips had kissed, pure as those ear-rings pale. When he comes back, and hears that I have dropped them in the well,

Oh! what will Muca think of me, I cannot, cannot tell.

"My ear-rings! my ear-rings! he'll say they should have been,
Not of pearl and of silver, but of gold and glittering sheen,
Of jasper and of onyx, and of diamond shining clear,
Changing to the changing light, with radiance insincere-
That changeful mind unchanging gems are not befitting well—
Thus will he think-and what to say, alas! I cannot tell.
"He'll think when I to market went, I loitered by the way;
He'll think a willing ear I lent to all the lads might say;

He'll think some other lover's hand among my tresses noosed,

From the ears where he had placed them, my rings of pearl unloosed;

He'll think when I was sporting so beside this marble well,

My pearls fell in-and what to say, alas! I cannot tell.

"He'll say I am a woman, and we are all the same;
He'll say I loved when he was here to whisper of his flame-
But when he went to Tunis my virgin troth had broken,
And thought no more of Muca, and cared not for his token.
My ear-rings! my ear-rings! oh! luckless, luckless well!
For what to say to Muca, alas! I cannot tell.

66

'I'll tell the truth to Muca, and I hope he will believe

That I have thought of him at morning, and thought of him at eve;

That musing on my lover, when down the sun was gone,

His ear-rings in my hand I held, by the fountain all alone;

And that my mind was o'er the sea, when from my hand they fell, And that deep his love lies in my heart, as they lie in the well."

15.-TO A SEA-GULL.

GERALD GRIFFIN.

[Gerald Griffin was born at Limerick, Dec. 12, 1803. Before he was one and-twenty he came to London and obtained employment in reporting for the daily papers and contributing to the magazines. The "Munster Festivals," "Suil Dhuv, the Coiner," "The Collegians," &c. &c., made him a reputation which was still increasing when, it is said, in consequence of one of his sisters taking the veil, his devotional feelings were awakened, and he retreated from the world to join the Society of Christian Brothers, devoting himself to works of morality and education. He died of a fever in 1840.7

WHITE bird of the tempest! O beautiful thing,
With the bosom of snow, and the motionless wing,
Now sweeping the billow, now floating on high,
Now bathing thy plumes in the light of the sky;
Now poising o'er ocean thy delicate form,
Now breasting the surge with thy bosom so warm;
Now darting aloft, with a heavenly scorn,
Now shooting along, like a ray of the morn;
Now lost in the folds of the cloud-curtained dome,
Now floating abroad like a flake of the foam;
Now silently poised o'er the war of the main,
Like the Spirit of Charity brooding o'er pain;
Now gliding with pinion all silently furled,
Like an Angel descending to comfort the world!
Thou seem'st to my spirit, as upward I gaze,
And see thee, now clothed in mellowest rays,