Surprises often, while you look around,

And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various Nature pressing on the heart;
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labor, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads:
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild;
When after the long vernal day of life,
Enamored more, as more remembrance swells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly
To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.
JAMES THOMSON.

MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING.
SHE is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,

This sweet wee wife o' mine.

I never saw a fairer,

I never lo'ed a dearer,

And neist my heart I'll wear her,
For fear my jewel tine.

She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.

The warld's wrack we share o't,
The warstle and the care o't:
Wi' her I'll blythely bear it,
And think my lot divine.

ROBERT BURNS

THE BANKS OF THE LEE.

Air, "A TRIP to the cottage.”

O THE banks of the Lee, the banks of the Lee,
And love in a cottage for Mary and me!
There's not in the land a lovelier tide,
And I'm sure that there's no one so fair as my bride.
She's modest and meek,
There's a down on her cheek,
And her skin is as sleek

As a butterfly's wing;

Then her step would scarce show
On the fresh-fallen snow,
And her whisper is low,

But as clear as the spring.

O the banks of the Lee, the banks of the Lee,
And love in a cottage for Mary and me!
I know not how love is happy elsewhere,

I know not how any but lovers are there.

O, so green is the grass, so clear is the stream,
So mild is the mist and so rich is the beam,
That beauty should never to other lands roam,
But make on the banks of our river its home!
When, dripping with dew,
The roses peep through,
"T is to look in at you

They are growing so fast;
While the scent of the flowers
Must be hoarded for hours,

'T is poured in such showers

When my Mary goes past.

O the banks of the Lee, the banks of the Lee,

And love in a cottage for Mary and me!

O, Mary for me, Mary for me,

SONNETS.

My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die ;
Albeit I ask no fairer life than this,
Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss,
While Time and Peace with hands unlocked fly, -
Yet care I not where in Eternity

We live and love, well knowing that there is
No backward step for those who feel the bliss
Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high:
Love hath so purified my being's core,
Meseems I scarcely should be startled, even,
To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before;
Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was
given,

Which each calm day doth strengthen more and more,

That they who love are but one step from Heaven.

I CANNOT think that thou shouldst pass away,
Whose life to mine is an eternal law,

A piece of nature that can have no flaw,
A new and certain sunrise every day;
But, if thou art to be another ray
About the Sun of Life, and art to live
Free from all of thee that was fugitive,
The debt of Love I will more fully pay,

Not downcast with the thought of thee so high,
But rather raised to be a nobler man,
And more divine in my humanity,
As knowing that the waiting eyes which scan
My life are lighted by a purer being,

THOMAS DAVIS.

ing.